Charlottesville biotech Contraline Inc. has reached an option-to-license agreement with the Population Council for a contraceptive gel for men.
Contraline is currently taking the gel — called Nestorone/Testosterone Transdermal Gel, or NES/T — through a phase 2b trial, which includes more than 460 couples in 17 sites across the globe. Once that is complete, the company will seek a phase 3 trial for NES/T, what would be the first phase 3 trial in the U.S. for a novel male contraceptive product.
The company, led by CEO Kevin Eisenfrats, said the contraceptive has proven highly effective through its trials so far, with an acceptable side-effect profile.
“Men in the trial were asking when the method will be available or whether they could re-enroll in the study to continue using the gel,” Regine Sitruk-Ware, a Population Council scientist and co-director of the Phase 2b trial, said in a statement. “Their female partners indicated that this method was much better than the female oral contraceptive pill.”
NES/T is a short-acting and reversible hormonal contraceptive gel that is applied on a man’s shoulders. Contraline has developed the contraceptive with the Population Council, a New York-based nonprofit, and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
The option-to-license agreement gives the Population Council the exclusive right to commercialize NES/T. Terms and the length of the deal were not disclosed.
The company is betting on a market for different contraceptive options for men beyond condoms and vasectomies. It is also pushing an implantable, reversable contraceptive device for men called ADAM through clinical trials. It’s also received some big-time backing, including a $7.2 million round in 2022 led by Google Ventures.
Longtime Inno readers might recall that Contraline got its start as a birth control option for pets.