Spotted: In-vitro fertilisation (IVF) has been a crucial breakthrough – both for human couples who want children, and for farmers who use it to manage the make-up of their herds. Despite the many medical advances that have moved fertility treatments forward, rates of success are still low. Fertility tech company Pera Labs says that IVF fails 70 per cent of the time in humans and 60 per cent of the time in farm animals. The company’s solution is to make it easier to find and select the highest quality sperm for a fertilisation.

Using artificial intelligence (AI) to cut down on the length of time it takes to analyse sperm in the laboratory shortens the amount of time individuals, couples, and farmers have to wait for each round of treatment or service. The company’s proprietary algorithm SPERMAN works with images as well as video, a development that greatly increases the accuracy of sperm quality analyses. The technology also works with eggs. Because eggs are much larger than sperm, it takes only seconds for the AI to gather enough data to grade an egg’s health.

For farmers, the lab offers a sex-sorting-as-a-service option to help maintain herd health and optimum numbers of each gender. For people, the technology helps identify as early as possible before the embryo stage the possibility of any dangerous genetic mutations. And potentially, if fertility treatments speed up slightly, costs may drop, enabling more people to access treatments that are currently prohibitively expensive.

Innovations focusing on fertility are relatively rare, with Springwise spotting a Tinder-style app that helps people choose a sperm donor and a femtech platform that personalises care for conditions that often affect infertility.  

Written By: Keely Khoury