Breakthrough male birth control pill just passed human safety testing

It could soon be a woman's world, with a proposed male birth control pill passing the first stage of human trials.

Typically, contraception for men is limited to condoms or the painful process of a vasectomy. Although vasectomies can be reversed, they're largely viewed as a permanent procedure.

There are many more types of contraception for women, but there have been complaints that the responsibility is on them to take the contraceptive pill.

First approved for use in the United States in 1960, the combined oral contraceptive pill (COCP) mixes estrogen with progestin, and when taken correctly, affects the menstrual cycle to prevent pregnancy during sex.

There's been much chatter about science discovering a male version of 'the pill', and according to Scientific American, it's just passed safety tests in its first human trials.

The outlet confirms that YCT-529 is bringing us one step closer to male contraceptive solutions after results from the early phase 1 clinical trial were published in Communications Medicine.

The non-hormonal oral contraceptive temporarily stops sperm production, and when taken daily, YCT-529 blocks a vitamin A metabolite from binding to receptors in the testes.

This stops the chain of gene-expression changes that the body needs to make sperm.

The male contraceptive had been shown to be 99% effective against pregnancies in mice, while it's now the only one on the market currently being tested on humans. Researchers hope to have the pill out by the end of the decade, with trials moving forward.

16 healthy men between the ages of 32 and 59 were selected, with all of them having previously undergone a vasectomy. This specific group was chosen as a precaution in case the trial permanently affected any participants' fertility.

Nadja Mannowetz is the co-founder and chief science officer of YourChoice Therapeutics, who oversaw the trial. While YourChoice Therapeutics didn't look at how efficient the pill was at reducing sperm, it's currently collecting this data in trials.

As pointed out by Stephanie Page, an endocrinologist at the University of Washington School of Medicine, ensuring YCT-529's safety was the first important step.

Page wasn't involved in the study but has worked on male contraceptives for over 20 years and explained: "We really need more reversible contraceptive methods for men."

Mannowetz was happy with the results, noting that the team saw "good and quick bioavailability" across all doses, meaning the pill didn't rapidly break down in the body.

Given that it took between two and three days for the drug availability levels to reduce by half in the blood, it should mean that men would only need to take the pill once a day.

If approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Mannowetz suspects it will probably be in an 180 mg dose, but follow-up trials hope to find the optimum.

Despite there being no obvious side effects, Page warned: "I think it would be overstating the data to say they know much about side effects yet. Every medication on the market has side effects."

There are several reversible male contraceptives currently in testing, with NES/T being the furthest along. This is applied every day to the shoulders and upper arms as a gel, then absorbed into the bloodstream.

Page concludes that "men are very eager to have more reproductive agency and to participate in contraception," hoping that individuals and couples will get more agency over their sex and reproduction habits.