“The challenge of IVM is to figure out how to make fragile, finicky human eggs mature in a dish as well as they do within the ovaries. The handful of researchers and companies leading the push to make IVM more mainstream are taking different approaches. One Texas-based company, Gameto, uses stem cells to produce something akin to an ovary in a dish, mimicking the chemical signals an egg would receive in the body. Last month, for the first time, a baby was born who was created using Gameto’s stem-cell medium, Fertilo. The fertility clinic at the University of Medicine and Pharmacy at Ho Chi Minh City, in Vietnam, uses a technique that involves first allowing the retrieved eggs to rest, then ripening them. Lavima Fertility, a company that spun out of research at the Free University of Brussels, is working on commercializing that technique.
For now, these new treatments aren’t commercially available in the United States. The Food and Drug Administration hasn’t historically weighed in on the media that human embryos grow in, but it asked Gameto to seek approval to market Fertilo. Gameto is now preparing for Phase 3 clinical trials. Lavima could face similar hurdles. Older IVM methods are available in the U.S., but not widely used. Meanwhile, more than a dozen women in countries where Fertilo has been cleared for use, which include Australia, Mexico, Peru, and Argentina, are carrying Fertilo-assisted pregnancies, according to the company.”
From The Atlantic.