Contraline has closed a $92.5m Series B financing round to take its topical male contraceptive to late-stage trials – potentially positioning the company with a first-to-market advantage in the male contraceptive market.
The funding, which was co-led by RA Capital Management and BVF partners, while featuring contributions from Google Ventures, Lumira Ventures and others, will help fund Contraline’s late-stage development programme for its hormonal, once-daily, topical contraceptive called NES/T Gel, which is designed to suppress sperm production while maintaining testosterone levels in the body.
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NES/T combines Nestorone (segesterone acetate), a synthetic progestin used as an approved female contraceptive, with testosterone. Contraline has already tested NES/T in a Phase IIb trial, which proved the treatment to be efficacious, tolerable and reversible among 462 couples.
With this positive data in hand, Contraline hopes to initiate a Phase III trial of NES/T in 2027, which Iris van Alderwerelt van Rosenburgh, investment analyst at BVF Partners and new Contraline board member, said could position the drug to become the first approved pharmacological contraceptive for men, offering a potentially “meaningful step” towards boosting options for men and couples worldwide.
Laura Stoppel, partner at RA Capital Management, added that male contraception has “long been an overlooked area”, meaning solutions like NES/T hold the potential to “redefine what reproductive choice can look like by giving men a more active role in family planning”.
Alongside its efforts around NES/T, Contraline is also developing a range of other male contraceptives, including ADAM – a long-lasting, non-hormonal, reversible solution designed to block sperm from travelling through the sperm duct, while allowing fluid to pass.
Reproductive health laws shift
Contraline secures this financing as abortion laws in the US tighten, with 11 states now deeming it an illegal procedure, according to data from the Center for Reproductive Rights.
However, in October 2025, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a generic version of the commonly used abortion pill, mifepristone, which divided opinions amongst right-wing, anti-abortion activists and abortion rights supporters. Mifepristone would also prove to be a contributing factor to the departure of the agency’s former commissioner, Marty Makary, in May 2026, after Makary and the Trump administration failed to see eye-to-eye on the drug’s accessibility, as well as fruit-flavoured e-cigarettes.
In a recent development involving mifepristone, the Supreme Court blocked a lower court’s order to require in-person dispensing of the drug, continuing the status quo and allowing patients to receive the drug via post. This came after the state of Louisiana sued the FDA in October 2025 to try to curtail the agency’s rules on the remote prescription of mifepristone, due to the state’s claims that it interfered with its abortion ban.
