Easy Pill To Swallow: Important Step Towards Safe And Effective Male Birth Control
Exciting new hormone-free option passes initial human trial
In what could soon herald the widely available release of the first practical, orally administered sperm fertility inhibitor, YCT-529’s developers at San Francisco-based YourChoice Therapeutics announced in Communications Medicine that it has passed its Phase 1 clinical trial.
While the pharmaceutical’s overall effectiveness wasn’t tested, the fact that YCT-529 appears safe for human consumption is nevertheless a major milestone.
Discussing the trial with Scientific American, Nadja Mannowetz, Chief Science Officer and co-founder of YourChoice Therapeutics, said YCT-529 is the first non-hormonal male contraceptive to undergo successful tolerability and bioavailability checks.
Call me in the morning
YCT-529 temporarily halts sperm formation in the user’s testicles by inhibiting their vitamin A metabolites.
Mannowetz reported that the trial “saw good and quick bioavailability,” meaning YCT-529 typically remained in the subjects’ bodies for several days instead of rapidly breaking down, indicating that if its effectiveness is subsequently verified, it may only need to be taken once a day.
If the U.S. Food and Drug Administration eventually greenlights YCT-529, Mannowetz also envisions it being available as a 180 mg daily dose, though the exact amount will depend on further trials.
Time to take your medicine
If YCT-529 may be free of adverse side effects, YourChoice Therapeutics selected sixteen men between the ages of thirty-two and fifty-nine. To prevent the possibility of their fertility being negatively affected, the study was limited to participants who had undergone a vasectomy.
Subjects in both the control and YCT-529-receiving group were required to fastt after ingesting a high-calorie breakfast, to determine if the medication might negatively affect the medication’s tolerability.
RECOMMENDED READ: Hot Times Ahead: Tomorrow’s Male Contraceptives May Be More About Temperature, Less About Drugs
Promisingly, Mannowetz said her researchers did not detect any particularly adverse reactions among the study participants, while mentioning a small possibility that users might experience a number of emotional or sexual reactions.
Bite the bullet
As we have reported often before, though safe and effective male birth control medications are well-worth pursuing—as is anything that helps people make intelligent decisions about family planning—orally administered doses cannot prevent the spread of Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) such as HIV, syphilis, hepatitis B, and gonorrhea to name but a few.
Not to cast a pall over a game-changing, birth control development, it’s even more important that penis-equipped persons taking YCT-529 understand that just because they have popped their morning dose, they are medically protected from taking sex and its myriad repercussions seriously.
In addition to creating effective male birth control options, all societies need to ensure everyone receives a non-biased, scientifically sound, and emotionally supportive, comprehensive sexual education.
Only then will medications like YCT-529 live up to their promise of aiding thousands or perhaps millions of people to take control of their lives—otherwise disreputable individuals may have yet another way to make their partners’ lives miserable by pretending they really, honestly, no-fooling—took their morning birth control pill.
Image Sources: Depositphotos
