Wulf H. Utian is a physician, reproductive endocrinologist, clinical researcher, and academic women's health department administrator.

Previously he has worked as a medical department Director at the Mount Sinai Medical Center, the University Hospitals of Cleveland, and academic chairman of the department of Reproductive Biology at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.

He has described the situation that led to his discovery as occurring when he was invited to visit a large pharmaceutical firm in West Berlin.

Upon my return [home] I approached the Chairman of the Department of Gynaecology of the University of Cape Town ... and spelled out my plans for a menopause clinic."

[2] Utian ultimately left South Africa due to conflicts with the Apartheid government, including his objections to the treatment of non-white physicians in the country's hospitals.

Utian reported the event to the New England Journal of Medicine in a published letter announcing it as the world's first successful effort of this kind.

[11] In 1989 Utian also became the Executive director and founder of the North American Menopause Society, located in Cleveland, Ohio.