Gameto, a biotechnology company, has raised $33 million in Series B funding, which it will use to support the clinical development of its in vitro maturation (IVM) product called Fertilo.
New York City-based Gameto develops treatment solutions for women’s health, including infertility. Fertilo mimics an ovarian environment by using engineered ovarian support cells to mature eggs outside of the body. With Fertilo, patients receive up to three days of stimulation (the process of inducing ovulation and increasing the number of eggs released) through injections once a day or an oral tablet. Immature eggs are then retrieved during an outpatient procedure at a fertility clinic. The eggs are put in a dish with the Fertilo product for about one day for maturation. Then, the eggs are either frozen or fertilized for in vitro fertilization (IVF). This differs from typical fertility treatments, in which women usually receive about two weeks of hormonal injections.
“The standard IVF process is super long, medicalized and carries side effects. … We hope that with this shortened process, women will feel better doing it, it’s not going to be as difficult and that it will result in more access and better success rates because it will be easier to repeat,” said Dr. Dina Radenkovic, CEO and co-founder of Gameto, in an interview.
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The $33 million Series B funding round was led by Two Sigma Ventures and RA Capital and included participation from Insight Partners, Future Ventures and BOLD Capital Partners. In total, the company has raised $73 million. Gameto has received “tentative approval” from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to go ahead with its Phase 3 trials of Fertilo, which the funding will support, according to the announcement. The financing will also help with commercial launches of Fertilo in Australia and Latin America, where the product has already been cleared for commercialization and is being used in fertility clinics.
According to Dusan Perovic, partner at Two Sigma Ventures, Gameto has the “potential to impact families and societies on a global scale.”
“In addition to making treatments much easier and more accessible for women, Gameto’s advanced IVF/egg-freezing solution addresses a massive societal need as we’re living longer and looking to start families later in life while facing rising female and male infertility rates,” Perovic said in a statement. “There’s also a growing demand for IVF from a broader group of people, such as those with certain genetic disorders now discoverable by carrier screening, and single and same-sex parents starting families, to name a few.”
Currently, about 17.5% of the adult population, or about one in six globally, battle infertility, according to the World Health Organization. Gameto ultimately aims to make treatment simpler and less invasive.
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“As a woman myself, I do think that we deserve to have an easier option to perhaps expand that reproductive timeline, so that we can achieve everything we want to achieve in life on our own timeline,” Radenkovic said.
While the company is currently focused on infertility, it hopes to address other conditions as well, including menopause and ovarian cancer, Radenkovic added.
Photo: StockFinland, Getty Images
