A Welsh scientist working on a new male pill wants to reduce the burden on women of protecting against unwanted pregnancies.
Prof Chris Barratt is leading research on a non-hormonal drug which prevents sperm cells from reaching an egg.
His team at the University of Dundee has received significant funding from the Bill and Melina Gates Foundation.
“It’s been a very poorly researched topic for 40 or 50 years,” Prof Barratt said, but society has changed.
His team’s research could see men given a gel or a pill that would affect the sperm cell, effectively disabling its function.
Instead of targeting the production of sperm, his research focuses on slowing the sperm cells’ swimming action down and making them similar to those in infertile patients.
I’m not sure if this is the same one I read about before (YCT529) the article doesn’t seem to mention it be name. If it is I would be very wary of side effects, being a retinoic acid receptor antagonist it’s basically doing the opposite of tretinoin.
Looks like this one is not YCT-529, which is being developed by YourChoice and the University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy.
https://www.pharmacy.umn.edu/news/yourchoice-therapeutics-begins-first-human-trial-male-birth-control-pill