Male contraceptive pill 'a step closer'

Article here. Excerpt:

'A male contraceptive pill has been the holy grail of fertility scientists, but one that has proved frustratingly elusive.

Compared with developing a female pill, designing a male version is a far more difficult process. Most approaches have relied on hormonal targets or rendering sperm dysfunctional. One major problem is ensuring that every one of the millions of sperm cells produced by a man is stopped from carrying out its job of fertilising the female egg, because it takes only one sperm to produce a baby.
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The mice appeared normal and did not suffer any side-effects that would make such a treatment unthinkable for humans. They were also able to father normal offspring, after having sperm extracted from their testes and injected into female eggs.

Adrenoceptor-blocking drugs are already in widespread use as treatments for benign prostate hyperplasia (BPH) – non-cancerous prostate enlargement – and high blood pressure, the researchers pointed out.

"Development of only a suitable P2X1-purinoceptor antagonist [blocker] is required before this pharmacological strategy for male contraception can be trialled," they added.'