Weill Cornell Medicine received a four-year, $8.2 million grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to move an experimental on-demand male contraceptive pill toward its first human trial, Cornell said on Oct. 26. The money is the third grant in a program that began in 2020. It pays for the safety work that has to come before any man takes the pill. The pill has not been tested in people, and everything Cornell says about its effect comes from preclinical studies.
How the Male Contraceptive Pill Works
The compound blocks an enzyme in sperm called soluble adenylyl cyclase, or sAC. In preclinical models, blocking sAC left sperm unable to swim and prevented pregnancies, according to Cornell. Jochen Buck, a professor of pharmacology at Weill Cornell, said the team developed a pill that men would take 30 minutes before sex, with a window of protection of six to eight hours, after which fertility returns to normal.
Peter Meinke, an assistant professor of pharmacology at the school, said the ideal molecule must be fast-acting, potent, safe, active for hours in men and able to stop sperm inside a drugfree female partner. Cornell published results in Nature Communications in 2023 showing that blocking sAC worked in preclinical models.
What the New Grant Pays for
The grant funds toxicology and safety studies, an oral formulation and manufacturing protocols. After that comes a Phase 1, placebo-controlled trial in healthy men. Participants will receive the drug or a placebo and be monitored for side effects, and researchers will measure the percentage of sperm that swim and how well they move forward. The trial is designed to show the effect is temporary.
Lonny Levin, a professor of pharmacology at Weill Cornell, called sperm motility “a very good biomarker.” Cornell gave no start date for the trial. Spread over four years, the award comes to $2.05 million a year, a calculation from the grant’s size and length.
Why an On-Demand Option
Cornell says about half of all pregnancies worldwide are unplanned, and that male options have been limited to condoms and vasectomy. Other male methods in development need a daily pill, a daily gel or long-acting injections that take weeks to work and may linger for weeks after stopping, the school said.
The university cites surveys indicating about half of U.S. men and 50% to 75% of men worldwide would use a male contraceptive, and says surveyed men preferred a short-term, ondemand option. Cornell does not name the surveys.
Disclosure and Next Steps
Buck, Levin and Meinke co-founded Sacyl Pharmaceuticals, which licensed the technology from Weill Cornell, and they hold equity and patents tied to the company and technology, according to the release. Gregory Kopf, Sacyl’s chief scientific officer, leads work to turn the discoveries into an FDA-approved drug. Levin said he hopes family planning becomes “a shared responsibility.” The next milestones are the safety studies and the formulation, which come before the Phase 1 trial.
