New inter-regional transfers of 1,130 sperm straws between Toulouse University Hospital, La Réunion University Hospital and AP-HM, coordinated by the French Biomedicine Agency (Agence de la biomédecine)

By opening up access to medically assisted procreation (MAP) to all women and allowing access to the origins of people born from gamete donation, the French Bioethics Act of August 2, 2021 has on the one hand considerably increased the number of requests for MAP with sperm donation, and on the other obliges us to massively renew stocks of straws, as anonymous donations can no longer be used beyond March 31, 2025.

To optimize the management of existing stocks, the Agence de la biomédecine therefore decided to pool the use of straws between different donation centers. The first transfer of over 1,000 straws took place between CHU Rennes and CHU Lille last March.

The next transfer of 258 sperm straws is scheduled to take place between Toulouse University Hospital and Reunion Island University Hospital on April 23, 2024, arriving in Reunion Island on April 24. The next one, scheduled for June between Toulouse University Hospital and AP-HM, will transfer 872 straws.

30,000 requests in less than 2 years

Since the enactment of the French Bioethics Act, the number of assisted reproduction procedures involving sperm donation has grown at an unprecedented rate. In the space of 23 months, sperm donation centers have registered 30,000 requests from female couples and unmarried women. Demand from male/female couples has remained stable at around 2,000 per year.

Since September 2022, all new gamete donations have been made within a framework allowing access to origins: donors register their identity, in the event that the person born thanks to their donation would like to know his or her origins. Stocks built up in the past under the anonymity regime will therefore no longer be used after March 31, 2025. During this transitional period and until that date, donation centers may still use old stocks of sperm flakes from anonymous donors.

Optimizing the use of "old donor" stocks

The quality and number of sperm straws held by donation centers vary widely across the country, as do the physical characteristics of donors.

At the request of the French Ministry of Health, the Agence de la biomédecine has undertaken to manage the pooling of existing stocks of straws, in order to limit the impact of this change and contribute to greater equity of care across the country.

The Agency identified centers with stocks that could be shared out, and centers with less abundant stocks of spermatozoid straws. It supported the centers in their mission (support from a medical biologist in the validation of files, modeling of the financial support to be provided to teams) and participated, in liaison with the General Health Directorate, in drawing up an agreement for the transfer of spermatozoid straws between donation centers. In this context, the next transfers of straws will take place between the donation centers of the Toulouse University Hospital and the University Hospital of La Réunion, then the AP-HM, which mobilized their medico-technical teams throughout the steering and implementation process. Further chaff transfers will be carried out in the region in the first half of 2024.

Massively increasing the number of "new donors

This strategy of redistributing sperm straws is all the more important as it enables donation centers to build up their stock of "new donor" straws. This operation is based on a logic of solidarity between gamete donation centers, the impact of which will be assessed, and which could eventually become the rule in gamete donation.

The number of new donors has not risen as quickly as the number of requests for treatment, despite major communication campaigns and strong public support for the new law. New recruitment campaigns are planned for 2024 to massively increase the number of donors.

Press contacts:

Toulouse University Hospital: Mathilde RATINEAUD, ratineaud.m@chu-toulouse.fr Reunion University Hospital: Frédérique BOYER, frederique.boyer@chu-reunion.fr AP-HM: Yohann MARIANI, yohann.mariani@ap-hm.fr Agence de la biomédecine: Hélène DUGUET, 01 55 93 69 43, helene.duguet@biomedecine.fr