The future of the sperm industry

What’s one thing most Americans likely don’t know? Demand for donor sperm is increasing. Initially established in the 1970s to help men undergoing vasectomies and facing cancer treatments, sperm banks today support people facing a wide range of challenges on their path to pregnancy. Alongside heterosexual couples dealing with infertility issues like azoospermia and young men facing cancer diagnosis, single mothers by choice, and same-sex couples are frequently turning to sperm banks in hopes of building their family.

With approximately 1,500 sperm donors serving the entire United States, a new sperm bank, Premier Sperm Bank, is venturing to address modern family building needs with a commitment to research and ethically-minded practices. I caught up with John Jain, MD, the sperm bank’s founder, to understand more about the future of family building with donor sperm.

Q: Why sperm and why now? Why enter the sperm bank industry?

Jain: During my time running an egg bank in California, I took a real interest in male reproductive health, observing that very little research was being done even though sperm is 50% of the baby equation. So, it was sort of a natural progression for me, having run an egg bank, to open Premier Sperm Bank. And this is an exciting time to open a sperm bank, as the way people build their families has evolved and society is adapting with new technologies. We’re seeing increased rates of single mothers by choice, lesbian couples, and people of all identities wanting to be parents—and we can help these families by offering them a chance to self-inseminate in the privacy of their own home as an alternative to in-clinic insemination.

Simultaneously, while launching Premier, I built a research center in Oxford, England to study the genetics and epigenetics of sperm.

Q: Can you explain a little bit more about your research? How is that connected Premier Sperm Bank?

Jain: The cornerstone for male fertility has been the semen analysis, a nearly 100-year-old test that was standardized in the 1930s that does not truly predict fertility. There have been no meaningful advances in sperm testing to connect the health of the sperm to fertility outcomes, and/or the health of the resulting children. This field is strangely quite nascent when compared to our understanding of female fertility. How does the DNA work, how do the epigenetics fit in? My research going forward is focused on epigenetics and how we better assess sperm to ensure we are optimizing for good fertility outcomes and healthy babies for families using donor sperm. 

Q: Your website mentions that you are the only sperm bank in the world that DNA verifies sperm. What does that mean?

Jain: It means we have verified the identity of the donor by matching his sperm to his DNA profile. It’s important because the other methods of verification used by sperm banks depend on manual human processes or electronic medical witnessing systems. Clients want to know that they are receiving the correct sperm. DNA-verified is nearly 100% accurate and Premier is the only sperm bank in the world to offer the service.

Q: What is your donor selection process? How do you select a donor?

Jain: It’s pretty rigorous. We only accept 1.8% of donor applicants into our portfolio. While we consider physical characteristics, personal accomplishments, and check criminal and educational backgrounds, my role as a medical director is to assure quality sperm from healthy donors. We do that by performing an extensive 100-question family and medical history, FDA-mandated infectious disease tests, and sperm quarantine for 6 months. We also use a test that screens 500 genes to lower the risk of passing on a genetic disease.

Q: Where do you see the industry in the next 10 to 20 years?

Jain: I think there needs to be more acknowledgement about the needs of donor-conceived children and their families. Legacy sperm banks have not consistently monitored how many families have used a donor’s sperm; it is not uncommon to see donors whose sperm has resulted in dozens or even hundreds of donor-conceived children. Many donor-conceived children eventually want to meet their biological father. Anonymous donation is becoming a thing of the past, as we are now only accepting donors willing to disclose their identity once the child is 18.

The next 10 to 20 years will also see the emergence of better tools to evaluate sperm and predict fertility and childhood health. My lab in Oxford was built with that purpose in mind. And then there’s germline gene editing, the intentional modification of DNA in sperm, eggs, and embryos, currently banned in most countries. I believe gene editing is inevitable as it brings the potential of eliminating serious diseases like cancer, but it does change the human genome and presents an ethical slippery slope that requires oversight.

Maureen Brown is CEO and cofounder of Mosie Baby.

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