Update: April 11, 2023
NEXT Life Sciences just received funding for its Vasalgel® hydrogel. It plans to bring Plan A™ to market by 2026. Male contraception is in the news a lot lately due to the fall of Roe v Wade.
Update: July 20 2022
Next Life Sciences and Vasalgel
According to an announcement from Parsemus (and its spinoff Revolution Contraceptives LLC), further development of Vasalgel will be undertaken by Next Life Sciences. The long lasting reversible male contraceptive will be called Plan A.
Vasalgel is a proprietary hydrogel that stops the flow of sperm through the vas deferens tubes. Instead of permanently cutting the vas deferens (like in a vasectomy), the hydrogel acts as a filter that blocks the flow of sperm.
September 24, 2014
Earlier this year I wrote a post about RISUG (US brand name Vasalgel), a reversible injectable male contraceptive that also supposedly cured hair loss. Under that post, someone commented that the reason it cured hair loss was because of finasteride also being injected along with the actual contraceptive polymer. None of the articles on RISUG seemed to say that the hair loss benefits were due to finasteride, but it made sense.
This month, news just came out that Vasalgel was likely to become available in the US by 2017 after successful results in highly promiscuous baboons. I doubt that they will also inject finasteride with it, but you never know, and maybe doctors will be open to doing the combo treatment on some patients. I wonder if finasteride will be more successful when delivered this way than via pill or topical form?