The Population Council, a global nonprofit research organization, announced it has received U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for Annovera™ (segesterone acetate and ethinyl estradiol vaginal system), the first and only contraceptive that provides an entire year of protection against unintended pregnancy while fully under a woman’s control. The approval marks an important step toward expanding contraceptive options for women.

In a timely op-ed at Project Syndicate, Thoai Ngo, Director of the GIRL Center, argues that researchers, programmers, and donors should embrace open data as a critical tool to promote sound investments and ensure efforts to improve girls’ lives are informed by evidence, not intuition.

Today the Population Council announced a new license agreement with TherapeuticsMD to make available the Council's investigational segesterone acetate/ ethinyl estradiol one-year vaginal system for contraception, to women in the United States. The agreement marks an important step toward expanding contraceptive options for women. 

Without investing in women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights, the world cannot drive societal progress to achieve the Sustainable Development goals, argues Zeba Sathar, Pakistan Country Director for the Population Council and Marleen Temmerman, Director of the Center of Excellence in Women and Child Health and Chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the Aga Khan University.

Next week more than 15,000 global leaders, policy makers, researchers, and advocates from 160 countries will gather in Amsterdam for #AIDS2018 to share the latest in HIV prevention, treatment and cure research, and insights on the global agenda.

NEW YORK, NY (June 21, 2018) – A new Phase I study of the Population Council’s multipurpose prevention technology (MPT) gel PC-1005, launching this week, will examine the safety of the gel when used rectally by both men and women. If proven effective, PC-1005 gel would be the first product to prevent three incurable sexually transmitted infections (STIs)—HIV, herpes simplex virus (HSV), and human papillomavirus (HPV)—when used either vaginally or rectally. 

The Population Council mourns the passing of Henry L. King, a renowned attorney and former trustee of the Population Council. King died on Monday, June 18 at the age of 90.

The Center for Global Development and the Population Council co-hosted a high-level discussion on emerging insights from the DREAMS initiative, an ambitious partnership to reduce HIV infections among adolescent girls and young women in 10 sub-Saharan African countries.  Supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Girl Effect, and the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) through Project SOAR, the Population Council leads the DREAMS implementation science and capacity building portfolios.

In a blog post at the Maternal Health Task Force, Ann Blanc, Vice President of Social and Behavioral Science Research at the Population Council, makes a powerful case for why investing in high-quality research matters, now more than ever.