Pharmaceutical Approaches and Advancements in Male Contraception

Currently available contraceptive methods offer a variety of options for women, but only very few for men which include surgical methods, condom and hormonal methods. Non-surgical and non-hormonal methods are under investigation. Among these, hormonal contraceptive approaches, including injections, oral and transdermal delivery systems of testosterone, have attracted the attention of investigators. Also non-hormonal approaches based on chemicals extracted from different plants such as cotton seed plant, Neem tree, Trypterigium wilfordii and Momordica Charantia seed, are known to have effect on male fertility. Additionally, alkylated imino sugars, Ca^++ channel blockers, indenopyridines, indazole-3-carboxylic acid analogues, reversible inhibition of sperm under guidance (RISUG) which involves injection of stericmaleic anhydride with dimethyl sulfoxide, spermicide–microbicide (including gel formulations) and vaccine approaches are intended to interfere in a certainfertilization step. Information obtained from multi-center studies in several countries on both men orwomen shows the necessity for additional reversible male contraceptive methods. Results from recentsurveys clearly indicate that there is a market and a need for novel pharmaceutical preparations formale contraception.