There are no hormones in the men’s pill, writes the BBC. Scientists consider this an advantage, because there is no effect on the user’s testosterone level. The experimental pill temporarily disables a certain protein.
Reverse and easy
‘Reversible’ and ‘easy to use’ are also mentioned as advantages. The idea is that if the male pill becomes available to people after the test phase, users will take the drug an hour before sex. It then works for a few hours.
During the study, the results of which were published in the scientific journal Nature Communicationsthe result in the mice lasted about three hours.
‘What we were looking for’
The BBC quotes Professor Allan Pacey, from the University of Sheffield, as saying: “That it can work so quickly and be reversed is really exciting.”
If the pill works as well in humans as it does in mice, he says, it could be the male contraceptive “we’ve been looking for.”
