"The Lost Embryos"? And The Future Of IVF Specimen Management

"The Lost Embryos" And The Future Of IVF Specimen Management

This past weekend, The New York Times published a brilliant, culture-shifting piece of reporting by Katherine Rosman, headlined “The Lost Embryos.” https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/16/style/freezing-eggs-and-embryos.html

I know from the calls and texts from dozens of friends and acquaintances who are not professionally involved in IVF just how powerfully this story resonated with the general public. The broader scientific community has taken note as well. Yesterday, the first item on the National Institute of Health’s own bellwether National Library of Medicine website is a picture of the couple featured in “The Lost Embryos,” with the opening sentences of the story reprinted as a massive headline.

It’s not surprising that this article has stirred interest in the broader clinical community. In medicine, there is a class of errors called “never events.” These are errors so grievous, damaging, and generally irreversible that they simply should never be tolerated. A widely published list of such errors cites, for example, “surgery on the wrong part” of the body as being #8. But number #1 on this list, for good reason I believe, cites an error in the management of the embryos used in IVF. 

“The Lost Embryos” hits at the crux of exactly what TMRW Life Sciences, the company I co-founded with Alan Murray and Jeff Port, was created to do: eliminate “never events” in IVF specimen management, specifically by safeguarding the eggs and embryos used in every IVF procedure. Had the TMRW technology been in place, it’s inconceivable that the tragic “never events” described in Rosman’s piece could ever have occurred. Through the use of automation and unmatched levels of 24/7 monitoring, TMRW provides the utmost levels of safety and security for eggs and embryos entrusted to IVF clinics. 

The NYT story: Dr. Elaine Meyer and Dr. Barry Prizant began fertility treatment in 1995 using cryopreserved embryos. They were soon blessed with a son, Noah, now a college student, whom they describe as the light of their lives. After Noah’s birth, and even though they absolutely wished to have more children, Elaine and Barry were told by their clinic that they had no more embryos. Without additional embryos to implant, the couple surrendered their dream of a sibling for Noah. What they didn’t know at the time, but now allege in pending litigation, was that the clinic actually knew, circa the time of Noah’s birth, that it had lost at least two embryos due to its own negligent cryomanagement practices. To put it bluntly, the clinic simply did not know where these embryos were. Mislabeled and implanted in another patient? Accidentally discarded? Their whereabouts were a mystery to the clinic. And their loss seems to have been regarded by the clinic with all the urgency of “socks lost in the laundry.” That, by the way, is the memorable phrase one leading U.S. board-certified fertility doctor used with me in a conversation seeking to candidly describe the often-flawed management of the frozen eggs and embryos used in IVF absent the kind of technology that TMRW invented. Alleged perpetrators of this “lost in the laundry” ethos, the people running the IVF clinic Elaine and Barry trusted chose to deny the embryos had ever existed. 

Finally, in 2017, after almost two decades, the clinic discovered their whereabouts: floating at the bottom of a cryostorage tank, found only because of a long-delayed cleaning effort. And to add insult to injury, the only reason Elaine and Barry became aware of the discovery was that the clinic, after almost twenty years of never communicating with the couple, chose to send them a bill for years of “unpaid storage.”  

Not surprisingly, a doctor affiliated with the clinic shared that the embryos were likely not viable after undergoing such abuse. 

In the midst of a pending lawsuit over the mishandling of their embryos, the couple is hoping to compel fertility clinic operators to assess their specimen management and storage, and commit to making it more reliable and accountable, so that other families don’t have to endure the agony they have experienced.

The TMRW team is partnering with incredible IVF clinics to establish a new standard of care, one which will prevent “never events” and assure the most exacting care of the frozen eggs and embryos at the heart of most modern IVF procedures. Already, clinics representing almost 40% of all U.S. IVF activity have engaged with us to install our technology for automated, robotic, RFID-powered software guided management of the precious eggs and embryos in their care. As the IVF industry — and particularly cryopreservation — continues to expand, the TMRW gold standard for the safe management of eggs and embryos is quickly ushering in a new era of assurance, transparency, and peace of mind, for both patients and their doctors.

Whether you are involved in fertility professionally, or just curious about issues surrounding a remarkable field of medicine that will lead to the birth of an estimated 300 million IVF babies in the balance of this century, I urge you to read Rosman’s piece. You will not forget it. The implications of this story are vast. IVF is one of the medical miracles of the past 50 years. In some countries, as many as 10% of all children are conceived using IVF; no surprise given that 15% of couples suffer from infertility, unable to conceive without medical assistance. Almost all of these hundreds of millions of IVF children will be conceived using frozen eggs and embryos. As the Times piece makes abundantly clear, IVF cannot fulfill its enormous, brilliant promise until we bring the highest levels of transparency and beneficial technology to the care of frozen eggs and embryos. 

The safe management of these eggs and embryos, in collaboration with our clinical partners, is our sacred mission and the absolute passion of every person who works at TMRW.

robert green

30+ years of content, marketing and strategy.

3 年

love seeing my worlds collide! Katie Rosman is a friend, and a great reporter!

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