Australian reproductive biotechnology company Memphasys is taking advantage of the worldwide easing of travel rules to turbocharge its trademarked Felix System into global markets.
Memphasys has announced a targeted sales push, with the first pitch aimed at India, where Felix late last year scored its breakthrough commercial sales deal.
Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Alison Coutts, is currently in India, talking to fertility clinics and prospective distributors, en route to attending important reproductive fertility conferences in Italy.
Felix is a device that separates high-quality sperm from semen during the in-vitro fertilisation, or “IVF”, process.
Memphasys is promoting Felix as the first automated, non-DNA-damaging sperm separation method for preparing sperm samples in IVF clinics.
Felix can process semen samples in six minutes, whilst other commonly used method of sperm preparation for IVF procedures take 30 to 60 minutes.
Last year’s breakthrough sale of Felix was to the Womens Center in Coimbatore, in the state of Tamil Nadu, in India’s south.
The Womens Center has since made subsequent purchases and sales have been made to a company in China.
The recurring sales model of the single-use semen cartridges used in the Felix System provides an ongoing revenue stream for the company.
However, Memphasys has been frustrated in recent times by Covid-19-related travel restrictions as the company tried to drive sales – held back both in the testing of Felix at clinical practices and in the inability to hold face-to-face discussions with prospective customers.
With travel restrictions easing, the company is renewing its sales push and is expected to announce soon the appointment of a senior sales executive to take charge of Felix sales globally.
Markets such as India, China and Japan represent fertile marketing prospects for Memphasys’ technology to help women fall pregnant.
Memphasys has confirmed it also has been granted a patent for Felix in Japan.
The company is also preparing for a pre-submission meeting with the US Federal Drug Authority, or “FDA”, to get approval for Felix in the USA.
In Australia, Memphasys is collaborating on a clinical study with leading reproductive and fertility services company Monash IVF Group, in support of planned regulatory filings in Australia and overseas.
The study will assess the safety and performance of Felix against other procedures of isolating sperm from semen.
In total, 14 IVF clinics known as key opinion leader, or “KOL”, sites have been conducting assessments in the past year. The KOL data is being analysed by Memphasys’ Scientific Adviser, Professor John Aitken of Newcastle University, NSW.
Professor Aitken is preparing a paper on the findings to be peer reviewed and published in a reproductive science journal.
Memphasys will be looking for some productive outcomes as it returns to full engagement with the scientific and commercial reproductive community.
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