NuSep's (ASX: NSP) SpermSep CS10 fertility device has been rated one of the top 20 research projects to have received Australian Research Council (ARC) funding in the last 10 years, a conference heard today.

In a speech delivered at the Graeme Clarke Outcomes Forum at Parliament House in Canberra, one of the product's developers, Professor John Aiken of the University of Newcastle, said devices like the SpermSep were particularly important in Australia, where 1 in 20 males are infertile, and a quarter of all women remain childless at the end of their reproductive lives.

SpermSep can be used to recover and process sperm for use in IVF.

In clinical trials comparing IVF using SpermSep versus Density Gradient Centrifugation (DGC), the current most common method of sperm recovery, SpermSep proved much more effective, Aiken said.

The SpermSep IVF resulted in three pregnancies from the nine women who underwent the procedure, compared to zero out of the six women in the control group who underwent IVF using DGC.

Commercial sales of SpermSep are expected to begin early next year.