Contraception

The Population Council is testing a new contraceptive device, a vaginal ring, that would provide one year's worth of contraception for the woman. There is a ring already on the market, the NuvaRing, whose awful commercials you may have seen. If not, you can see them here. http://www.nuvaring.com/consumer/global/tvcommercial.asp

The NuvaRing only works for one month, though, so it is both more expensive and involves more trips to the doctor.

The ring technology is important because it may be used for other issues in the future. Next week I will attend a conference on microbicides (which block transmission of HIV), and the "gold" standard would be to get a microbicide into a ring, so you could have both contraception and HIV protection.

However, the most popular presentation today was from one of the senior researchers attending (not a Pop Council person), who discussed a study on what happens to one of our compounds (a vaginal gel) when a woman has intercourse. The couples involved in the study had to go to the clinic, provide various samples, then go to a nearby hotel to have sex. They then returned to the clinic for testing of the pharmacokinetics of the compound. This scenario is somewhat familiar to anyone who has had IVF, I'm sure, but even in this group of experienced contraceptive researchers, the discussion provoked several laughs.