Male Contraceptive Pill Shows 99% Effectiveness in Laboratory Tests; Will Enter Human Trials in 2022

Women are usually burdened the most for preventing pregnancy, hence the many options available for birth control. These methods include an intrauterine device and birth control pills. But scientists are now expanding on male contraceptive pills that prevent unplanned pregnancies without obvious side effects.

Researchers recently presented the results of a series of clinical trials on mice that yielded 99% effectiveness of male birth control pills during the spring meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS). The ACS Spring 2022 is a hybrid event of virtual and in-person appearances from March 20-24 that features over 12,000 presentations on different scientific topics.

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Male Contraceptive Pill Shows 99% Effectiveness in Laboratory Tests; Will Enter Human Trials in 2022

First Non-Hormonal Male Contraceptive Pill

Men currently only have two effective options for birth control - condoms and vasectomy. However, condoms are single-use and prone to failure, while a vasectomy is a surgical procedure that renders a permanent form of male sterilization. Although the latter can be reversed, it could also be expensive and unsuccessful.

With this in mind, scientists have tried for decades to develop an effective male oral contraceptive but to no avail. According to ACS, most of these pills target the male sex hormone testosterone, which leads to side effects, such as weight gain, depression, and LDL cholesterol levels.

The authors of the new study aimed to develop the first non-hormonal contraceptive pill that targets the retinoic acid receptor alpha (RAR-α) protein, which binds retinoic acid that plays an important role in cell growth, differentiation, and embryonic development. In the clinical trial conducted on mice, the pill inhibited the RAR-α gene in male mice to make them sterile without the obvious side effects.

Although other scientists have developed an oral contraceptive that inhibits the RAR family, the team wanted to find a drug specifically for RAR-α. The team designed and synthesized 100 compounds that inhibit this protein and found that the YCT529 compound inhibited RAR-α almost 500 times more than the other members of the RAR family.

The YCT529 significantly reduced the sperm count of mice within four weeks and was 99% effective in preventing pregnancy without any observable side effects. They plan to begin testing on humans in the third or fourth quarter of 2022. Researchers noted that the mice could still father pups four to six weeks after stopping taking the compound.

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Why the Development of Male Contraceptive Pills Matter

Although women have a lot of birth control options, men only have two. Due to this, it adds financial and health burdens on women. According to Freethink, long, lasting, and reversible men's contraceptive options could take those burdens off women while also controlling their reproductive health.

While the new male contraceptive pill is still under development and is still in very early stages, the team hopes it will provide people with a more consistent option for birth control for men besides the single-use condoms and vasectomy procedures.

To do that, they must succeed in human trials because successful mice clinical trials do not automatically mean it would work in humans. More so, there could be unobservable side effects that only humans could experience and not mice.

"There is no guarantee that it will work...but I would really be surprised if we didn't see an effect in humans as well," researcher Gunda Georg told France 24.