AI-Powered Fertility: Democratizing Access to Parenthood
Eggs Come First
As I inch towards my late 30s, I frequently find my girlfriends and I having conversations about egg-freezing, ovary age and IVF procedures. There were a couple of occasions where we agreed to reschedule drinks to avoid ovulation days. (I apologise to any Gen Z who do not find this future exciting). But if you are reading this in your 30s, I am sure you’d understand that in our vintages, “eggs” come first before anything else.
Women are seeking to have more control over their reproductive choices. A lot of my friends have gone through egg-freezing, IVF and polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) treatment. I am very sympathetic towards all the doctors visits and hormonal roller coasters they had go through, whilst they handle their work and family concurrently. I couldn’t help but noticed a huge gap, where is the AI in my friends’ experiences? I would’ve expected highly accurate predictions of their hormonal levels, ovulation dates and fertilization success rate at their palm (well, in the form of an app).
Why the AI gap?
As AI creeps into every aspect of our lives, it has yet to make a dent in the world of fertility & IVF. To simplify, there are 3 basic premises that one must satisfy in order for AI to work effectively, namely (1) abundance of high-quality data (2) computation power and (3) engineering talents. Amongst them, the lack of comprehensive data required to develop truly robust and accurate AI models is one of the major obstacles.
Our team has spent a year tracking down various AI solutions in the fertility space, we identified a few hindering factors:
- Most AI solutions are focusing solely on siloed applications (e.g., sperm/egg/embryo assessment using computer vision). But fertility is a holistic process that encompasses many areas of a women and a man’s life, a silo-ed solution limits the uplift to the overall fertilization prediction accuracy
- Start-ups find it difficult to penetrate the well-established decades-old IVF process
- Pricing power is in the hands of their clinical partners
To overcome these hurdles, the OVOM team has combined a hybrid model where they combine (1) digital-first fertility clinics and (2) most advanced AI software/solutions to work together synergistically, thereby proving their value in improving the overall reproductive prediction accuracy and the ability to collect high-quality data in the egg-freezing & IVF procedures through their clinical practice.
Introducing – OVOM Care
Ovom Care represents our fund’s inaugural investment in the fertility space. Through our extensive discussions with numerous companies and industry experts, Ovom Care emerged as a standout due to its distinctive business model. The German-based fertility company focuses on both the development of their proprietary technology ecosystem (data utilization and value generation) and the provision of fertility care units (monetization and value capture).
We believe that OVOM will be one of the first to complete a holistic and high-quality fertility data set for future AI-disruption, whilst doing so profitably by owning/controlling their own clinics.
Ovom Care has successfully launched its pilot clinic in London in collaboration with its sister clinic, Avenues, which is able to support up to 1,800 IVF cycles per year. Their first fertility clinic, a much larger care unit in Portugal, with an expected capacity of 4,000 to 5,000 cycles per year is expected to open by Q4 2024. Whilst OVOM is still early in their development stage, their technology has shown promising early results, exceeding multiple industry benchmarks in lab performance, such as an IVF fertility rate of 88% compared to the industry standard of 75%, an ICSI fertility rate of 87% versus 80%, and a blastocyst formation rate of 63% compared to 60%.
The Rockstar Founders
Ovom was founded by an all-star female team: Felicia von Reden (CEO), Cristina Hickman (COO) and Lynae Brayboy (CMO), with a combined 40+ years of experience in fertility and innovation. Felicia is a 2x founder of neo-clinic startups, Lynae is a double-certified reproductive endocrinologist while Cristina is a clinical embryologist with 20+ years of experience and the “Godmother” of AI in fertility treatments, having built 13 IVF clinics and co-developed many of the current AI technologies applied in fertility medicine.
Conclusion
AI transformation in the fertility space is a long process and we are excited to partner with Ovom Care on this journey. As the accuracy of Ovom’s models improve as more IVF cycles are being conducted and more data being collected from their clinical practice, there is an opportunity for Ovom Care to transition from being a clinic operator to providing their refined operating model for fertility clinics globally, setting a new standard for patient care. Join us in following Ovom’s journey and explore how AI can be used to enable parenthood for everyone.
Written by Terry Chou (Partner at AIC) and Felix Foo (Associate at AIC).
