Female Health’s condom available, no U.S. retail yet

Female Health Co’s new version of its female condom is now available to state health agencies and nonprofit organizations, but the company is still trying to make it more widely available in stores.

The condom, known as FC2, will cost about 30 percent less than the original version at less than a dollar apiece, the company said on Thursday.

FC2, approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in March, will be available at Washington, D.C.-area CVS stores in December, Female Health’s senior strategic adviser Mary Ann Leeper told Reuters. Female Health is still seeking a marketing partner to help advertise and sell the product and is in talks with several companies, she added.

“We need the other company to really make a dent into the consumer market,” she said.

The original female condom never had a large following in the United States, where consumers complained it made too much noise and spoiled intimacy. The FC2 uses a new, softer material that the company says is quieter and should be more acceptable.

But the female condom is used widely overseas, especially in countries hard-hit by HIV, where women see it as a way to protect themselves even if their male partners won’t. The U.S. Agency for International Development, which lobbied for the FC2’s approval, has said it plans to distribute it for global programs that aim to curb HIV.

U.S. state health departments and organizations such as Planned Parenthood can also buy it for their programs, which the company hopes will start to spread the word about the product’s improvements.

While FC2 may face an uphill battle at the retail level, it could see greater use with its new lower price.

The original female condom retailed for as much as $4 each. The new material and manufacturing have lowered the price of the new version from distributors to no more than 82 cents per condom, the company said. Male condoms, available in a variety of brands and styles, can cost as little as 50 cents apiece.

Representatives for CVS Caremark Corp, which operates CVS stores, could not be immediately reached for comment.

Shares of Female Health were down 5.7 percent to $4.76 in afternoon trading on Nasdaq.

Female Healths condom , Female Healths condom Health, Female Healths condom Health Latest, Female Healths condom Health Information, Female Healths condom Health information, Female Healths condom Health Photo,Female Healths condom for Weight Health photo, Female Healths condom Health Latest, Female Healths condom Health latest, Female Healths condom for Weight Health Story, Female Healths condom Video, Female Healths condom video, Female Healths condom Health History, Female Healths condom Health history, Female Healths condom over Picture, history, Female Healths condom Asia, Female Healths condom asia, Female Healths condom Gallery, Female Healths condom for Weight gallery, Female Healths condom Photo Gallery, Female Healths condom Picture, Female Healths condom picture, Female Healths condom Web, Malaysia Health, web Health, web Health picture, video photo, video surgery, gallery, laparoscopy, virus, flu, drug, video, Health Health, calories, photo, nutrition, health video, symptoms, cancer, medical, beating, diet, physical, Training, organic, gym, blister, exercise, weightloss, surgery, spiritual, eating, tips, skin, operation, bf1

The robot is a dramatic example of the marriage of biotechnology with nanotechnology

Tiny robots powered by living muscle have been created by scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles.

The devices were formed by “growing” rat cells on microscopic silicon chips, the researchers report in the journal Nature Materials.

Less than a millimetre long, the miniscule robots can move themselves without any external source of power.

The work is a dramatic example of the marriage of biotechnology with the tiny world of nanotechnology.

In nanotechnology, researchers often turn to the natural world for inspiration.

But Professor Carlo Montemagno, of the University of California, Los Angeles, turns to nature not for ideas, but for actual starting materials.

In the past he has made rotary nano-motors out of genetically engineered proteins. Now he has grown muscle tissue onto tiny robotic skeletons.

Living device

Montemano’s team used rat heart cells to create a tiny device that moves on its own when the cells contract. A second device looks like a minute pair of frog legs.

“The bones that we’re using are either a plastic or they’re silicon based,” he said. “So we make these really fine structures that mechanically have hinges that allow them to move and bend.

“And then by nano-scale manipulation of the surface chemistry, the muscle cells get the cues to say, ‘Oh! I want to attach at this point and not to attach at another point’. And so the cells assemble, then they undergo a change, so that they actually form a muscle.

“Now you have a device that has a skeleton and muscles on it to allow it to move.”

Under a microscope, you can see the tiny, two-footed “bio-bots” crawl around.

Professor Montemagno says muscles like these could be used in a host of microscopic devices – even to drive miniature electrical generators to power computer chips.

But when biological cells become attached to silicon – are they alive?

“They’re absolutely alive,” Professor Montemagno told BBC News. “I mean the cells actually grow, multiply and assemble – they form the structure themselves. So the device is alive.”

The notion is likely to disturb many who already have concerns about nanotechnology.

But for Carlo Montemagno, a professor of engineering, it makes sense to match the solutions that nature has already found through billions of years of evolution to the newest challenges in technology.

Health BF1

Tag Archives: can

Female Health’s condom available, no U.S. retail yet

Female Health’s condom available, no U.S. retail yet

Fructose Corn Syrup

Myth: high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is making us fat

Living robots powered by muscle