Trends and expectations for the fertility sector in 2023

2022 featured some pivotal moments whose impacts will reverberate into the new year. Eran Eshed, CEO and co-founder of Fairtility, reflects on the developments poised to shape fertility care in 2023.

This year, we saw the US Supreme Court overturn Roe v Wade in a decision with passionate responses from both sides of the political aisle. Through 2022, we have started to learn to live alongside Covid.

From a technological perspective, AI has clearly entered the Zeitgeist with endless social media posts featuring AI-generated art and text, stoking both excitement and fear of how AI will impact our future lives. And, we are facing a global economic downturn that is impacting people around the world with spiking rates of inflation and rising cost of living globally.

With these new realities in play, the field of fertility care will feel the effects of all of these trends in different, but significant ways. Let’s take a look at how some of 2022’s pivotal developments are poised to shape fertility care in 2023.

Roe v Wade and IVF Clinics in 2023

The overturning of Roe v Wade by the US Supreme may have a significant impact on IVF in 2023, specifically in states that do not explicitly allow for IVF or IVF embryo selection as part of their anti-abortion laws.

With state-by-state laws forming in the coming year, prospective parents will need to remain informed of their local legislation, as reproductive medical procedures may be restricted or entirely banned in certain states.

Consequently, prospective parents may need to travel out of state to receive IVF treatment. IVF clinics will have an uncertain year ahead as patient demand remains unpredictable in the wake of Roe v Wade.

Additionally, clinical IVF teams will need to remain vigilant as “foetal personhood” legislation, which suggests that foetuses and embryos have the same legal standing as a born child, may expose routine assisted reproductive technology procedures such as IVF to risk, and potential liability for providers.

IVF in the post-pandemic world requires innovation

We are seeing the impact today of healthcare treatment delays that occurred as a result of Covid. For prospective parents who are up against a biological clock, fertility treatment delays were agonizing. During the pandemic, many IVF clinics had to temporarily close the doors to patients.

As the world resettles into new routines alongside peeks and dips of Covid cases, patient demand for IVF is higher than ever.

However, filling this need is not simple as we face a global shortage of embryologists. Meeting this need requires the advancement of IVF technology to automate routine processes for clinicians, freeing up their time to service additional patients.

Digital transformation in this field will gain further momentum in 2023, as the introduction of new technologies into IVF clinics, such as AI-guided decision support tools, will help increase capacity, reduce costs, and improve access to reproductive health treatments.

The new generation of fertility patients are tech savvy

AI has entered our daily lives. This couldn’t be clearer as our social feeds are filled with ChatGPT and AI-generated portraits.

These new technological opportunities, combined with a younger generation that has grown up with endless access to information means today’s fertility patients are looking for greater automation, transparency and explainability in their care journey. This tech savvy generation wants to feel engaged and in control of their journey and choices.

Opportunity comes up against reality when prospective patients are sitting with their fertility specialists. The worst thing for prospective parents undergoing IVF to hear – other than the simple fact of an embryo transfer not implanting – is that there is no explanation for the failed attempt.

This can make patients feel they are sitting in the back seat of their treatments rather than in the driver’s seat.

Herein lies the opening where new AI solutions will have an impact. Digital technologies such as transparent AI tools, electronic witnessing and automated cryo storage are becoming more commonplace and widely deployed in the reproductive health space. These can enable greater transparency and increased clinician-patient collaboration.

Harnessing the power of AI to augment IVF decisions

AI is going to impact more than just the patient experience. Fertility care is moving toward new areas of sophistication, which is being driven by data.

New tools and technologies in health in general and IVF specifically enable collection of vast amounts of data that either could not be collected before or was not good enough quality.

New transparent AI tools can take advantage of this data, with the ability to manage, interpret and truly make sense of it all. This is enabling standardisation of clinical protocols and improving accuracy and consistency in clinical decision making, regardless of the experience level of the embryologist.

The image-based nature of IVF has made it ripe for AI transformation. Collecting vast amounts of aggregated data, and training AI algorithms to identify specific biomarkers as an embryo develops, is giving embryologists a new level of insights into the quality of developing embryos that is not possible with human analysis alone.

With millions of data points collected and analysed during an IVF cycle, embryologists are being armed with rich AI-driven biological data and quality assessments to help them determine the most viable embryos.

AI-powered embryo quality selection tools are being deployed into clinics around the world. Utilising these tools to support clinical decisions along the IVF treatment journey, we may expect to see an overall improvement of IVF care outcomes, with patients requiring fewer IVF rounds to achieve a live birth.

The pandemic economy – what’s in store for IVF?

One of the biggest challenges the world is grappling with as we close 2022 is the post-pandemic economic crisis. However, it is unlikely the economic downturn will affect the fertility care market in the way it has other fields.

Since peoples’ desire to become parents is a fundamental need for many, prospective parents will prioritise IVF over anything else. These single-minded patients will be doing their homework on which fertility care provider is most likely to help them fulfil their dreams.

Fertility clinics will need to up their offerings to prove to their potential patients that they can get the job done. This is going to position clinics utilising advancing AI decision support tools ahead of the rest, since prospective parents who are tight on funds will want to make sure they are given the best chance of success.

Advancements in technology can provide hope to those who are invested in the IVF process. It will facilitate a lot of the changes that we need to see, including improved access, lower costs, improved patient experiences and more consistent and objective clinical decision making.

Based on patient demand, IVF professional need, and the new technologies entering the IVF lab, 2023 is poised to be a year in which we see the bar raised on the standard of care in this field.

For more info, visit fairtility.com.