One-Liner
BAIBYS™ develops an AI and robotics-based COMPLETELY AUTONOMOUS system for sperm selection for IVF, which will improve success rates, reduce birth defects, and raise clinics’ throughput.
The problem
According to the WHO guidelines, in a healthy man, 96% of the sperm cells are abnormal. Natural fertilization overcomes this problem by having millions of sperm cells compete on one egg through various selection processes such that only the best one wins. However, in IVF today, the injected sperm cells are selected arbitrarily. Thus, the natural sperm selection process is bypassed, leading to fewer successful pregnancies and more birth defects. A manual selection at high magnification was proposed, showing higher success rates and reduced birth defects (NEJM, 2001). Nevertheless, this manual procedure was not widely adopted since it was lengthy (3h vs. a few minutes), subjective and inconsistent, required extensive training, and was therefore expensive.
BAIBYS’ solution
BAIBYS’ system performs the same selection process, based on the same well-accepted criteria, COMPLETELY AUTONOMOUSLY, in a fraction of the time and cost of the current manual process. The user needs only to place a cartridge with the sperm sample into the console and press a button, and the system will autonomously identify the optimal cells and will robotically transfer them to a separate droplet in the cartridge. Eliminating the drawbacks of the manual process by making it fast, objective, consistent, without trained personnel, and affordable, would allow its use in every IVF cycle, improving success rates, and reducing birth defects, while raising the clinics’ throughput and reputation.
Impact
The system shall revolutionize the IVF process by reducing the financial and emotional crisis involved with it by saving failed IVF treatments, reducing the economic burden on health systems, raising IVF clinics throughput, making IVF more accessible globally, and most importantly, reducing birth defects and helping more families in having healthy babies.
Market
The global IVF market is estimated at $41B by 2026 and growing at >10% CAGR. With 5M IVF treatments in the world forecasted for 2026, at >$200 disposable cartridge cost, plus consoles and service sales, BAIBYS’ Total Addressable Market exceeds $1B.
Progress
After a seed round of $2M in Q1/2021 (mostly from angels who are international experts in andrology and fertility clinic owners) and completing a working prototype, we closed an additional $2M investment by an Israeli VC to lead a $3-4M round. The use of proceeds is to develop the product, conduct clinical trials, and get regulatory clearances. Our seed round investors participated in this round as well.