As a healthcare provider, your perspective matters in the movement to advance the field of multipurpose prevention technologies (MPTs). Physicians, nurses, community health workers, pharmacists, and other healthcare providers are critical “gatekeepers” of health products and information with their clients and in their communities, and thus they have a big impact on their patients’ health behaviors and outcomes. Fostering a trustworthy healthcare environment has been linked to increased comfort levels and better patient health, as well as increased medication adherence.  You will be on the frontlines of ensuring the success of MPTs once they hit the market – giving patients access to such products and helping them with correct and consistent use.

In the early 1990’s, I met a young woman named Gelete. I was working as part of an HIV prevention team along the Sudanese border of Ethiopia, and Gelete was one of our team’s most committed local volunteers working to implement our condom distribution program. Growing up, she dreamed of becoming a physician and attending medical school—but, at age 16, she was raped by her teacher, became pregnant and was then ostracized and abandoned by her own family. With no support and a baby to feed, she moved to a small town to work on a coffee plantation. Since coffee bean harvesting is seasonal work with few other opportunities available in the off season, Gelete joined other young women in similar situations exchanging money for sex to survive.

Incorporating what women want into new sexual and reproductive health products is essential

We at PATH make it our business to reflect on the elusive topic of ‘what women want’—in terms of protection options in their sexual and reproductive lives. Not surprisingly, the answer is complex. Women want and need different things at different stages of their lifecycle, depending on the circumstances of their lives.

Leveraging its experience developing the first vaginal ring and long-acting product shown to help prevent HIV, the nonprofit International Partnership for Microbicides is now developing a three-month vaginal ring designed to reduce women’s HIV risk and prevent unplanned pregnancy. This innovative multipurpose prevention technology would offer women a discreet option to protect their sexual and reproductive health on their own terms.

The Road

6 years; 12 Million Dollars.

When the founders of the Female Health Company (FHC) began conceptualizing the female condom in 1996, they wanted to create a product that would impact society as well as benefit investors. Little did they know that it would be a long road to develop a market for the female condom.