Organon shelves con­tra­cep­tive with 'nat­u­ral' es­tro­gen

Organon’s at­tempt to re­vive a once-re­ject­ed “nat­ur­al” con­tra­cep­tive is over, a spokesper­son con­firmed to End­points News.

The Mer­ck women’s health spin­off has ter­mi­nat­ed a Phase III tri­al for NO­MAC-E2 ear­ly due to “busi­ness rea­sons,” the spokesper­son said. The com­pa­ny said the de­ci­sion was un­re­lat­ed to the drug’s safe­ty.

NO­MAC-E2 was de­vel­oped by Ther­amex, a women’s health busi­ness that was once part of Mer­ck KGaA and Te­va. The can­di­date has been tout­ed as a “nat­ur­al” al­ter­na­tive to oth­er con­tra­cep­tives us­ing syn­thet­ic es­tro­gen, be­cause it con­tains a ver­sion of the hor­mone that’s struc­tural­ly iden­ti­cal to es­tro­gen pro­duced in the body.

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