The Pill for women: she’s seen a lot.

The female contraceptive pill has played an historic role in giving women the right to control whether they could get pregnant or not. Many believed women would have lost that control if a male method of contraception was developed before a female method. Fortunately and unfortunately, it’s taken another 60 years for a male birth control pill to advance successfully in human studies.?

The pill for women continues to be a reliable companion for women of my generation, the women of my mother’s generation, and even the women of my grandmother’s generation! She was truly a breakthrough when she debuted in 1960. She was the first highly effective contraceptive ever developed. While she may be associated with side-effects that are experienced by nearly 70% of women, almost nothing has been introduced to date that matches her effectiveness. That’s because with the exception of the copper IUD, all other highly effective methods of preventing pregnancy– injectables, patches, implantables, rings, and all other IUDs– all rely on hormones.?

The female pill also paved the way for female contraceptives to be marketed to women. Prior to the pill being developed, methods to prevent pregnancies could not be marketed. (Imagine how challenging that may have been for Hers, Pillclub, Nurx, or other D2C female contraceptives).

Women needed better options at the time considering that available options included:

• Lysol, which started by making available a non-effective vaginal douche for contraception.? (The Smithsonian has more on ads from this time here)
• Condoms that had lower efficacy than what we have today.?
• And of course, the pill for women improved on the contraceptive method as old as time, described in the bible -> The rhythm method.?

It’s wild to consider how arcane these previous methods seem. But what is even more crazy to? consider: at the same time the female method was being developed, male methods were also being developed -> kind of neck and neck.?

I get why the first iteration of male contraceptive didn’t move forward - a pill that stopped sperm development, but didn’t allow the user to consume alcohol? Post-prohibition American men wouldn’t have been fans. (More about early male contraceptive development here)

But beyond this point, there’s been nothing else??

I don’t think folks at the time thought that after they developed female contraceptives, there would be 607 studies on erectile dysfunction and no approved product for a male contraceptive.?

To be fair, since the first male contraceptive molecules were made, there have been further developments, You can judge their success:

Here’s what hasn’t worked?

• WHO-Conrad ran a study a Phase II clinical trial on a hormonal injectable that stopped because of side effects

Here’s what is furthest along

• Phase IIB clinical trial shows high-efficacy in the development of a male contraceptive using Nes/T?

Here’s what’s in development

• Contraline starts a Phase 1 clinical trial??
• There was a start of a phase 1 clinical trial for 11-Beta-MNTDC
• There was a start of a Phase 1 clinical trial for DMAU
• YourChoice Therapeutics is studying the first hormone-free birth control for men, YCT-529, in a Phase 1 clinical trial

I’ll make a shameless plug for myself. Today is my birthday, and our phase 1a study for YCT-529 is now fully enrolled! Our hope is this allows us to quickly close out our study, so we can move on to further our clinical development plan.?

The pill for women was one of the most socially significant healthcare advances of the 20th century. She has done and continues to do a lot for women (and men) and she’s earned her retirement. If YCT-529? is successful, it too will break boundaries as the first hormone-free male contraceptive ever approved. A hormone-free contraceptive could revolutionize birth control much like the female pill did more than a half century ago.? In this way, YCT-529 could give her the retirement she deserves.