NOVEMBER 2016 FORBES ASIA | 51Ffor egg extraction,” Marcy Darnovsky, the executive direc-
tor of the Center for Genetics & Society, said in a wide-
ly cited critique. “The short-term risks range from mild
to very severe, and the long-term risks are uncertain be-
cause they haven’t been adequately studied.” Others say
the industry is putting profits ahead of safety. And cost
is an issue, too, especially since most of the frozen eggs
will never be used. In 2014 only 1.6% of babies born in the
United States were conceived through IVF, according to
SART, whose data cover more than 90% of the clinics.
But in some ways, concerns about cost miss the point.
Young women don’t freeze their eggs in order to pursue
IVF in the future. They freeze them to have the option—
an insurance policy that unwinds the biological clock and
lets women pursue career advancement as freely as men
without having to compromise in their choice of part-
ner. If those frozen eggs are never used, such is the cost of
peace of mind. “I feel totally liberated,” says Leila Janah,
33, a well-known Silicon Valley social entrepreneur, who
recently wrote about her decision to freeze her eggs. She
says professional women often face mixed messages: in-
tense pressure not only to succeed in their careers but
also to “settle down,” whether or not they have found the
right partner. “If we want to promote women’s full par-
ticipation in the workforce and the world, we need to
give them the options to have a family when they want
to,” says Janah.
VARSAVSKY IS KEENLY AWARE that Prelude is jump-
ing into sensitive territory. But he’s driven by the convic-
tion that infertility in all its forms—the ability of a woman
not only to have a child but also to have as many as she
wants—takes an increasingly painful toll on families. Pre-
lude—not counting the staf of roughly 100 at RBA and
My Egg Bank—remains tiny, with just 5 employees, and
almost all of them have been touched by infertility, giv-
ing the company a sense of mission. “The emotional part
is driving what we are trying to do,” says Tia Newcomer,
Prelude’s chief revenue oicer, whose husband is a can-
cer survivor who opted not to freeze his sperm when he
was diagnosed at age 18, forcing them to seek the help of
a sperm donor in order to have children.
From Johnson’s oices at West in the San Francisco
Presidio, which Varsavsky uses as temporary headquar-
ters, Prelude is developing a marketing campaign that
prom ises to focus on education rather than fear. That will
include encouraging women and their ob-gyns to test
more routinely for a hormone, AMH, whose levels can
determine the likelihood of infertility. And Varsavsky is
plotting to take the company national by partnering with
a network of clinics that will ofer the Prelude Method.
The advertising push is expected to begin this month.
“The science of Prelude will work,” Varsavsky says. “If
we fail, it’s because we fail in making Millennials think
ahead.”
Millennials, it should be noted, are known to fixate on
getting what they want—when they want it. Why should
procreation be any diferent? “One of the changing ele-
ments in health care is consumer choice, and I think that
Martin is introducing that in the fertility sector,” says
Anne Wojcicki, the founder and CEO of genetic-testing
company 23andMe and a friend of Varsavsky’s.
One recent academic study asked not whether it is a
good idea for younger women to freeze their eggs but
when the optimal time was to do so. Dr. Tolga Mesen, the
lead author, plugged variables such as rates of marriage,
pregnancy and miscarriages, and even cost, into a model
to determine the probability of success and the likelihood
the eggs would be used. While most women will never
need to freeze their eggs, Mesen said, the procedure can
be life-changing for some patients.
The ideal age to do it? Between 31 and 33. Young
enough to make Varsavsky’s seventh startup his biggest, if
American women buy in.1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 20120246810(^12) 50%
40
30
20
10
0
<30 30 32 34 36 38 40 42 44 46 >47
FIRST-BIRTH RATES PER
1,000 WOMEN BY AGE OF
MOTHER
35–39 YEARS OLD
40–44 YEARS OLD
SOURCE: CDC. SOURCE: CDC.
OLDER FIRST-TIME MOTHERS
ON THE RISE
FIRST-BIRTH RATES, BY SELECTED AGE OF MOTHER.
DECLINING FERTILITY
PERCENTAGE OF TRANSFERS OF EMBRYOS THAT RESULT IN A LIVE
BIRTH, BY AGE OF WOMAN.