Daybreak - Why Big Pharma stayed away from developing male contraceptives

Episode Date: March 6, 2023

The introduction of the contraceptive pill in the 1960s was one of the most significant events in the history of human society. But it still left the burden of birth control largely on women.Now, however, things are changing. The demand for male contraceptives is on the rise. But why have large pharmaceutical companies not paid enough attention to the research on male contraceptives for all these years?Tune in.P.S We apologise for the delay in the release of today's episode. We were faced with technical difficulties.

Hi, this is Rohan Dharma Kumar. If you've heard any of the Ken's podcasts, you've probably heard me, my interruptions, my analogies, and my contrarian takes on most topics. And you might rightly be wondering why am I interrupting this episode too? It's for a special announcement. For the last few months, I and Sita Ramon Ganeshan, my colleague and the Ken's deputy editor, have been working on an ambitious new podcast. It's called Intermission.

We want to tell the secret sauce stories of India's greatest companies. Stories of how they were born, how they fought to survive, how they build their organizations and culture, how they manage to innovate and thrive over decades, and most importantly, how they're poised today. To do that, Sita and I have been reading books, poring over reports, going through financial statements, digging up archives, and talking to dozens of people. And if that wasn't enough, we also decided to throw in video into the mix. Yes, you heard that right. Intermission has also had to find its footing in the world of multi-camera shoots in professional studios, laborious editing, and extensive post-production. Sita and I are still reeling from the intensity of our first studio recording.

Intermission launches on March 23rd. To get an alert as soon as we release our first episode, please follow Intermission on Spotify and Apple Podcasts or subscribe to the Ken's YouTube channel. You can find all of the links at the ken.com slash I am. With that, back to your episode. It was one of the greatest inventions in the history of human society. Many say that it was revolutionary. I'm talking about the contraceptive pill.

It was developed in the years. US back in the 1950s and by the 60s and 70s, it became a symbol of women's liberation. But while it became one of the most important means of asserting freedom for women, it also meant that the burden of birth control largely remained with them. More than 70 years later now, it is more or less the same story. But it's not like male contraception does not exist at all. Before the 60s, in fact, contraception was synonymous with men. And this was because condoms and vasectomy had been developed way back in the 19th century.

But things changed after the pill came into the picture. The interest in developing other ways of male contraception waned away. Women suffer from a host of side effects due to the pill, from depression to blood clotting. And that is because these birth control pills for women involve the youth. use of hormones. But a little more than a week ago, there was a scientific breakthrough in the development of a male contraceptive pill. The study on this new pill found that it was 100% effective for up to an hour after being taken. And after three hours, the pill's effectiveness slips down to about 91%. And after 24 hours, the effect is completely gone. The thing is, this pill does not contain

any hormones and it works only as a temporary inhibitor. So far, it has only been tested on mice. But why am I telling you about this today? Because even in India, someone has been relentlessly working for years towards developing a form of male birth control. It is called resug, which stands for reversible inhibition of sperm under guidance. It is non-hormonal and right now it is in the last stages of human trials in India. According to an article, resug is like vasectomy but without the snip. Some research also suggests that resug is 99% effective for up to 10 years. And it has also been shown to be completely reversible.

So it looks like lately the acceptance and demand for male birth control is gradually growing. But why did it take so long? Welcome to Daybreak, a business podcast from the Ken. I'm your host, Nick Das Sharma, and I don't chase the news cycle. Instead, thrice a week on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, I will come to you with one business story that is worth understanding and worth your time. Today is Monday, the 6th of March. Around 2014, when Ruhi Kangahari, who writes for the Ken,

met a researcher at the launch of UN Women's He-For She campaign in Delhi. He told Ruhi that he was working with a team led by a certain professor. He described the man as a maverick. But the researcher went to Ruhi for hours about how tough it was for them. They believed that they were doing something good and something right. The maverick that this researcher was referring to is Sujoi Guha, Professor Emeritus at IIT Kharakpur. Guha has now spent 40 years trying to get out a long-term but reversible male contraceptive. He is the one developing resug.

Two years later, in an interview with The Wire, Professor Guha spoke of the challenges that his project had faced. Let me read out an excerpt for you. The antagonist in Resak's story is not the government according to Guha, but the international pharma lobby. The government has in fact put in a lot of time and money for the clinical trials, he said. In the first place, there would be no trials without them. The questions raised about Rizak and the result

delay have come from the National Institutes of Health in the US. For several years, they wanted to promote a new drug that involved regular ingestion like the female Pilkoho said. In fact, even in the WHO, there are people who do not want the drug to come through. A.R. Nanda, the Union Health Secretary 1999 to 2002, had told me some years ago, a hormone-based drug would offer prospects for continual demand and long-term profit. end quote. But why is Big Pharma playing the villain in what can clearly become a milestone for men and women around the world?

To find out, stay tuned. Last December, the official journal of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society had written about this problem. It said that the pharmaceutical industry has shown really little interest in developing male or female contraceptives for the last two decades. And it reflects in the kind of funding that research for male contraception gets. Turns out, the pharmaceutical industry has only contributed about 5% of funding from 2018 to 2020 towards this research. But this was not always the case. After the development of the female pill, there was work on male alternatives too. There was enough interest in the early years of the century.

But through a series of mergers and acquisitions in Big Pharma, those working in the area kind of faded away. Michael O'Rand, the chief executive of male contraceptive startup called Epinfama, says that the fears about causing permanent changes in men's fertility kept the pharmaceutical industry away. Medicinal chemist Gunda George from the University of Minnesota points out to the larger problem. She talks about how pharmaceutical companies are largely run by men. misconceptions and lack of demand has kept big pharma away from developing male contraceptives for decades. It was only in 2019 when Riesak finally went for large-scale clinical trials.

The results of the trial are yet to be published though. Ruhi wrote about this in her newsletter recently and she says that Gouha faced a lot of challenges not just because of the international farmer lobby. It was also because of the overarching lack of interest in the development of male contraceptives around the world. Most pharma companies and governments, until recently, have only been interested in widening the choice of contraceptives for women. In fact, there have been no new male birth control methods coming to the market since the 1980s. But like I told you earlier, this perception is changing. and the question, what about men, is getting louder?

Even the Royal Pharmaceutical Society Journal article that I mentioned earlier argues that investment trends are now going to shift back towards male contraception again. More on this in the next segment. The Male Controceptive Initiative conducted a survey among men from the ages of 18 to 44 years and the results show that there is actually a demand for a variety of male contraceptives. According to the survey, and here are some numbers, so you might want to pay extra attention, 60% of men said that they would like to take responsibility for birth control as a key reason for wanting a new male method. 80% said that they would prefer a non-hormonal method.

And 38% said that they would prefer a hormonal method of male birth control. 89% also said that they wanted a reversible contraceptive method. And 80% said that it is important to have a contraceptive method that also protects men against sexually transmitted infections. In India, the good news is that overall contraception use has seen an increase in recent times. But contraceptives for females are still the most dominant. So while the development of resug and the new mack. male birth control pill are significant steps in the right direction, whether big pharma bets big on them remains to be seen.

Until then, we women will be waiting with baited breath. Daybreak is produced from the Newsroom of the Ken, India's first subscriber-focused business news platform. What you're listening to is just a small sample of our subscriber-only offerings. A full subscription unlocks daily long-form feature stories, newsletters, subscriber-only apps and podcast extras. Head to the ken.com and click on the red subscribe button on the top of the website. I am Snigda Sharma, your host, and today's episode was edited by my colleague Rajiv Sien.