One of the biggest hurdles to the development of new contraceptives for men is the belief that there is no market for such products. MaleContraceptives.org has launched a new survey to help dispel that myth. Contraceptive users who participate in this survey will help prove the demand for new male contraceptives. Please tell your patients and/or colleagues!
This survey isn’t just for men — the participation of both men and women is important. It’s quick – fewer than 5 minutes to complete it. Respondents can also personalize their interest in new male contraceptives by telling their story.
The survey results will be aggregated quarterly and sent to key policymakers and pharmaceutical industry leaders who have the power to speed male contraceptive research and development. The summaries will also be publicly available. Participation won’t lead to junk mail or extra mailing lists, and we will never sell or share participants’ names.
A special thanks to the 150+ men and women who have participated thus far.
Emerging male contraceptives got some excellent recent coverage in well-respected and widely-read media outlets this month. If you haven’t already seen these pieces, they’re well worth checking out.
In the United Kingdom, almost every major paper covered MCIP’s press release about the IVD trial expansion. First was BBC Online – which did an accurate and thorough story that added interesting interviews and context. After that, pretty much all the major UK news outlets jumped on the bandwagon – some of them with more accuracy than others! (Somewhere along the line the IVD became a gel rather than a preformed plug, for example…) MCIP’s director was quoted in most of the articles and interviewed on BBC Radio.
Meanwhile, halfway around the world, Los Angeles Times reporter Regina Nuzzo was preparing what was intended to be a short piece on hormonal male contraception. But with contact information provided by the Male Contraception Coalition, she was able to reach many of the major players in the field, including a researcher in Los Angeles, Dr. Christina Wang at the University of California. Before long, the short piece had turned into a feature story. Doctors John Amory, Kirsten Vogelsong, Doug Colvard, Regine Sitruk-Ware, Diana Blithe, and MCC’s director Kirsten Thompson are also quoted.
You can help MCIP and MCC continue to spread the word about male contraceptive research. Forward these stories or this newsletter to friends and colleagues. You can also make a donation to fund our publicity efforts. Even small donations make a big difference.
Return to the top
So much for the good news. If progress is two steps forward, one step back, here’s the step back: drug company Wyeth has decided to abandon its contraceptive discovery efforts.
Mr. Gerald Burr of Wyeth’s public relations department described the group’s decision as a motivated by the bottom line, not by a lack of interesting potential targets. Indeed, scientists there were in the process of publishing work that identified over 1,000 genes related to male fertility in mice. Six labs in Wyeth’s Women’s Health Group were involved in contraceptive research, which was looking for both male and female contraceptive targets.
Speaking specifically of male contraceptive discovery, Mr. Burr said that “the development and commercialization landscape is really unclear.” He cited uncertainty about the size of the potential market and confusion about how products would be delivered to men. Because the female contraceptive marketplace has become crowded and is now undercut by generic drugs, Wyeth’s business developers generally do not see contraceptive drugs as a profitable sector, despite the nearly untapped male contraceptive market.
You can help make sure that other companies are more clear about the potential market for male contraceptives by participating in a 5 minute survey.
Return to the top
All vasectomies are the same, right? Matters of technique are a personal preference? Turns out not!
A recent study confirms what researchers have suspected for a while: the ends of the cut vas deferens can recanalize if the surgeon doesn’t take certain preventative steps. If the vasectomy provider just removes a section of the vas deferens tube and ties off the ends (“ligation and excision”), new channels for the sperm can bridge the gap in as many as 25% of cases. However, if the vasectomy provider closes off one end of the vas deferens with heat (“cautery”) and moves the other end outside the sheath that holds the vas deferens (“fascial interposition”), the study found 0% recanalization.
Author Michel Labrecque and his collaborators conclude by saying “From a clinical point of view, our results reinforce the recent recommendation to avoid ligation and excision as the sole method for occluding the vas. They also support the use of cautery combined with [fascial interposition] as probably the most effective vas occlusion technique. If early recanalization could be prevented, the currently recommended 12-week waiting period before performing the post-vasectomy semen analysis could probably be shortened.”
These results should make cautery plus fascial interposition the new gold standard. Collaborating organization Family Health International’s press release provides more analysis of the results.
Return to the top
“Every day, tens of millions of individuals around the world make family planning decisions based on information that may be obsolete, wrong or commercially biased. This basis for decision making indirectly translates into unplanned pregnancies…” So begins the Cochrane Collaboration’s Fertility Regulation Group’s assessment of the state of clinical evidence in family planning.
With several male contraceptives entering clinical trials, this makes required reading. Anyone involved in clinical trials, or who needs to interpret and understand their results, may benefit from the discussion of allocation concealment and blinding, correctly defining “intention-to-treat”, the CONSORT versus Good Clinical Practice guidelines, and the Pearl index versus life tables.
The full article can be found in the October issue of Contraception. If you are a Contraception or ScienceDirect subscriber, you can access the PDF online:
The Cochrane Fertility Regulation Group: synthesizing the best evidence about family planning.
Helmerhorst FM, Belfield T, Kulier R, Maitra N, O'brien P, Grimes DA.
Contraception. 2006 Oct;74(4):280-6. Epub 2006 Jun 19.
PMID: 16982225
Return to the top
Editors
Elaine Lissner, Director of the Male Contraception Information Project (MCIP)
Email: info@NewMaleContraception.org
MCIP is entirely nonprofit and works in three areas: raising public awareness of promising nonhormonal male contraceptives, advocating increased and expedited government research, and serving as a resource for journalists who wish to write about the subject.
Kirsten Thompson, Director of the Male Contraception Coalition (MCC)
Email: info@MaleContraceptives.org
The Coalition’s objectives are to speed the development of new male contraceptives through increased legislative and institutional support, to raise funds for applied male contraception research and development, and to educate the public about the work of the research community.
|
