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The options available to women who wish to avoid getting pregnant today are bad. Most, like the widely used contraceptive pill, give women estrogens and human-made progestogen hormones that can cause many side effects.
YourChoice Therapeutics – a start-up launched by a team of Berkeley researchers, including two experts in sperm physiology and sperm-egg interactions – dreams of producing a non-hormonal unibad alternative to existing contraceptives. The company has raised $ 400,000 so far, as well as a $ 150,000 check from Y Combinator. YourChoice will make its big launch at Y Combinator Demo Days next week.
She is seeking $ 2 million in venture capital funding to continue her research on her new sperm-targeted contraceptive method and to strengthen her team of chemists. Founders Akash Bakshi and Nadja Mannowetz told TechCrunch that they planned to have a contraceptive ready to be marketed by 2025. Together with the co-founder and advisor, Dr. Polina V. Lishko of Cellular and Molecular Biology Department of Berkeley, they hope to reach men and women. worldwide, this market is expected to reach $ 37 billion by 2023.
"We could maybe cut that time in half or just put something on the market," said Bakshi, President and CEO of YourChoice, specializing in the commercialization, research and development of technologies in the science sector. life. "But we must do it right so we can benefit as many women as possible."
Their first product will be a badl contraceptive to be applied before bad, then the start-up plans to release oral contraceptives for both bades. The team discovered that the natural compound, lupeol, is able to block a protein on the sperm needed for fertilization. Your choiceThe non-hormonal approach of S does not affect the ability of cells to function or gene expression. As a result, women and men are not at increased risk of blood clots, cancer, or other side effects badociated with the use of additional hormones through conventional birth control methods. . .
"In the end, men do not have good options and women apparently have a lot of choices, but they are all very bad," said Mannowetz, Ph.D. in sperm physiology, TechCrunch said. "They are all based on this idea of over 60 years of hormone-based drugs."
YourChoice's first product will be applied directly into the bad during the period of the month in which the woman is fertile. Whether it is a tablet, a gel or some other form factor, it still remains to be done in the air. YourChoice's second product will be an oral contraceptive because they think it's the most convenient and accepted method for everyone.
"For women who have an implant … I understand that this might be a step back, but women who take the pill for decades, for them, it would not be a big change," said Mannowetz. "We fully understand that we will not serve all women, but we must start with a product and then take it from there."
"If the last 60 years have taught us anything, it is that delivery can continue to be developed," she continued. "We must develop a new mode of action."
TechCrunch has written that many startups are innovating in the field of contraception, although most of these companies focus on the problem of access. Birth control can be very difficult for many and startups like The Pill Club or Nurx solve this problem by delivering the pill directly to women's doors. Other early stage companies in the sector lack the experts in reproductive biology needed to improve contraceptive options. The YourChoice team says that looking for changes in the drug with an advanced team sets them apart from other upstarts.
For YourChoice, it is useful for venture capital investments in the reproductive technology space to increase, which is a great time for YC to support these businesses (YourChoice is not the only startup in reproduction in the last cohort of YC) and for your choice to succeed. private investment.
"I personally think that the industry is satisfied. they are really making a lot of money, right? So why should they change anything, "said Mannowetz. "The millennial generation is the starting point of change. I think now that women are getting up and saying, "We have enough."
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