A trailblazer in the nascent male contraceptive market picked up nearly $100 million in funding this week.
Contraline closed a $92.5 million Series B financing round on Tuesday, bringing its fundraising total to $127 million. The round was led by BVF Partners and RA Capital Management, with participation from GV (Google Ventures), Lumira Ventures and Invus.
The Virginia-based company was founded in 2015. It spent the first decade of its existence developing ADAM, a contraceptive gel implanted into the vas deferens during an in-office procedure — and last year, Contraline introduced another male birth control product into its pipeline. The second candidate is a once-daily topical gel called NES/T.
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This means Contraline is now a portfolio company rather than a single-product business, noted CEO Kevin Eisenfrats.
“With female contraception, you have different products available to women. We want to do the same thing for men. We want to have something that’s easy to use on a daily basis, which is our NES/T product, and then something that uses the implantable ‘set-and-forget’ method — kind of like an IUD, but for men, which is our ADAM product,” he explained.
While ADAM is expected to enter a Phase 2 trial next year, Eisenfratz said that most of Contraline’s new funding will support NES/T’s Phase 3 program.
NES/T is closer to market because it already has extensive clinical data, including a large Phase 2b trial in which 462 couples participated, he stated. The company expects to begin the Phase 3 study next year.
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Eisenfratz argued there is a huge commercial opportunity for both products. For decades, men have had only two contraceptive options — condoms and vasectomy — leaving the market pretty much untapped. Contraline has accumulated a waiting list of more than 22,000 men interested in new contraceptive options despite doing no advertising, which he cited as evidence of significant pent-up demand.
One investor backing Contraline — Laura Stoppel, partner at RA Capital Management — echoed the fact that male contraception has historically been overlooked.
“Contraline is helping redefine what reproductive choice can look like by giving men a more active role in family planning and expanding options for couples who may not be well served by existing contraceptives. We’re excited to be a part of this new chapter in reproductive health,” she said in a statement.
Eisenfratz thinks investors are drawn to Contraline not only by the market opportunity, but also by the strength of the company’s clinical data.
NES/T’s 2b trial demonstrated encouraging results in terms of efficacy, tolerability and reversibility, he said. And the company released data last year showing that ADAM remained safe and effective two years after implantation.
Eisenfratz said Contraline has not yet set firm timelines for FDA submissions for either product.
“Now that we’re well financed, we’re going to be working as quickly as possible to get these products on the market,” he remarked.
Photo: Hector Roqueta Rivero, Getty Images