New Male Contraceptive Pills with 99% effectiveness discovered

New Male Contraceptive Pills: A scientist team announced on Wednesday that they had created an oral Male Contraceptive Pill that is 99% effective in mice while causing no side effects and could be tested in humans by the end of the year.

The findings, which will be presented at the American Chemical Society’s spring meeting, are an important step toward expanding men’s contraceptive options – as well as responsibilities.

Researchers have been interested in a male equivalent of the female birth control pill since it was first approved in the 1960s, according to Md Abdullah Al Noman, a graduate student at the University of Minnesota who will present the work.

“Multiple studies have shown that men are interested in sharing the liability of contraceptives with their partners,” he says, but until now, the only effective options have been condoms or vasectomies.

Vasectomy reversal surgery is costly and not always effective.

The female pill disrupts the menstrual cycle with hormones, and previous attempts to develop a male equivalent focused on the male sex hormone testosterone. The problem with this approach was that it resulted in side effects such as weight gain, depression, and increased levels of cholesterol known as low-density lipoprotein, which increases the risk of heart disease.

The female pill has side effects as well, including blood-clotting risks; however, because women are at risk of becoming pregnant in the utter lack of contraception, the risk calculation differs.

Non-hormonal Contraceptive Pill

Noman, who works in Professor Gunda Georg’s lab, targeted a protein called “Retinoic Acid Receptor (RAR) alpha” to develop a non-hormonal drug.

Inside the body, vitamin A is converted into various forms, including retinoic acid, which is essential for cell growth, sperm formation, and embryo development.

To perform these functions, retinoic acid must interact with RAR-alpha, and laboratory experiments have shown that mice lacking the gene that produces RAR-alpha are sterile.

Noman and Georg created a compound that inhibits RAR-alpha activity as part of their research. They used a computer model to determine the best molecular structure.

“If we know what the keyhole looks like, we can make a better key — and that’s where the computer simulation comes in,” Noman explained.

To minimize potential side effects, their chemical, known as YCT529., was also designed to interact specifically with RAR-alpha rather than two other related receptors, RAR-beta and RAR-gamma.

To market in five years!

When given orally to male mice for four weeks, YCT529 significantly reduced sperm counts and was 99 percent helpful in preventing pregnancy, with no adverse events observed.

Four to six weeks after being weaned from the drug, the mice were able to breed pups once more.

The team, which received funding from the National Institutes of Health and the Male Contraceptive Initiative, is collaborating with your choice Therapeutics to begin human trials in the third or fourth quarter of 2022, according to Georg.

“I’m optimistic this will progress forward quickly,” she said, predicting a five-year or less timeline to market. “There’s no guarantee it’ll work, but I’d be surprised if we didn’t see an effect on the human body as well,” she added.

The question of whether women will trust men to use future male contraceptive pills has persisted.

However, surveys have shown that most women would have faith in their partners, and a sizable number of men would be open to the medication.

“Male contraceptives will add to the method mix, creating additional options that allow men and women to contribute in whatever way they deem appropriate to contraceptive use,” argues the Male Contraceptive Initiative, a non-profit that raises funds and advocates for contraception.

Difference between Male Contraceptive Pills and Condoms

Difference between a Male Contraceptive Pill and a Female Contraceptive Pill

Originally posted on Medicotopics.

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