When we last spoke with John Herr, the UVA professor of cellular biology told C-VILLE that SpermCheck, the first male home fertility test, was available in Europe but still awaiting approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Days after being honored by the Charlottesville Business Innovation Council for his 17-year effort to find a testis specific biomarker, Herr had another reason to celebrate. According to UVA Today, the FDA approved SpermCheck in May, clearing the fertility test’s path to shelves.
"The way infertility works right now, it’s still assumed to be ‘a woman’s problem,’" Herr told C-VILLE. "I’ve always thought about it—since we conceived of it—as something that would bring more gender equity into the infertility testing space." A report from the American Society for Reproductive Medicine says that one out of seven couples has difficulty conceiving, and men contribute to roughly 40 percent of infertility cases.
