The race to develop male birth control

Contraception has always been a divisive topic. After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, a number of U.S. states set abortion restrictions — making access to birth control even more important for some. For the most part, women have shouldered the responsibility of preventing pregnancy by using a wealth of hormonal birth control options. However, there has been a larger push for men to share that burden, prompting research into male birth control. While only condoms and vasectomies are available as of now, new options may soon be on the horizon.

Why is male birth control not an option already?

While talk of developing male birth control has been ongoing for years, there are still no options available to the public. "The joke in the field is that the male contraceptive has been five years away for the last 40 years," John Amory, a research physician at the University of Washington School of Medicine, said to Bloomberg in 2017. 

Despite pregnancy prevention falling largely to women, a 2021 study published in the Journal of Sex Research found that the amount of male drug trial participants willing to take contraceptives ranged from 34% to 82.3%. Still, developing male birth control is notoriously difficult due to the volume of sperm. "Women have a cyclical nature to ovulation," Dr. Amin Herati, director of male infertility and men's health and an assistant professor of urology at Johns Hopkins Medicine, said to Yahoo Life. "If you disrupt that and the hormones that fluctuate, you can disrupt ovulation. In men, you're dealing with a process that is turning out hundreds of millions of sperm per day." Even if a male birth control is 99% effective, there would still be approximately 1 million sperm making it through. 

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Developing male birth control may become a priority as abortion restrictions increase in severity across the U.S. and more people want to take measures to prevent pregnancy altogether. In addition, "there is a shift towards more gender equity, you can see more men getting comfortable taking on and sharing that burden," Dr. Brian Nguyen, an assistant professor in the obstetrics and gynecology department at the University of Southern California, said to Salon. "And more female partners who are expressing that their male partners should take on the burden." 

What contraceptive options are in the works?

In spite of the challenges inherent in creating male contraception, a male birth control pill began clinical trials in December 2023. The pill called YCT-529 is non-hormonal and works by blocking access to vitamin A. A 2011 study found that vitamin A plays a vital role in reproduction and development, and is required for both male and female fertility. "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," Gunda Georg, a researcher behind the new pill, said in a statement. During trials on mice, the pill showed 99% efficacy in preventing pregnancy. Depriving the mice of vitamin A successfully caused infertility, plus the effects were completely reversible with no side effects once treatment ended. 

Additional male contraceptives are also being researched. A Virginia-based biotech company called Contraline is developing a non-hormonal injectable hydrogel intended to block sperm from getting into semen. It is also completely reversible. "This is made for people who are not ready to have kids, are spacing out having kids, or think they are done having kids but maybe not ready for that permanent option," similar to an IUD for women, Kevin Eisenfrats, cofounder and CEO of Contraline, said to Wired. Other potential methods include a hormonal gel containing progestin and testosterone called Nestorone, being developed by the National Institutes of Health and the nonprofit Population Council, meant to drastically slow sperm production. "Right now, there is nothing out there that's long-lasting and reversible for men," said Eisenfrats. But that could all be changing soon.