A Welsh scientist working on a new male pill wants to reduce the burden on women of protecting against unwanted pregnancies.

Prof Chris Barratt is leading research on a non-hormonal drug which prevents sperm cells from reaching an egg.

His team at the University of Dundee has received significant funding from the Bill and Melina Gates Foundation.

“It’s been a very poorly researched topic for 40 or 50 years,” Prof Barratt said, but society has changed.

His team’s research could see men given a gel or a pill that would affect the sperm cell, effectively disabling its function.

Instead of targeting the production of sperm, his research focuses on slowing the sperm cells’ swimming action down and making them similar to those in infertile patients.

  • @BritishDuffer
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    11 months ago

    You’re not actually that slow, are you? Just because the side effects have the same names doesn’t mean they’re in any way comparable. If you actually read any of the trial reports you’d know the side effects they described were crippling.

    Hormonal pills have horrible side effects for some women, but for millions of women around the world the benefits well outweigh the side effects. If you did any of this reading you claimed to do you’d know that wasn’t the case with the male trials at all.