Chicago Tribune (CT) - TUESDAY, August 27, 1996 Edition: NORTH SPORTS FINAL Section: BUSINESS Page: 1 Word Count: 1,008
Chuck Hutchcraft, Tribune Staff Writer.

But Laurie Priddy says the busiest exhibit at the conference was that of a small Chicago concern--Female Health Co., maker of the female condom.

"It was unbelievable, people were swarming" around the exhibit, said Priddy, of Baltimore, who is HIV positive and an ardent promoter of the female condom.

People "did not just look at it and walk away. They wanted them. They wanted to get them in their hands and get diagrams on how to use them," Priddy said.

Much of the interest was generated by 24 studies involving the female condom that were presented at the conference. The studies, conducted in Africa, South and Central America and the United States, found a critical need for prevention methods women can control and that the female condom is such a method. The female condom, the research concluded, is effective in preventing sexually transmitted diseases and is growing in acceptance by women.

All the attention may provide a critical lift for the company, which a little more than a year ago had to suspend advertising for a lack of funds.

Initially, the hill to success hadn't appeared so steep. This was, after all, the first female condom. It appeared to be what the times demanded, with interest strong in finding ways to have safe sex amid worries about AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, and in providing women with birth-control methods they could control.

But it soon became evident that nurses and family planning counselors, primarily in their 30s or older, married and with children, "could not see themselves using this product and therefore they just weren't comfortable recommending" the female condom, said Mary Ann Leeper, president and chief operating officer.

As for the consumer, "what we found was, yes, she could sit here in this boardroom and talk about, absolutely, I wanted to be empowered; absolutely, I want to take care of myself." But "in the bedroom, women in the United States, for the most part, don't want to be in the driver's seat. They certainly don't want to do anything to scare him away."

Money for ads dried up in June 1995.

Over the next several months, the company, then known as Wisconsin Pharmacal, which also made mosquito repellent and game lures for hunters and fishermen, "tried to bring some reasonableness to the organization," Leeper said.

In January, Wisconsin Pharmacal sold WPC Holdings Inc., the recreational products side of the business, changed its name to Female Health Co. and moved its headquarters from Jackson, Wis., to Chicago. The next month, it acquired Chartex Resources Ltd., in London, with which Wisconsin Pharmacal had an agreement to manufacture the female condom.

In March, Female Health Co. resumed advertising, with a more sensuous message and targeting younger consumers--women 18 to 24 years old, and men in their late 20s and early 30s--through magazines that speak to white, African-American and Latino audiences.

The picture has begun to change.

The company sold more than 300,000 female condoms in July, its best month ever. To break even, the company must sell 18.8 million units a year, or more than 1.5 million a month. Leeper projects that level will be reached by the end of fiscal 1997. (Its fiscal year ends Sept. 30.)

For the third quarter of fiscal 1996, which ended June 30, Female Health reported a loss of $1.9 million, or 30 cents a share, compared with a loss of $1.1 million, or 26 cents a share, for the year-earlier period. Sales, however, rose 21 percent in the quarter. For the first nine months, its loss narrowed to $4.3 million, or 68 cents a share, from a loss of $6.9 million, or $1.17 a share, in fiscal 1995.

The results of studies given at the Vancouver conference confirmed the company's own data. A study by the Philadelphia Department of Public Health of women at risk for AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases found that 86 percent of the women who were offered a variety of barrier methods chose the female condom. After four months, 50 percent of those women were still using the female condom.

"When you do studies of condom use in adults, you rarely find 10 percent of women, or couples, using male condoms" after that length of time, said Dr. Erica Gollub, director of AIDS epidemiology in Philadelphia.

With the female condom, Gollub said, "there is a very solid sense of protection," of control on the part of the woman, as well as durability.

The studies, Gollub added, "have been small but are coalescing around certain numbers." None of which is surprising to Laurie Priddy.

"Being that I wasn't part of" any group then deemed at high risk for AIDS, "I didn't think it (safe sex) was something I had to worry about," said Priddy, 32, who was infected with the HIV virus in 1989.

Priddy abstained from sex after learning she was HIV positive. When she later entered a relationship in which she was ready to have sex, the only protection available was the male condom.

When the female condom was introduced, Priddy had trouble finding it. A couple of local pharmacies carried them, as did a gay and lesbian bookstore.

At the beginning, using the female condom can be awkward, but that changes quickly, she said. "Over time (she and her husband) have gotten very used to it being part of our sexual activity," said Priddy, who speaks to school and college groups and works with the National Basketball Players Association in its "Winning Against AIDS" program.

CAPTION: PHOTO: Mary Ann Leeper, president of Female Health Co., with examples of the new advertising for the female condom. Photo for the Tribune by Lisa Genesen.

PHOTO: Laurie Priddy, 32, who was infected with the HIV virus in 1989, is an ardent promoter of the female condom. AP photo.

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