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The male contraceptive pill is coming and it could be available in three years. The pill, known as Vasalgel would be the first approved male contraceptive since the condom. It’s being developed by The Parsemus Foundation, a non-profit whose website says it “works to advance innovative and neglected medical research”. The foundation says it has had success on animal testing the product, with human testing set to begin next year.

 

Vasalgel is said to have been successfully tested on animals and will begin human testing next year. It is expected to be approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration soon after, around early 2018. The male contraceptive pill is actually a gel that is injected into a man’s vas deferens through the scrotum. The vas deferens is a muscular tube that connects the testes with the urethra and carries sperm from the epidisymis to the ejaculatory duct.

Once injected, the gel is said to block sperm and is expected to last up to ten years. The gel is described as “porous like swiss cheese” where sperm cannot fit, although liquids can flow freely through.The effect can also be reversed through a second gel injection, which dissolves the first injection and allows sperm to pass through the vas deferens.

“This could finally give men control over their own reproduction,” said the Director of the Parsemus Foundation, Elaine Lissner.

Meanwhile, researchers are yet to find out the extent of the drug’s sperm-blocking and the method by which it can be easily and completely reversed.
For decades, females almost always assume the responsibility of taking birth control, since men only had condoms and abstinence as contraception options.