Media speculation has forced Adelaide-based GroPep (ASX:GRO) to clarify its position on ethics committee approval for a clinical study of an infertility drug.

An article in the Australian Financial Review suggested that GroPep would be announcing this week that it had received ethics approval for a clinical research study as part of the ongoing development of its infertility drug PV903. The company was notified of that approval on Tuesday, subject to various conditions.

"We weren't planning to make an announcement because it was quite a minor event," said GroPep CFO Tony Mitchell. "Because there was this very specific comment in the Financial Review, we thought it was appropriate that we did clarify what the situation was."

The approval does not relate to the phase I clinical trial to investigate the effect of PV903 planned for 2006, but rather to a study aimed at characterising immune cell populations from the cervix of healthy women.

"It's actually just doing a study whereby we're collecting immune cells from the wall of the cervix to characterise the nature of the cells... to compare with results from the clinical trial," said Mitchell. "It's nothing too significant in itself."