More than a quarter of pregnancies worldwide are unintended. Between 1995 and 2000, nearly 700,000 women died and many more experienced illness, injury, and disability as a result of unintended pregnancy. Children born from unplanned conception are at greater risk of being born at a low birth-weight, of being abused, and of not receiving sufficient resources for healthy development. A wider range of contraceptive options is needed to address the changing needs of the populations of the world across the reproductive life cycle, but this unmet need has not been a major priority of the research community and pharmaceutical industry.
New Frontiers in Contraceptive Research: A Blueprint for Action identifies priority areas for research to develop new contraceptives. The report highlights new technologies and approaches to biomedical research, including genomics and proteomics, that hold particular promise for developing new products and also identifies impediments to drug development that must be addressed.
Research sponsors, both public and private, will find topics of interest among the recommendations, which are diverse but interconnected and important for improving the range of contraceptive products, their efficacy, and their acceptability.