DESOGESTREL for endometriosis
Desogestrel is annotated as a progesterone receptor agonist clinical candidate for endometriosis per Open Targets.
Hypothesized mechanism
Desogestrel activates the progesterone receptor, which may suppress the estrogen-driven proliferation of endometrial tissue characteristic of endometriosis.
This is the model’s proposed mechanism from the sources on file, not a demonstrated causal pathway. How well the published record supports it is reflected in the rigor and plausibility dimensions of the score, and traced to the verbatim sources at the foot of the page.
How the score was reached, for this pair
The composite score is the sum of five dimensions, each scored 0 to 2 by the model from the evidence on file. Below is the sub-score this specific pair received on each, with what that dimension measures. It scored 4.5 of 10 overall, a emerging reading, from a pathway rated emerging in strength.
The model’s overall reasoning for this pair is the summary at the top of the page, and the mechanism it proposed is in the section above.
Scored for women. Female representation not stated — applicability to women uncertain (flagged for full text). (band F4, ×0.75).
Corroboration
Only a single mechanistic line is presented: a database annotation that desogestrel is a progesterone receptor agonist candidate for endometriosis. No independent converging lines of evidence are cited.
Rigor
The claim is sourced from Open Targets, a curated database, rather than from experimental human-relevant data. It reflects a clinical-candidate annotation with unknown clinical stage, giving only moderate, non-experimental support.
Specificity
The mechanism is precisely defined: desogestrel acts as a progesterone receptor agonist on the progesterone receptor target, a specific named target-action pairing per Open Targets.
Plausibility
Progesterone receptor agonism is a well-established and mechanistically plausible target for endometriosis, an estrogen-driven progesterone-modulated condition. The target-phenotype fit is strong.
Consistency
With only one claim and one mechanistic signal, the evidence is not internally contradictory but cannot demonstrate convergence across multiple signals. Consistency cannot be strongly established from a single source.
Layers not covered for this pair
Not covered for this pair. This layer holds documented sex-specific pharmacokinetics for a limited set of drugs, and this compound is not among them yet. A blank here means the drug is not covered by the layer, not that no sex difference exists.
More on the sex-specific pharmacokinetics layer and its sources →Not covered for this pair. The cycle-phase layer is seeded for the strongest-evidence cases so far (PMDD), and this pair is not among them yet. A blank here means the pair is not covered by the layer, not that the effect was found to be phase-independent.
More on the cycle-phase layer and its sources →Source evidence · what the pipeline ingested
These are the sources the pipeline ingested to detect and score this signal, the published literature the model actually read, each tagged by study type. Where the model combined findings the claim is marked as a synthesis (S), and where the literature disagrees the contradiction is shown (!).
Every source below belongs to this signal’s evidence arm, Pathway insights. Whel reads each drug-condition pair through four such arms, each held to its own inclusion bar; a signal is surfaced through one of them.
- 1Per Open Targets (retrieved 2026-06-16), DESOGESTREL (a Small molecule) is a clinical candidate for endometriosis (maximum clinical stage UNKNOWN); its mechanism of action is Progesterone receptor agonist on target progesterone receptor. Open Targets · mechanistic ↗
- 2In FDA AEMS (the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System, formerly FAERS; retrieved 2026-06-16), 182 report(s) of ABDOMINAL PAIN were recorded for DESOGESTREL among female patients (of 3470 female reports for DESOGESTREL in the analysed sample). This is a raw adverse-event report count, not a disproportionality statistic or evidence of causation, and is subject to reporting bias and confounding. Read two ways: as a safety consideration, and — because it suggests DESOGESTREL acts on a system relevant to endometriosis — as a mechanistic lead for further investigation, not evidence of benefit. AEMS · adverse-event report ↗
These are the verbatim sources the pipeline surfaced and read; they may not be the full published record for a pair, and the score reflects the strength and agreement of the evidence rather than its volume. The strength of these source types is what the rigor dimension of the score reads off. MATRIX, sex-specific pharmacokinetics, and cycle phase are separate layers the pipeline does not ingest, external cross-references reported beside the score, and they link to their own sources in their sections above.
The primary sources and pipelines this evidence is drawn from →