A trial in mice seems to come closer the advent of a male contraceptive drug. Promising results have shown the drug’s ability to render animals sterile in one hour. Her sexual desire was not altered and reproductive capacity returned within a day.
To this day, the burden of an unwanted pregnancy continues to fall on women. While they can only appeal condom or vasectomy, the variety of contraceptive methods designed for them is wide and invasive. From the pill, to the IUD or the vaginal ring, the load of side effects that they imply is also varied.
However, in recent years a growing number of male contraceptives under development seem to indicate that the advent of pill for men could be closer than ever.
The new candidate would be “on demand”. This is how a man would take a birth control pill shortly before having sex, only when needed. The drug would prevent the movement of the spermatozoa, which would gradually return in the following 24 hours.
The contraceptive efficacy of the compound was 100% in the first 2 hours and 91% in the first 3 hours.
To achieve this, the research, published this Tuesday in Nature Communications, targeted an enzyme called soluble adenylyl cyclase(sAC), which acts as the “on switch” for sperm, as described by one of the paper’s authors, Jochen Buck, from L Weill Cornell Medicine (USA).
It is a protein that plays an essential role in the motility and maturation of sperm in mammals. The research team designed a inhibitory compound, called TDI-11816. By inactivating the action of sAC, the mice were temporarily sterile.
After administering the drug, the animals they showed normal mating behavior, but their fertility was eliminated within 30 minutes to an hour. After 3 hours, some spermatozoa recovered their motility and after 24 hours, most of them returned to moving normally.
So, the Contraceptive efficacy of the compound was 100% in the first 2 hours and 91% in the first 3 hours.
The team observed no negative health effects after administering the drug continuously for 6 weeks. According to what was declared to AFP, they hope to carry out the first human trials within 3 years, while marketing the final product could take up to 8.
