Reproductive biotechnology company Memphasys has received a boost for its flagship Felix system, with the first global study of its kind rating its novel technology as “best available” for recovering high-quality sperm for IVF following the sperm’s cryopreservation.
Felix is a medical device that gently separates high-quality sperm from semen for use in IVF programs. In a console that includes chambers and employs single-use cartridges, it combines membranes and a process involving an electrical charge called electrophoresis to separate sperm from semen.
Memphasys says Felix is noticeably faster than traditional sperm separation technologies, providing only a six-minute processing time compared with the more traditional “swim up” and centrifuge methods. They include density gradient centrifugation (DGC), which can take 30 minutes or longer.
Moreover, the company says a major advantage over alternative sperm separation techniques is that the cells separated by Felix exhibit significantly lower levels of DNA fragmentation … and the new study agrees. It concludes that that Felix delivers the best separation technique for recovering high-quality post-cryopreservation sperm for use in IVF.
Cryopreservation, or cell-freezing to minus 196C, is widely used for long-term sperm storage to guarantee fertile sperm is available to counter such issues as chemotherapy or vasectomy. However, after examining three sperm separation techniques, the study authors concluded that cryopreservation led to lower levels of motility and vitality and resulted in higher levels of DNA and cell membrane damage.
They wrote: “Of the three techniques compared, only cells separated on the basis of their size and electric charge (electrophoretic isolation) exhibited significantly lower levels of DNA fragmentation.”
The study was released at the annual conference of the Fertility Society of Australia and New Zealand (FSANZ) and has been reproduced in Reproduction and Fertility, the journal of the Society for Reproduction and Fertility.
Memphasys welcomed the findings and noted that the study was the first to globally compare electrophoretic separation with the DGC and “swim-up” sperm isolation techniques on cryopreserved human semen.
Modern lifestyles are said to be responsible for an increase in global infertility. The sperm count of males has halved over the past 30 years and male infertility issues constitute half of all fertility problems, according to The Infertility Trap – a book published last year warning how life choices impacted on fertility. As a result, artificial reproductive technologies such as IVF have become increasingly acceptable.
Memphasys says, there have been few meaningful advances in sperm preparation and selection since the advent of IVF techniques in the 1980s.
And the success rate of IVF is “stubbornly low”. The company says that in the Australasian market, the pregnancy rate per cycle is only 16.5 per cent.
That leaves the window wide open to new technologies that improve IVF performance. And with the global IVF services market predicted to grow to be worth US$17.6 billion (AUS$26.6 billion) in three years, Memphasys believes Felix might well pave the way to happiness for both wannabe mums and investors.
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By Mark Irving
