African woman holding a baby

Access to reliable contraception

The International Contraceptive Access (ICA) Foundation was established in December 2003 and is a collaboration between Bayer AG, a world-wide leading specialty pharmaceutical company, and Population Council, an international nonprofit nongovernmental organization. The objective of the Foundation is to provide local service-delivery organizations with the levonorgestrel releasing intrauterine system (LNG IUS) contraceptive devices on a not-for-profit basis and ultimately serve the reproductive needs of women in resource-poor settings, primarily in low- and middle-income countries. The ICA Foundation has donated nearly 250,000 LNG IUS to projects in 47 countries. Projects include collaborations with local not-for-profit organizations, hospitals, and global partners with a network of service delivery facilities. Donation recipients work through a variety of means to provide women access to contraceptive options and quality family planning services. As the Foundation’s focus is service delivery, product donations for biomedical research purposes, including clinical trials, are not accepted.

New York and Berlin (4 may 2004)

The Population Council Joins Forces with Schering to Establish the International Contraceptive Access Foundation

The Population Council, an international, nonprofit, nongovernmental research organization, and the Schering AG Group [now Bayer AG] announced today that its Finnish subsidiary, Schering Oy, has established the International Contraceptive Access (ICA) Foundation. The ICA Foundation will provide selected public-sector organizations with a levonorgestrel-releasing intrauterine system (LNG IUS) on a not-for-profit basis to help serve the needs of women and families in resource-poor settings, primarily in developing countries. The Foundation will be managed by a board of trustees comprising representatives from the Population Council, several international public organizations, and Bayer AG. The board members will annually select organizations and programs to which the products will be donated or sold at a reduced price. The first distributions of the LNG IUS are expected to start later this year. “Both the Population Council and Schering hope that this Foundation will help to increase the availability of this excellent contraceptive method to women with few financial resources,” said Population Council Vice President Sandra Arnold, Director of Corporate Affairs for the organization and President of the ICA Foundation. “We are proud to be associated with the Population Council and with other very reputable international organizations through the Foundation,” said Matti Urho, Executive Vice President at Schering Oy and member of the board of trustees of the ICA Foundation. “Through the activities of the foundation, more women in developing countries will benefit from this innovative method of contraception.” The Population Council has developed numerous contraceptive and reproductive health products since its establishment in 1952. In licensing these products to pharmaceutical companies for manufacturing, marketing, and distribution, the Council always includes provisions for public-sector access, thereby making Council-developed products more readily available to women worldwide. Read more about the Population Council Center for Biomedical Research