Female condom to be marketed in India

Bangalore: Hindustan Latex Limited (HLL) on Saturday launched the female condom in Bangalore. It is to be sold under the brand name confidom.

HLL has entered into an agreement with the Female Health Company (FHC) of the UK - the only producer in the world of female condom - for the production of the condom. Confidom is the only female initiated barrier contraceptive device and is made of polyurethane.

During the first year, nearly 5,00,000 condoms would be sold in the country, HLL Chairman and Managing Director M Ayyappan said. The Company aimed to spend around Rs 1.5 Crore for marketing the product in the first year.

He said the company would be investing around Rs 5 crore to set up a packaging unit in Kochi after negotiations were completed with FHC for taking up packaging of the product from later part of this year. Talks were also on to take up manufacture of Female Condoms within the country.

FHC was currently producing 12 million condoms in its factory in London, though they have capacity to produce 60 million condoms. The product was being sold in 80 countries.

Besides HLL, the Indian Government was directly procuring 5,00,000 female condoms to be distributed among commercial sex workers at subsidised rate of Rs 5 in States where incidence of AIDs was more.

These states included Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. The actual cost of procurement was Rs 45 per piece.

Ayyappan said once the production was taken up in large scale, the prices could come down by 30 to 40 per cent.

It would be packaged along with informative material and sold through selective up market malls and shopping complexes and lifestyle stores.