The Start-up Making IVF and Egg Freezing Faster and Less Awful
Feb 13, 2025
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Dina Radenkovic, a Serbian-born doctor and co-founder of Gameto, is on a mission to revolutionize women’s reproductive health. She discusses how her start-up is using stem cell technology to significantly reduce the discomfort and time associated with IVF treatments. Gameto’s product, Fertilo, helps mature eggs outside the body in days instead of weeks. The conversation also delves into future applications of this tech for menopause and the need for greater research in women’s health. Radenkovic shares her journey in bridging medicine and entrepreneurship.
Gameto's innovative IVF process uses induced pluripotent stem cells to dramatically reduce hormonal injections and improve egg maturation efficiency.
The podcast highlights the emotional and physical toll of infertility on individuals, advocating for more accessible reproductive health solutions.
Regulatory hurdles complicate the approval process for Gameto's iPSC-based technology, emphasizing the need for clear guidelines in fertility treatment innovation.
Deep dives
Innovative IVF Technology
The episode highlights a significant medical achievement where an innovative IVF process using induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) led to the birth of the first baby conceived from eggs matured outside the body. This advancement allows for the maturation of eggs using younger ovarian support cells derived from iPSCs, thereby mimicking a younger ovarian environment. By doing this, the existing IVF procedure, which has remained largely unchanged for decades, is being reformed to mitigate the burdens of hormone injections and to improve overall efficiency. This groundbreaking method not only aims to enhance the comfort and accessibility of IVF treatments but also significantly benefits women struggling with infertility.
Addressing Infertility Challenges
The podcast discusses how infertility affects a significant number of individuals and couples, emphasizing that about 40-50% of infertility issues are related to male factors. This broadens the conversation around reproductive health, indicating that the current patient journey for IVF, which typically requires numerous hormone injections and cycles, can be physically and emotionally taxing. The innovative approach presented by the company aims to simplify this journey by minimizing the number of hormone injections required and making the overall process more manageable. This shift has the potential to allow more individuals to pursue parenthood on their own terms, thereby addressing the growing societal need for more effective reproductive solutions.
Regulatory Challenges in Biotech
The company faces substantial regulatory hurdles in bringing its iPSC-based technology to market, as the classification of their product has been a point of contention. Differentiating between medical devices, biologics, and reproductive tissue within different jurisdictions complicates the approval process, often resulting in inconsistent regulatory pathways. Navigating these regulatory landscapes proves challenging, especially when societies are accustomed to traditional IVF methods. The podcast underscores the importance of establishing clear guidelines and precedents to facilitate the pathway for innovative fertility treatments that leverage cutting-edge technology.
The Future of Women's Health
The focus on women's reproductive health reflects a broader, often overlooked need for advancements in medical solutions catering specifically to women. With societal trends indicating that women are delaying childbirth for various reasons, the company underscores a commitment to improving fertility preservation options, allowing women more choices as they navigate their family planning. Additionally, exploring menopause interventions and hormone replacement therapies represents a promising future direction for the company, aiming to enhance the overall quality of life for women through various aging stages. Thus, it signifies a paradigm shift toward prioritizing women's health and acknowledging that there is much untapped potential in this domain.
Personal Journey and Vision
The podcast delves into the personal journey of the CEO, who has a strong academic and entrepreneurial background, emphasizing how her experiences shape the company’s vision. Her dedication to addressing women's health issues is rooted in personal understanding and commitment to finding innovative solutions for age-related fertility decline and menopause. Her story illustrates the intersection of clinical understanding and entrepreneurship, showcasing how scientists and entrepreneurs can drive impactful changes in society. As the company strives to navigate its clinical trials and bring its life-changing solutions to market, the passion for improving women's health remains central to its mission and endeavors.
Dina Radenkovic has set out to reshape women’s health.
Gameto, her start-up based in Austin, has spent the last four years working on stem cell engineering technology that it expects to aim at things ranging from fertility treatments to menopause. On the fertility front, Gameto already has a product called Fertilo that reduces the time women must go through painful, hormonal injections from two weeks down to a couple of days. It’s been approved for use in several countries and is being studied now in a clinical trial in the U.S.
Fertilo works by replicating ovarian cells in a lab and using those cells to mature eggs outside of the body. It’s another example of the iSPC, or induced pluripotent stem cells, technology that has the bio-tech world so excited.
Radenkovic hopes that similar technology can be applied to menopause in the future and lessen the dramatic hormonal shifts women experience.
Born in Serbia, Radenkovic is a doctor and has raised $73 million in venture funding for Gameto to date.
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