Sale of CREATE Fertility marks biggest deal in UK’s IVF sector ever
CREATE Fertility, a London-based provider of natural and mild IVF services, has today been acquired by IVIRMA Global, the world’s largest reproductive medicine provider.
Believed to be the largest acquisition in the history of the UK’s IVF sector, the deal will see US-based IVIRMA take a majority stake in CREATE Fertility along with its sister company abc IVF and the Denmark-based Vitanova.
Founded in 2008 by Professor Geeta Nargund, CREATE Fertility offered a no and low drug approach to IVF for patients with low egg reserves, gradually growing to become Europe’s leading provider of natural and mild IVF.
Professor Nargund went on to co-found abc IVF with her son Praful Nargund in 2017, rolling a simplified treatment pathway to provide a relatively low cost IVF treatment.
US market
As a result of today’s sale, CREATE and abc IVF’s treatments will be launched across the US in a move that could increase the size of US and UK IVF markets by a third.
Commenting on the combination, Professor Pellicer explained to City A.M. that the deal will “create a whole range of synergies for both businesses.”
“In the US alone, that level of market extension could create a $600m opportunity”, added Praful Nargund, managing director of CREATE Fertility.
The tie-up will see all 21 CREATE Fertility, abc IVF and Danish-based Vitanova clinics continue to operate under their existing brands with the UK leadership team remaining the same.
“Our aim has always been to help as many patients as possible access natural, mild and affordable IVF treatments and IVIRMA’s global platform will help us achieve exactly that,” stressed Professor Nargund.
Today’s deal reflects strong recent growth in the domestic IVF market, with one in three couples now reliant on assisted reproduction and over a million IVF cycles having been completed.
In the US, meanwhile, commentators have talked of the ‘baby boom of 2021’ thanks to the growth of IVF.