YourChoice banks $15M for male birth control

YourChoice Therapeutics, a Berkeley, Calif. startup developing birth control for sperm-producers, banked $15 million in Series A funds, CEO Akash Bakshi tells Axios.

Why it matters: The recent curtailment of women's reproductive rights has placed a renewed focus on the importance of male contraceptives. YourChoice wants to be the first company to enter the clinic with an investigational non-hormonal contraceptive for men, per Endpoints News.

• "I think male contraception is especially important now that Roe has been overturned," Bakshi says.

The backstory: When the YourChoice team first got to work on a new kind of birth control back in 2018, they intended to create a side-effect-free women's contraceptive.

• But fast-forward several years and they realized the drug they were designing could be taken by men.
• And now, the company has shown its molecule works as a contraceptive in mice and non-human primates, Bakshi says.

Deal details: Future Ventures led and Refactor, Knollwood, North South Ventures, RH Capital and Olive Tree Capital participated.

What's next: YourChoice aims to conduct its first human trials sometime before next summer, says Bakshi.

• "The goal is to dose the first human in the first half of 2023," he says.