The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) have three new funding opportunity announcements pertaining to contraceptive development. Brief descriptions of each and links to more information are provided below.
This exploratory and developmental phase award is designed to encourage in-vivo research on the chemical features that enable non-native molecules to pass across the blood-testis and/or the blood-epidydimal barriers. Current validated male contraceptive targets are localized and do not reach full systemic circulation due to the semi-permeable nature of these barriers. As such, this research could help to achieve systemic circulation.
This award offers access to the NICHD’s Biological Testing Facility in order to advance non-hormonal contraception development. The facility has the capacity for preclinical and Investigational Device Exemption (IDE) or Investigational New Drug (IND)-enabling studies. The primary goal of this award is to enable an IND/IDE study of a preclinical candidate that acts non-hormonally.
This Research Project Grant seeks to enable the development of multipurpose prevention technologies (MPTs) that prevent pregnancy and HIV infection, or pregnancy and STI infection. This award may be used for pharmacokinetic, pharmacodynamic, safety, and drug-drug interaction studies as well as formulation science supported by animal model testing. It can also support biobehavioral studies that identify user-desired factors of potential MPTs.