The Oregon Permanent Contraception Research Center (OPERM) was established in November 2014 to provide a research environment, grant support, and scientific support to investigators studying nonsurgical permanent contraception.  

OPERM provides grant funding, scientific expertise, a nonhuman primate (NHP) animal resource, laboratory and procedural infrastructure, and administrative support to investigators who wish to evaluate novel agents or procedures for permanent female contraception. The objective of OPERM is to identify and complete preclinical development of one or more approaches to nonsurgical permanent contraception in a nonhuman primate model such that the approach can be transitioned into early phase clinical trials in women. A new method of nonsurgical female permanent contraception must be viewed as safe, voluntary, and non-coercive to become highly acceptable. To be successfully adopted, a new method of permanent female contraception will need to follow a careful path toward concurrent regulatory approval in both lesser- and more-developed nations. Since it is anticipated that approaches that adapt safe approved drugs or technologies from other fields may have fewer regulatory hurdles to overcome, these approaches are particularly welcomed.