The Coloradoan
August 12, 2000

XY Inc.'s sexed sperm for cattle breeding is now commercially available in the United Kingdom.

The British company, Cogent, has begun marketing the technology in the United Kingdom, XY Inc. announced.

Fort Collins-based XY Inc.--formed through a partnership between Colorado State University and Cytomation--developed a technique that allows breeders to separate the X and Y chromosomes found in bull semen.

The method disrupts Mother Nature's boy/girl odds of about 50/50 and tips the scales in favor of producing the more commerically viable female calves.

According to XY Inc., its sperm sorting is 90 percent accurate.

"We are the only people who can offer sexed semen commercially," said XY Inc. CEO Mervyn Jacobson.

XY Inc. licenses the technology to breeders and makes money through an upfront licensing fee and monthly royalty payments.

Applications of sperm sorting in the U.S. cattle industry are estimated to be worth more than $300 million a year. The worldwide market is roughly $600 million, XY Inc. estimates.

"We have probably 100 organizations who are now in line (to acquire the semen sorting rights)," Jacobson said.

The need to breed only female offspring is particularly strong in the dairy industry, due to the poor quality of meat that male dairy cows render once slaughtered.

The British government pays its dairy famers to kill and incinerate roughly 600,000 unwanted animals each year. U.S. dairy farmers annually slaughter more than 10 million calves.

XY Inc.'s technology will significantly reduce the number of unwanted male calves born each year, Jacobson said.

"This is what is generally referred to as a breeder's dream," he said.

XY Inc. was formed in 1996. The firm's semen sorting rights apply to all nonhuman mammals.