FindMeCure: The Pill for Men out of Clinical Trials?

The Pill for men is not a new idea, as some methods of birth control for men have been researched as early as the 70s[1].  The only way for those methods to become more popular is starting clinical trials to test their safety and efficacy. Yet, clinical trials testing male contraception are not so common (check the available clinical trials on FindMeCure), disregarding the fact that the topic has been hot and often brought up for discussion. Attitudes towards gender and sexuality issues play a role too, and it seems like the new generation of progressive forward-thinking men generally hold a much different view in regards to shared responsibility.

“It’s not fair!”

But it’s not just shifting attitudes that spark up a new conversation on the topic. Up until recently, the contraception methods in development revealed many risks and unwanted side effects, among which potential loss of fertility. Some of the side-effects are controversial: acne, moodiness and suppressed libido. “It’s not fair!”, a friend of mine exclaimed, voicing the frustration of too many women, “We’ve been suffering from those things for decades with only minor improvements, but when it comes to men – it’s suddenly too inconvenient.” She was referring to an article she sent me about the pill failing clinical trials because of “severe side effects”.

To some extent, she’s right. The burden of birth control has been unevenly distributed with women bearing the greater responsibility. Even abstinence-only sexual education mostly targets women, stressing the importance of the “wait till marriage” approach and conveying outdated sexist ideas about sexual “purity”.

It’s not fair at all. But not just to women – unequal responsibility in this case means unequal control over fertility and it’s no wonder more men express interest in different forms of birth control as society begins to dismantle some harmful notions about gender roles.

What is now in the labs?

As of last year, there is a new form of male contraception which so far shows good results in animal trials. Non-hormonal, reversible and reliable, Vasalgel does not affect sperm production, only its distribution. The gel is simply injected into the tubes that carry sperm to the penis but unlike the “dry-orgasm” method it only blocks sperm, not other components of the ejaculate fluid. Currently, Vasagel is still in trials but things look promising and there is already some prognosis about the gel being available in 2018-2020[2].

On the waiting list are also Gendarussa and an anti-Eppin agent. Gendarussa is a non-hormonal contraceptive that has gone through phase II human trials in Indonesia. The pill is expected to work by preventing the sperm’s ability to fertilize an egg.

The anti-Eppin agent is an US method that targets sperm’s ability to swim. This one involves taking a Pill too.

There might be a buzz around gender equality but it seems that the clinical research industry is not over it. The efforts in the field are obviously still not enough. This is proven by a simple search on FindMeCure that shows only 7 clinical trials for male contraception. Taking into consideration that FindMeCure collects over 80% of all clinical trials around the globe, we hope the rest is in that 20 %. Otherwise, it would mean that medical science is still far behind global social needs.

What do you think of this article? Tell us in the comments!

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jul/23/what-happened-to-the-male-contraceptive-pill

[2] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/sex/the-male-pill-is-coming—and-its-going-to-change-everything/