Female Condom Maker Receives Queen’s Award for Enterprise

LONDON (April 22, 2002) The Female Health Company (OTC BB FHCO) announced that its subsidiary, The Female Health Company (UK) plc, has received the prestigious Queen’s Award for Enterprise, the highest honor that can be bestowed on a UK business.  The award, given in the Queen’s Golden Jubilee year, has been made in recognition of the company’s outstanding international trade achievements.

As exclusive world-wide producer of the female condom, the company’s unit sales have grown by 84% in the last three years, following the development of partnerships and joint programs with the World Health Organization, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), ministries of health and non-governmental organizations outside the US, and city and state public health agencies in the US.  These relationships include not only public sector price and distribution agreements with public sector agencies, but also the provision of extensive technical assistance and support to design and implement outreach, training and education programs to help deliver safer sex messages and to individual communities, users and partners.  In addition, the company has private sector partners that market the female condom on a commercial basis in various countries throughout the world.

Over 50 million female condoms have been sold worldwide since the product first became available to the world market in 1992, and it is now available in about 80 countries including Brazil, Canada, France, Ghana, Japan, South Africa, USA, UK and Zimbabwe.

The female condom’s ability to provide both reliable protection against unintended pregnancy and act as a highly effective barrier to sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), including HIV/AIDS, has proved to be the key to its growing acceptability and use around the world. “An HIV/AIDS prevention program is not complete if you are not providing both male and female condoms,” said Bunmi Makinwa, UNAIDS’ director for Southern and East Africa.

The female condom is currently the only proven barrier method that women can control in the face of HIV/AIDS and STD epidemics in their countries, communities, neighborhoods and villages.

The Female Health Company, based in Chicago, owns certain worldwide rights to The Female Condom including patents which have been issued in the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, France, Italy, Germany, The People’s Republic of China, Canada, Brazil, South Korea and Australia. The Female Condom is the only available product controlled by a woman that protects against sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS, and unintended pregnancy.   

“Safe Harbor” Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Action of 1995: The statements in this release which are not historical fact are forward-looking statements based upon the Company’s current plans and strategies, and reflect the Company’s current assessment of the risks and uncertainties related to its business, including such things as product demand and market acceptance; the economic and business environment and the impact of government pressures; currency risks; capacity; efficiency and supply constraints; and other risks detailed in the Company’s press releases, shareholder communication and Securities and Exchange Commission filings. Actual events affecting the Company and the impact of such events on the Company’s operations may vary from those currently anticipated.

For more information about the Female Health Company, dial toll-free via fax, 1-800-PRO-INFO and enter company code “FHCO.” Also, visit the Company’s Web site at www.femalehealth.com and www.femalecondom.org.  If you would like to be added an e-mail alert list, please send an e-mail to FHCInvestor@aol.com

Contacts:        Investors                        Business / Product               Global Program         

                        William R. Gargiulo, Jr.     Mary Ann Leeper, Ph.D.           Mitchell Warren

                        231.526.1244                      312.595.9123                           845.353.8298