Photographer: Sarah Anne Ward for Bloomberg Businessweek
Feature
Why We Can’t Have the Male Pill
A condom alternative could be worth billions. What’s taking so long?
The trouble began, as it so often does, with a bottle of Chivas Regal.
Back in the 1950s, scientists at Sterling Drug, a now-defunct pharmaceutical company, synthesized a class of chemicals that made male rats temporarily infertile. They thought they might be onto something big: the first-ever birth control pill—for men. After identifying several promising compounds, including one known as WIN 18,446, a trio of researchers began testing them on a ready population, inmates at the Oregon State Penitentiary.