Top sperm bank moving to Florida to tap larger pool of donors

A leading sperm bank is relocating its headquarters next to a Florida university with the second-highest student enrollment in the United States in hopes of tapping into its large pool of healthy, well-educated potential donors, the company said.

Cryos, a privately owned company with offices in New York and Denmark, will on April 6 complete its move to Orlando, with offices located less than a mile (1.6 km) from the University of Central Florida, which enrolled almost 61,000 students for the 2014-15 academic year.

"The biggest factor is that there is a huge donor base here. That's No. 1 by far," said Jim Londeree, a company spokesman.

The profile of Cryos' ideal donor: well-educated, healthy, aged 19 to 39 and at least 5 feet, 9 inches (175 cm) tall, is consistent with that of many college students, a lot of whom could use the company's $750 monthly pay for twice-weekly sperm donations, Londeree said.

Although New York City, where the company will maintain a donation site, is also home to a large donor pool, the logistics of navigating the city are more challenging for donors than is the case with its Orlando offices, which are on the main road to the UCF campus.

Orlando also is home to Valencia College, a community college with some 60,000 students, and smaller private institutions including Rollins College and Full Sail University.

A second factor in the move was the company's ability to partner with hospitals and businesses in Orlando's fast-growing biomedical cluster in Medical City of Lake Nona, Londeree said.

Founded in 1981 and delivering sperm to 80 countries, the company says it has achieved the highest number of pregnancies assisted by donor sperm worldwide as documented by the Guinness Book of World Records.

(Editing by Jonathan Kaminsky and Eric Walsh)