 An open-minded, forward-thinking culture has put this infertility and genetics institute at the forefront of its industry.
Innovation always will play an important role at Virginia-based Genetics and IVF Institute. Founded in 1984 by Dr. Joseph Schulman as the first outpatient infertility clinic in the US, the company has developed a number of technologies that have advanced the industry and helped GIVF become the world’s largest fully integrated provider of infertility and genetics services.
 David Wise, CEO
Family balancing is the use of fertility treatments, sometimes including IVF, to help a family that has at least one son have a daughter and vice versa. MicroSort’s preconception technology sorts the father’s X and Y sperm under a laser, and sorted sperm specimens are then used for insemination or for IVF. GIVF currently is conducting an FDA clinical trial of the MicroSort technology. The results have been noteworthy: women who get pregnant using MicroSort have girl babies 92% of the time when girls are requested, and 82% of babies born are boys when boys are requested.
“I don’t believe another infertility clinic in the US is undergoing an FDA trial,” Wise said. “MicroSort is a current example of how GIVF has developed or adapted technology to provide unique new services for patients.”
Piece of the puzzle
GIVF began as a fertility clinic, but from the start, the company stressed the importance of genetics in the overall process. The blend of human genetics with human infertility treatment has led the company into new fields of business that are virtually unheard of within the US industry. In 1997, GIVF created a cryobank, which is the industry term for a sperm bank, and in 2003, it acquired a second cryobank. “It started as an inhouse project, and now we have one of the two largest cryobanks in the US,” Wise said. “None of the other infertility clinics in the US have cryobanks.”
At the time the first cryobank was opened, GIVF also opened two infertility clinics in China, which Wise hopes will aid an international rollout of the MicroSort technology, if and when the FDA approves the wider use of MicroSort. GIVF operates many of its own laboratories, including a PGD (pre-implantation genetic diagnosis) laboratory that handles GIVF cases as well as providing services to other infertility clinics. The company also has a molecular genetics laboratory and performs infectious disease testing, which is useful for its large egg- and sperm-donor programs. All potential GIVF donors are heavily tested to determine their genetic makeup and overall health before they are accepted into the programs.
“One of the elements of our success is that we cover the entire gamut of fertility services, ” Wise said. “If someone has a fertility issue and they want treatment, including donor egg and donor sperm, we can perform the services and follow-up work inhouse.”
Which is why, and how, the MicroSort technology fit into GIVF’s business strategy. Expanding MicroSort not only will be a great market opportunity, but also a service to families who want to select the gender of their child so they can bring the family closer in to balance or avoid one of more than 500 gender-linked genetic diseases. “Our philosophy is to provide services so informed and intelligent patients can, once they know all the options, make good medical choices for themselves and their families,” Wise said. “MicroSort fits into that philosophy perfectly.”
Collaboration is key
Collaboration also plays an important role in defining GIVF. Founder Schulman was one of the first Americans to go to England and work with doctors Steptoe and Edwards, inventors of infertility treatment and co-creators of the industry in the US. Wise said working in tandem with cutting-edge outside partners has a compounding impact on the capabilities the company has internally, as all employees share the desire to innovate and work together to bring their ideas to fruition.
The company was founded in conjunction with the Inova Hospital System, the largest hospital system in Virginia. GIVF’s operations in China are joint ventures, one with the Fudan Univer-sity in Shanghai, which is one of the leading universities in its country, and the other with the leading women’s and maternity hospital in Guangdong province. With its newest venture, MicroSort, GIVF set up a joint venture in Southern California called MicroSort West, which is owned and operated in conjunction with Huntington Reproductive Center, another large infertility clinic.
In the past 12 months, GIVF has hosted speakers from Yale, Harvard, Stanford, and the McGill Reproductive Center at McGill University in Montreal, which is doing significant R&D on egg banking, an activity in which GIVF is also engaged.
Although these lectures could be viewed as simple listening exercises, Wise views them as innovative opportunities. GIVF employees across the company are invited to participate in thought-leader groups, sessions in which they discuss what they’ve read and what research they’ve seen while visiting other industry conferences. “MicroSort actually was developed through one of these groups, although at the time we called it a journal club,” he said. “Reaching out to others across the company and across the globe has been and will always be an important piece of the GIVF story.”
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