Nearly half of all pregnancies (about 121 million) globally are unintended. The repercussions of these pregnancies are not solely limited to the pregnant person, but have negative knock-on effects to the community around them. Women’s health company Organon has joined the FP2030 global platform to help prevent 120 million unintended pregnancies (UIPs) in low- and middle-income countries by 2030.
Organon, which announced its commitment to FP2030 in November at the International Conference on Family Planning in Pattaya City, Thailand, is helping expand affordable access to contraception in 73 low- and middle-income countries. It all falls under Organon’s “Her Promise Access Initiative,” which features the support of a network of worldwide collaborators including UNFPA and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
“With our portfolio of contraceptives, and our long history in the space, we felt that we were well placed to make an impact here,” Simon Holland, Organon’s vice president of women’s health, said in an interview. “We felt compelled to act, and that commitment was to provide 100 million woman with cost effective access to contraception, information and education.”
Holland says that if the group can prevent those over 120 million unintended pregnancies, it will also stop the 2.1 million infant deaths and over 250 million maternal deaths associated with it. In addition to mortality, UIPs have wider effects, limiting education and work opportunities. Holland says that it’s not uncommon to see women and girls in these countries with three children by the time they are 20 years old.
“The most important thing here is the partnership, sitting with the individual stakeholders in an individual country and working out what are those biggest barriers to achieving those goals of getting contraceptive options into those clinics where those woman are presenting, getting the education to her so she can have the right conversation with her healthcare professional, getting her the information she needs to have informed choices,” Holland said.
“Depending on the country, those access barriers can differ, right and so then working with our partners, to see which of those roles will we’ll take on or individual companies will take on to overcome those barriers to achieve those successes. It's typically not flashy campaigns. It's more basic and fundamental than that.”
Organon is a global healthcare company focused on women’s health. The company spun off from Merck in June of 2021 with a portfolio of more than 60 products and 9,500 employees. Today, there are 10,000 employees globally, and Organon’s main offering is Nexplanon, a long-acting, reversible birth control implant. It also produces hormone-based birth control device NuvaRing. The pharma is also expanding its biosimilars business.