The Biomedicine Agency calls for sperm and egg donations in the face of an explosion in demand

With the boom in requests for medically assisted procreation, sperm donations are largely insufficient. The Biomedicine Agency estimates that the number of donors should be doubled.

“Donate your gametes and you will make people happy!”: This is the slogan of the campaign about to be launched by the Biomedicine Agency. In fact, 1,400 sperm donors would be needed per year to meet demand in France, while there were only 673 in 2023.

Since the law opened up the possibility for single women or couples to access medically assisted procreation, requests have exploded: 13,000 last year, for only 5,300 procedures performed, and waiting times are getting longer. The phenomenon is identical for egg donations.

Monitoring Committee of the AMP Ministerial Plan with all stakeholders: focus on 2023 activity figures.@MarineJeantet : “The number of sperm donors remains very insufficient: 676 in 2023. We would need double that to meet demand.” pic.twitter.com/mag9L7CUM9

— Biomedicine Agency (@ag_biomedecine) July 3, 2024

So, to encourage young people to donate their gametes – sperm and eggs – the Biomedicine Agency will launch a major information campaign in September with a bus that will crisscross France, explains Dr. Claire Devienne of the Biomedicine Agency.

“He will stop in ten cities in France where there are gamete donation centers. On the stand, there will be doctors from the center, former patients… And you can directly request a first appointment.”

Dr. Claire Devienne

to franceinfo

“We need to convince more young men to donate their sperm, because there would need to be twice as many of them, otherwise, women will not be able to achieve their goal of having children,the specialist advances. We need more women to come and donate their eggs because the waiting times are about two years at the moment.” she concludes.

In 2023, among female couples and single women, who represented 81% of PMA files with sperm donation, requests for first consultation increased by 25% between the second half of 2022 and the first half of 2023, i.e. a total of 7,216 in six months.