Two Firms Team Up to Develop 'Male Pill'
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FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Germany's Schering and Dutch rival Akzo Nobel
said on Thursday they would join forces to develop a male birth
control pill that could reach the market in five to seven years.

More than 50 years since the first oral contraceptives were developed
for women, the companies believe they have cracked a way of making a
viable hormone-based pill for men which they hope to sell in both
Europe and the United States.

"The possibility of a hormonal fertility control for men will add to
the choice of contraceptives available to couples," Werner-Karl Raff,
head of Schering's Fertility Control & Hormone Threapy business, said
in a statement.

"We are optimistic to fill this gap in the future."

Until recently, Schering and Akzo Nobel's Organon drugs unit have
been working on competing projects. Now they plan to link up in a
area which has been shunned by some other pharmaceutical companies
skeptical about the market potential.

The collaboration has begun with the design of an intermediate-stage
Phase II multi-center clinical trial, with large-scale Phase III
studies to start when the current program is satisfactorily
completed.

A male pill is much more difficult to develop than a female one
because the average man generates about 1,000 sperms every minute
while a woman only usually releases one egg per ovulation cycle.

Nonetheless, scientists at Organon have already made an effective
prototype male pill by using a synthetic hormone which suppresses
sperm production, combined with slow-release testosterone.

A male pill is not expected to replace the female one -- which now
comes in more than 40 different brands -- but it may be useful when
women can no longer take theirs because of high blood pressure or
other side effects.

A spokeswoman for Schering said no peak sales forecasts were
available yet.