High-Tech ‘Rabbit’ Test Figures Woman’s Fertility Electronically
After changing the face of medicine, aerospace and a host of other fields, high tech has finally come to sex. A Century City-based investment banking firm has formed a new venture with privately held Rabbit Computer Corp. of Beverly Hills to market an electronic device that lets a woman know up to a week in advance when her fertile days begin and end.
Dubbed the “Rabbit,” the battery-operated device works by electronically comparing a woman’s daily body temperature to data on the length of the woman’s menstrual cycle.
For the record:
12:00 a.m. Aug. 6, 1986 FOR THE RECORD
Los Angeles Times Wednesday August 6, 1986 Home Edition Business Part 4 Page 2 Column 4 Financial Desk 1 inches; 33 words Type of Material: Correction
A Sunday Business section story on Rabbit Computer Corp. contained a misspelling of an executive’s last name. Michael Prince is chairman of Rabbit Computer and heads Michael Prince & Associates, a Century City investment banking firm.
A woman’s temperature ordinarily rises one to two degrees when she ovulates. Each morning a woman takes her temperature with a digital thermometer and records the result on a hand-held calculator containing a graphic display. The woman also enters the number of days since her last menstrual cycle. The electronic device can then automatically calculate when she should next expect to ovulate.
The market for home ovulation-detection kits is currently dominated by several large pharmaceutical companies that sell chemically based tests to determine from urine samples whether a woman is ovulating. But the Rabbit is apparently the first over-the-counter product to calculate fertility electronically.
“The Rabbit is aimed at women who want to become pregnant and need highly reliable information to determine in advance when they are most able to conceive,” said Michael Price, chairman of Rabbit Computer and head of the Century City investment banking firm, Michael Price & Associates, that is helping to market the Rabbit.
Price says the market for devices to detect ovulation is a $100-million-a-year industry. He said he expects the Rabbit, which is currently being marketed by mail and sells for $159, to generate sales of $15 million in its first year.
When asked how the product got its name, Price chuckled and said: “Rabbits have long been associated with the pleasures of birth and procreation.” He said that the company added the seemingly incongruous word “computer” to the product’s name to indicate that the Rabbit Computer “isn’t a toy” but rather “a very serious analytical device.”
