Now a male birth control pill with an entirely new kind of contraceptive mechanism has been tested for the first time in humans.
In the first clinical trial of its kind, a nonhormonal oral contraceptive that reversibly stops sperm production has just been deemed safe for human use.
Safety results from the early phase 1 clinical trial were published on Tuesday in Communications Medicine.
The trial did not assess the pill’s efficacy in reducing sperm, and the drug’s developer, YourChoice Therapeutics, is currently running trials to collect that data.
Several other reversible male birth control methods are now in the clinical trial pipeline as well.
Like the YCT-529 pill, the gel targets sperm production, but it does so by circulating testosterone and progestin—hormones that tell the brain to halt the production process.
Sperm production would resume about three months after a user stopped taking the medication. »