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Contraceptive Rings:
More Options for Women
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| Bottom row,
left to right: Shu-Chen Chen, James Sailer,
Horacio Croxatto. Middle row: Jose Caragol,
Claudia Robles, Andromaco general manager Andrés
Rudolphy. Back row: Pedro Lopez de Maturana,
Fernando Mella, Sandra Arnold, Ricardo Bitran. |
In late July, Horacio Croxatto, a member of the Council’s International Committee for
Contraception Research, Sandra Arnold, vice president of Corporate
Affairs, and James Sailer, senior director of Corporate Affairs, toured
Andromaco Laboratories’ pharmaceutical plant in Santiago, Chile. The
Council representatives were in Chile to discuss plans with Andromaco
executives for the registration, manufacture, marketing, and
distribution of the Council’s progesterone ring, which has been approved
for use in Chile and Peru as a contraceptive for women who are
breastfeeding.At 22 sites in eight
countries, the Council’s collaborating partners are conducting a
large-scale efficacy trial of another vaginal contraceptive ring that
employs Nestorone®, a versatile synthetic progestin similar
to the natural hormone progesterone. Nestorone is not active when
administered orally and can be used alone or in combination with
estrogen, making it an ideal agent for novel approaches for delivery of
contraceptives or hormone therapy. Women using the Nestorone ring will
insert it vaginally, leave it in place for three weeks, take it out for
one week, and then reinsert it. Steroids in the ring are released slowly
and absorbed through the vaginal wall into the blood stream to inhibit
ovulation. Insertion and removal are entirely under the woman’s control.
The ring can be reused for a full year, which means that women,
especially women in developing countries where access to reproductive
health care is limited, only need to visit a doctor annually.
Council scientists are
also engaged in early safety trials for delivering Nestorone
transdermally via gels or sprays.
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