The Oregon Permanent Contraception Research Center (OPERM)

The Oregon Permanent Contraception Research Center (OPERM) was established in November 2014 with a generous grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) to provide infrastructure, grant funding, and scientific support to facilitate research projects and preclinical testing by investigators studying nonsurgical permanent contraception (NSPC). In 2018, the main objective of OPERM transitioned to identifying and completing the preclinical development of one or more approaches to nonsurgical permanent contraception in order to transition into early phase clinical trials in women. In addition to being effective, the approach(es) must provide a low cost method of permanent contraception that is appropriate for low resource settings, and must be viewed as safe, voluntary, and non-coercive so that it is highly accepted by women and providers.