Dikhyaa Mohanty 
Participating in the first phase of testing for a novel non-hormonal male birth control pill were sixteen British men. This week, Nottingham-based Quotient Sciences, a drug development company, reportedly started the YCT-529 trial, according to a Sky News report. The hormone-free YCT-529 stops the production of sperm by obstructing the absorption of vitamin A. Previous research revealed that vitamin A deficiency can result in infertility in mice, rats, and monkeys.
Researchers in the UK are hopeful that men will have more control over unintended pregnancies thanks to the new pill. For centuries, women have been primarily responsible for preventing pregnancy. Women can use the pill, coil, contraceptive injection, female condoms, or diaphragms, while men can only use withdrawal, condoms, and vasectomy to avoid unintended pregnancies. YCT-529 has been found to be 99% effective and 100% reversible, with no side effects, according to its manufacturer YourChoice Therapeutics, based in San Francisco.
“YCT-529 blocks a protein — not hormones — to prevent sperm production. We believe this will be more attractive to men, most of whom view pregnancy prevention as a shared responsibility even despite today’s limited contraceptive options, which are permanent or only moderately effective. The dearth of options reinforces the centuries-old view that pregnancy prevention is a woman’s responsibility. It’s not, and we’re committed to advancing the first hormone-free birth control pill for men that’s effective, convenient, and temporary,” co-founder and CEO of YourChoice Therapeutics Akash Bakshi said in a statement.
“The last innovation in contraception was the birth control pill for women, and that’s more than 60 years ago. The world is ready for a male contraceptive agent, and delivering one that’s hormone-free is simply the right thing to do given what we know about the side effects women have endured for decades from the pill,” University of Minnesota’s College of Pharmacy Gunda Georg, who developed the pill, told The Independent.
“We consciously chose to inhibit the vitamin A signalling pathway in the testis because nearly 100 years of research has validated this pathway and shows that infertility can be reversed easily,” she added.
According to Forbes, the clinical trial will end in June 2024.
