[Page 10]

One of the leaders in this market is Cryos International Sperm Bank, a firm from Aarhus, Denmark, that sells its sperm around the world. Launched in 1991 by a soft-spoken economist named Ole Schou, Cryos began as a local firm, soliciting donations from Danish university students and subjecting them—and their sperm—to a rigorous process of testing and evaluation. In April 1991, the company delivered its first samples to the Mermaid Hospital, a private Danish hospital. Two weeks later, the hospital reported five pregnancies, and word of the “Danish stuff ” began to spread. Other fertility clinics, in Denmark and abroad, called Cryos and were stunned to discover that Schou could deliver high-quality sperm virtually overnight. “They had no idea,” Schou recalls, “of what service and competition were all about.” Cryos expanded its business, selling to Norway, Greece, Italy, and even the Middle East. “They say that you can’t sell sand in the Sahara,” Schou says quietly. “Sperm is even harder. But we sell it.” [16] By 2002, Cryos was exporting sperm to more than fifty countries and realizing a contribution margin—the percent of revenues left to cover fixed costs and profit—of roughly 80 percent. [17]

In Denmark and most of its export markets, Cryos competes on the quality of its product and the anonymity of its donors. It identifies them only by number, sells sperm only to doctors, and reveals nothing except the minimal physical characteristics of its donors: height and weight, hair and eye color. Under Danish law, moreover, the donors’ full identity can never be revealed. According to Schou, it is this promise of anonymity, together with high-quality assessment and customer service, that has made “the Danish stuff ” so popular around the world. Most recipients, he argues, don’t want to know their donors. And they never want their offspring to know that Daddy arrived via FedEx.

In the U.S. market, though, this calculus apparently breaks down. Many couples, as well as a growing number of single women, are eager to know their donors and are even willing to pass this information on to their children. Accordingly, sperm banks in the United States market their product in a very different way. Rather than limit the information they disclose, firms such as California Cryobank and the Genetics & IVF Institute instead provide potential recipients with a veritable smorgasbord of detail: hobbies, family history, favorite foods, handwriting samples—“everything,” says Dr. Keith Blauer of the Genetics & IVF Institute, “except their address, telephone number, and name.” [18]