From The Province:
World's thinnest condom: UBC grad comes up with a breakthrough you won't break through By Cheryl Chan
A University of B.C. engineering graduate has spearheaded the creation of the world’s thinnest latex condom.
Victor Chan, who grew up in Vancouver, returned to Hong Kong in 2009 to work in his family’s condom-making business and immediately saw a niche demand for slimmer sheaths.
“One of the opportunities I saw in the market was for thin condoms,” said Chan. “It’s more the Asian preference.”
The Aoni condom — measuring only 0.036 millimetres thick — was crowned by Guinness World Records last week as the world’s thinnest latex rubber, trumping previous record-holder Okamoto of Japan’s 0.038 mm.
The Aoni condom is manufactured by Guangzhou Daming United Rubber Products, which produces about 200 million condoms annually — mostly sold in China, where the condom market is predicted to grow by almost 60 per cent in the next five years, according to Bloomberg, citing research from Global Industry Analytics.
“It was quite tricky,” said Chan of the effort it took to manufacture the prophylactic that could best heighten sensation and mimic a barrier-free feeling.
“It took a lot of work to arrange the right mix and fine-tune the ingredients to give us the right performance.”
The product is available only in Asia, but Chan is hoping to bring it to North America. It has already been approved by Health Canada, he said, but needs a marketing plan that’ll resonate with Canadians and U.S. users.
Read the rest of the article, and see the accompanying news clip, here.