Lybrel, a drug from Madison, New Jersey-based company Wyeth would be the first pill to be taken continuously and the fourth new oral contraceptive that does not follow the standard schedule of 21 daily active pills, followed by seven sugar pills, a formula used to imitate a woman's monthly cycle.
Other such pills in this category include Yaz and Loestrin 24, which shorten monthly periods to three days or less and Seasonique, an updated version of Seasonale that reduces them to four times a year.
Lybrel means to evoke "liberty," and was designed following a steady increase in women asking how to limit or completely stop their monthly periods. The new pill is expected to be launched in July, although Wyeth says it will market the drug to doctors first.
Many experts also believe that the suppression of monthly periods is unnatural and that there's not enough data to determine if it is safe in the long-term. On the other hand, some doctors believe that monthly periods are not necessary and can even rather trigger health problems like anemia or epilepsy.
The new pill claims to not only suppresses woman's periods but also reduces 17 related symptoms, from irritability to bloating, based on one small study. The pill contains the lowest dose of two hormones widely used in birth-control pills, ethinyl estradiol and levonorgestrel.
