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You see Bill Gates wanting safer sex in these click-bait articles, you know, so obviously I'm going to look at it. And if I hadn't seen that link… yeah, it was just, hey, let's try it .When did you go from let's explore this to, yeah, we've got a condom on our hands?
I should clarify: we don't have condoms yet. We're still in the materials evaluation stage.We've seen materials in our arsenal that sort of have the properties of latex. We came up with a plan for how to test them. This is what we proposed to the Foundation, and what we got our grant money for: Basically, there are hundreds of these variations to play around with. We need some that adhere to some specific mechanical and biological properties. It's got to be stretchy and tough and obviously not break, and we have to be able to prevent against the transfer of bacteria, viruses, and sperm.
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I say hydrogels and people gloss over. You may be wearing a type of hydrogel right now—you're wearing a contact lens? Well that's very similar to some of the materials we're looking at.Typically hydrogels are very brittle. These tough hydrogels are much tougher. You can stretch them, pull them, there are some videos online where you can drive trucks over some of these materials. They have the properties a bit like wet plastic, but they feel and act more like real skin.The advantage of them is that hydrogels have been used for decades to do things like deliver drugs or help to regrow cells. What we're thinking we can do is invent lubrication inside the condom instead of putting a lubricant on the outside, which is necessary in latex. What if we can put it inside the condom and have it release when you need it? In the same way, you might be able to put drugs in them. Viagra is a good example. There are already condoms that are coated in Viagra, but to help with delivery. And not only those agents but things to fight against STIs—instead of putting a coating on, you could put them inside the condom itself. And with latex, if you put a glove on, you're always going to feel a glove, no matter what. But when you put these on, they're hardly perceptible. It's kind of amazing. And you wouldn't have latex allergies. They're perfectly clear so it might be a visual benefit. All of these things.
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I wouldn't call it a miracle material. It's definitely very new.I think the biggest downside is that this class of hydrogels has only been around for the last ten years or so. When you're talking about attempting to disrupt a whole industry based on latex, the limitation is that they're not known, there's not the supply chain there to make them as cost effective as they could be down the line. And right now we're not exactly sure—we're growing more confident every day that the research is showing that they could be applicable materials—but we can't be sure right now.I think if you make something that feels like it's not there and delivers Viagra and lube mix-sex, you just might stand a chance of finding a market share, though.
Absolutely. We're also exploring, what is feel. There's a lot about the perception that condoms limit sensation that's not actually about the material itself, but about having to put it on, or visual cues, or things like that. So some of these things about condoms not feeling good may not be able to be overcome with just a material change. But if we can make them feel better, we certainly have an idea we can revolutionize with.If you're working with a new material, couldn't you change the form of condoms? Like the liquid Band-Aid of condoms or something like that?
There was a spray-on condom at one point. But there were a whole bunch of issues with those. I think with the spray-on condom the issue was that nobody wanted to put their member in the box, where you couldn't see what was going on.
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Well, I mean they say, we're going to spray your member with some kind of crazy thing …I don't know if we're going to change [the form] that much. But the material can be used in so many different ways. We could print these materials. It's very flexible in its ability to be formed and molded and make these different structures. And potentially there's someone out there with this crazy idea, wow, I'm going to reinvent the condom in a whole new way . This material could still be used for that.
There's been a bit of press about graphene condoms. I'm a founder of a grapheme start-up company. I know about grapheme, so there's an interesting concept there.A lot of the work I've seen is based more on different additives for enhancing sensation or Viagra substitutes and whatnot. Things that would encourage people to use them more. And even some designs that would make the application of them easier. There's an Origami Condom where it goes on in a second and it's got these ridges on it.When the foundation put out the grant, there were about 1,700 applicants. Everyone's interested in new condom solutions because there's obviously a need. And if there are others that work on new compounds that give new sensations or new designs we may be able to take advantage of what they're doing but use a new material and maybe advance some of their work if our materials are more skin-like and more pleasurable.What's your timeline? When do you hope to see these things on the shelves?
We've spoken with several major manufacturers. This would be around three to five years. That's a very early estimate.The main considerations are obviously regulation and making sure that you're going through the right trials or whatever's necessary in the countries that you're going into to prove that you're effective, so just like latex condoms you have some credibility and assurance that they're going to work. Those are the real hold-ups for any new technology.While we wait for this project to come to fruition, you're now a condom expert. What's your favorite? What should we be using until your condoms hit the shelves?
Have you ever heard of polyisoprene? These are the new [thin] condoms. Skyn is one of the brands. I can say I've tried them and, yeah, they're pretty good. I don't think I'd say that I have a favorite, but that's definitely one of the ones that I've tried and the polyisoprene seems to feel a bit better.Follow Mark Hay on Twitter.