By: HISTORY.com Editors

1960

FDA approves “the pill”

Display of Birth Control Pill Packs

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Published: February 09, 2010

Last Updated: May 27, 2025

On May 9, 1960, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves the world’s first commercially produced birth-control pill—Enovid-10, made by the G.D. Searle Company of Chicago, Illinois.

Development of “the pill,” as it became popularly known, was initially commissioned by birth-control pioneer Margaret Sanger and funded by heiress Katherine McCormick. Sanger, who opened the first birth-control clinic in the United States in 1916, hoped to encourage the development of a more practical and effective alternative to contraceptives that were in use at the time.

In the early 1950s, Gregory Pincus, a biochemist at the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology, and John Rock, a gynecologist at Harvard Medical School, began work on a birth-control pill. Clinical tests of the pill, which used synthetic progesterone and estrogen to repress ovulation in women, were initiated in 1954. On May 9, 1960, the FDA approved the pill, granting greater reproductive freedom to American women.

Birth Control

A look at some common, and not so common contraceptives.

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Citation Information

Article title
FDA approves “the pill”
Website Name
History
Date Accessed
June 06, 2025
Publisher
A&E Television Networks
Last Updated
May 27, 2025
Original Published Date
February 09, 2010

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