It is a promising advance. According to a study published in the magazine Communication Medicine last July, a particularly effective man pill of the United States could, in the near future, to be marketed. Its small name: YCT-529, a method that blocks sperm production.
If the hope of seeing that such medicine reaches the market regularly makes noise, it is clear that nothing concrete has happened so far in the French pharmacy cabinet. Which one could change soon?
In fact, this time, the results of phase 2 of the clinical tests, a step that confirms the first results, are very encouraging. Of the 16 people who have followed the treatment daily, none of them has suffered side effects, while it is the regular defect of this type of oral contraception.
To this is added record efficiency of the treatment that reaches 99%, based on the data collected during animal tests. Completely reversible, the YCT-529 would also offer additional comfort by restoring human fertility within 4 to 6 weeks after stopping the capture.
But if many see it as an alternative to vasectomy, which is more “final”, it would seem, however, that the arrival to the market of this revolutionary pill finally takes longer than expected.
“We will have a man’s pill one day or the other”
While twenty methods of male contraception are being developed throughout the world, one in particular today attracts the attention of the scientific community.
The YCT-529 pill of the Californian Laboratory Yourchoice Therapeutics, laboratory created in 2018 and specialized in the development of non-hormonal contraceptions, is a source of hope.
However, since the beginning of its development, the treatment suffered the bad press of the previous failures in this area. And for a good reason, for almost 50 years, global medical research has stagnated completely on the subject.
In fact, a “successful” male pill has not been marketed, due to lack of conclusive clinical results: side effects seemed too numerous and dangerous.
This did not avoid the female pill, also to a large extent indicated by its consequences for health (weight gain, pain, mood disorders, bleeding, greater risks of breast cancer …), of being sold in France in the 1960s. Therefore, the contraception market has exploited, exclusively to the position of the woman of a daily treatment.
“I had aprioris. And then I saw the results of the first testing tests. It is very interesting what is happening,” says Alexandra Alvergne, a researcher at the Institut Des Sciences of L’Evolution of Montpellier (ISEM) and member of the CNRS.
For her, there is no doubt that a pill will soon be “in a pharmacy in France.
According to Yourchoice Therapeutics, requested by our Parisian colleagues, the YCT-529 should even find a place in the US market by 2029 “. In France, and in Europe, the process of putting a medicine has many stages, explains Alexandra Alvergne, we will have a pill for men one day or another since the researchers advance very well, but in 10 years.” “
Pharmacie tests, a long process
Before any marketing of the YCT-529, its Choice therapeutics will have to show the white leg with the food and medication administration (FDA); The US agency in charge of monitoring food and medicines.
Here, it is first of all the power to authorize, or not, the placement in the contraceptive market in the United States. After examining the data and results provided directly by the laboratory at the end of the various clinical tests, the FDA will position. This exam will be carried out within 10 to 12 months from the presentation of the file.
To get to France, the YCT-529 must be approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), as well as by the National Agency for the Safety of Medicines and Health Products (ANSM). Two mandatory additional steps, in the preamble of any industrial manufacture, which last between 1 and 3 years. The conditions for the refund of the medicine at the national level are also analyzed. Therefore, it will have to be more patient to see the YCT-529 pill for sale in French pharmacies.
“However, Alexandra Alvergne emphasizes, men are finally ready to handle the daily intake of a pill.”
According to the researcher, “more than 75% of women say they are ready for a change in the distribution of mental burden” with respect to the risks of pregnancies. “This is cultural and generational evolution. And then men also want to be able to control their reproduction, it is a fundamental freedom.”
Source: BFM TV
