Bill Gates, Co-Chair of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, has reportedly embarked on funding research into a male contraceptive drug.
UK Metro reports that scientists at the University of Dundee have received a £1.2 million boost from the American business magnate, a fun they plan to use over the next two years to identify suitable compounds with the potential to develop the first safe and effective male contraceptive drug.
This is just as reports said that no progress has been made on male contraceptives since condoms hit the market – and 121 million unwanted pregnancies occurred between 2015 – 19, which were three times more common in the world’s poorest regions.
Furthermore, there are indications that recent efforts into new contraceptive methods have been hampered for a variety of reasons, including the relatively poor understanding of human sperm biology and the lack of studies that convincingly show the key functions that sperm must carry out after leaving the male.
A professor of Reproductive Medicine in Dundee University’s School of Medicine, Chris Barratt said: ‘There has been no significant change in the field of male contraception since the development of the condom.
‘This means that much of the burden of protecting against unwanted pregnancies continue to fall upon women.’
‘We hope to address that inequality and we have already made progress, thanks to our previous round of funding received from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
‘By the end of this two-year period, we would like to have identified a high-quality compound that we can progress to the first stages of drug development.
‘That would be a significant step forward for the field and could potentially be the key that unlocks a new era in male contraception.
