 It
was around the time Vancouver physician Dr Neil Pollock
performed his 300th vasectomy in 1999 that he started
wondering if there wasn't a better method of birth control
he could offer his patients.
"The need for an implantable, reversible
contraceptive device for men became obvious after some
brainstorming about how I could really take male contraception
to the next level," he says.
It's been a long slog, but it seems
Dr Pollock is one step closer to realizing his dream.
The male contraceptive 'plug' —
dubbed the Intra Vas Device (IVD) — he developed
with two colleagues has just received a $1.7 million
($1.4 million US) grant from the US National Institutes
of Health for human clinical trials. The trials are
slated to begin this year in Seattle.
The IVD is a hollow, flexible silicone
plug roughly 1.2mm in diameter and 2cm long. It is inserted
into the vas deferens tubes through an opening made
by a needle and then proceeds to block sperm flow. To
reverse the procedure another small opening is made,
the plug is extracted and sperm flow is re-established.
LONG
ROAD TO IVD
Getting to this point hasn't been easy for the former
family doctor. Dr Pollock, who has four flourishing
Vancouver-area vasectomy clinics, scoured the research
and discovered that Chicago-based reproductive medicine
expert Dr Larry Zaneveld had patented a device in the
1980s, but research had stalled because of funding problems.
After calling Dr Zaneveld, Dr Pollock
was told that a group of businessmen from Minneapolis
had also recently been in touch. They decided to get
all the interested parties together and form a company,
Shepherd Medical. Dr Zaneveld's device was revived with
some alterations by Dr Pollock and fellow Canadian vasectomy
researcher Dr Michel Labrecque of Laval University.
Prior testing by Dr Zaneveld in
animals showed the device to be effective, with 100%
reversibility demonstrated in primates. Dr Pollock and
Dr Labrecque began testing the device on their patients,
made some more adjustments and filed for new patents.
If all goes well with the two-site
18-month clinical trial on 90 men, and regulatory approval
is secured, Dr Pollock predicts the IVD could be available
in Europe in four years and North America shortly thereafter.
He has some fairly lofty aspirations for the device.
"The IVD could play a role in helping with the spiralling
birth control problem throughout the world," predicts
Dr Pollock.
Likely to be a hit with women
and men alike, the IVD could also earn Dr Pollock's
company a pretty penny — their market research
indicates a potential annual haul of $384 million ($310
million US) in the US alone.
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