The Male Contraceptive Initiative interviewed Ed Gillis about male contraception — especially Vasalgel. As CEO of Revolution Contraceptives, the social venture developing Vasalgel, Ed shared his thoughts about the challenges and promise of new male contraceptive development. Funding remains one of the main hurdles, but Ed expressed encouragement given how many individual advocates and physicians… Read more
Elaine Lissner, founder of the Parsemus Foundation, recently participated in an ideation workshop in San Francisco for the Male Contraceptive Initiative (MCI). The goal of the workshop, which was moderated by IDEO, was to gather key stakeholders and use design thinking to explore the biggest challenges and opportunities facing male contraceptive development. Seventy-two individuals representing… Read more
The Parsemus Foundation began working on a new male contraceptive called Vasalgel a number of years ago. In 2013, Revolution Contraceptives was formed as a social venture company to develop Vasalgel and bring it to market. Revolution Contraceptives has grown over the last couple of years to meet the increasingly diverse and complex demands related… Read more
Revolution Contraceptives received a $200,000 grant from the Male Contraceptive Initiative (MCI) to advance Vasalgel towards human trials. The grant will support preclinical studies that will evaluate contraceptive effectiveness, procedural simplicity, reversibility, and safety. This proof-of-concept study will build on results from earlier preclinical studies and should support a future application for clinical trials in… Read more
Ed Gillis, CEO of Revolution Contraceptives, the social venture company tasked with developing Vasalgel for Parsemus Foundation, traveled to Paris this spring to exchange ideas with other male contraceptive innovators at the second International Congress on Male Contraception. He aimed to network with others in the field, learn about other male contraceptives in development, and… Read more
Vasalgel made the Daily Beast’s list of the medical advances in 2017 that “are going to not only dramatically transform how we think about the birds and the bees but also the very way we think about reproduction.” In the December 25, 2017 article by senior science editor Tanya Basu, Vasalgel was heralded as the frontrunner… Read more
Usually, the development of a medical device happens out of the public eye, but in our case, we have shared information with the public and have gathered a large and wonderful group of Vasalgel followers. Their support enables the Vasalgel team to demonstrate that men are ready and willing to use a new male contraceptive…. Read more
How will the availability of new male contraceptive options impact the number of unintended pregnancies? Researchers recently created a model to answer that question in a paper published in Contraception. They focused the analysis on three countries (United States, South Africa and Nigeria) which differed by the type and rate of contraceptive use. By analyzing… Read more
This year has been especially busy for the Vasalgel program — and ramping up to clinical trials over the next year will require all our focus. This is a critical time in the development pathway. We will do our best to communicate our progress to you and will keep the FAQ updated. You can always… Read more
Good news for Vasalgel! Ed Gillis has joined the team as CEO of Revolution Contraceptives, LLC, the social venture company that is developing Vasalgel under the umbrella of Parsemus Foundation. Ed has a history of leadership in early-stage medical companies, most recently as CEO and CTO at ReVENT Medical, Inc. — a company he founded…. Read more