Speaker 1: At kind Body, our clinics are unique. They're not your
Speaker 1: typical doctor's office. They're not sterile white walls. They're warm,
Speaker 1: they're inviting, they're more spa like.
Speaker 2: We have a radical that's an ad for a venture
Speaker 2: backed startup called kind Body. It's a rapidly growing company
Speaker 2: that operates dozens of fertility clinics around the US, and
Speaker 2: it's gotten attention for its warmer, millennial friendly approach to
Speaker 2: in vitro fertilization and other procedures. But Bloomberg's Jackie Devallos
Speaker 2: reports that current and former employees and some patients describe
Speaker 2: a bonus driven business model, understaffed clinics, and inconsistent safety
Speaker 2: protocols that they say contributed to errors.
Speaker 1: There were a few accidents that involved embryos being dropped,
Speaker 1: being left out that had disrupted an IVF cycled, and
Speaker 1: so that cycle was disrupted because of a mistake that
Speaker 1: the clinic had made. And so a couple of these
Speaker 1: accidents and left a real impression on some of the
Speaker 1: employees who had been working there who saw this firsthand.
Speaker 2: I'm Wescasova today on the big take the challenges of
Speaker 2: building a new kind of fertility clinic. Jackie tell us
Speaker 2: about kind Body.
Speaker 1: Kind Body was founded in twenty eighteen, and it was
Speaker 1: founded by a woman named Gina Bartazi, who was a
Speaker 1: real veteran in the IVF industry. She had started two
Speaker 1: other businesses that had grown to become what was one
Speaker 1: of the largest fertility networks in the country at the time,
Speaker 1: and it came onto the scene at a time when
Speaker 1: feminist ideals were really strong. Trump had just gotten elected
Speaker 1: and the me Too movement was underway. She left right
Speaker 1: before the company iPod and started kind Body, which was
Speaker 1: intended to be a disruptor in the fertility industry, and
Speaker 1: it wanted to achieve that by being a little bit
Speaker 1: more accessible. It was what they called the soul cycle
Speaker 1: of fertility. Really bright design, this colorful, warm esthetic, and
Speaker 1: it was very intentional to attract this millennial woman that
Speaker 1: was prioritizing her career and wanted to take control of
Speaker 1: starting a family rather than feeling pressured to do it
Speaker 1: at an age when they didn't feel ready. And so
Speaker 1: they spoke to that message in their marketing and the
Speaker 1: way they designed the clinics.
Speaker 2: And what kind of services does kind Body provide?
Speaker 1: So the company provides predominantly IVF, so that's in vitro
Speaker 1: fertilization treatment as well as egg freezing. So if you're
Speaker 1: a young woman who wants to put off starting a
Speaker 1: family but you don't want to be caught off guard
Speaker 1: in your forties, you can freeze your eggs and the
Speaker 1: company stores them for you, retrieves them, takes you through
Speaker 1: that process, and then for people who are ready to
Speaker 1: start a family, kind Body helps you do the IVF
Speaker 1: process if you've had trouble conceiving through traditional methods. The
Speaker 1: company pitches itself as giving women the choice, and for
Speaker 1: many women they don't really know when they want to
Speaker 1: start a family, which is where egg freezing really comes
Speaker 1: into play. And for people that have had infertility troubles,
Speaker 1: IVF is kind of the first route you go to,
Speaker 1: and they offer that at all of their clinics. The
Speaker 1: difference between kind Body and some of the other players
Speaker 1: out there is that they do this all under one roof,
Speaker 1: and kind Body was saying, well, we have our own
Speaker 1: brick and mortar clinics, and by doing so, not only
Speaker 1: do we bring costs down, but we can control the quality.
Speaker 1: We know exactly what standards we have in our labs,
Speaker 1: we don't have to wait for clinics to get back
Speaker 1: to us, and it kind of removes that additional layer
Speaker 1: of friction between the patient and the doctor there.
Speaker 2: And so how has it worked so far?
Speaker 1: The company's gotten the support of celebrity investors like Gwyneth Paltrow,
Speaker 1: Chelsea Clinton, Gabrielle Union, and it's gotten a lot of
Speaker 1: clout throughout the country because it's expanded its clinics into
Speaker 1: really buzzy metropolitan areas in New York and in San Francisco,
Speaker 1: Santa Monica, and Los Angeles, Chicago. It also underwent this
Speaker 1: major acquisition of a network in the Midwest that expanded
Speaker 1: its footprint pretty much doubled the size of its network
Speaker 1: to thirty three clinics now actually, and so they have
Speaker 1: really gotten off the ground, not just appealing to consumers
Speaker 1: who walk in and want to see out this treatment,
Speaker 1: but also through the employer benefits side. So it's two
Speaker 1: very different customer bases. So now you have companies like
Speaker 1: Tesla and Rivian. Walmart is a major client for them
Speaker 1: where they become the preferred provider for their employees.
Speaker 3: Walmart's teaming up with a fertility company to offer benefits
Speaker 3: for employees looking to expand their families. The nation's largest
Speaker 3: retailer is partnering with kind Body to offer benefits like
Speaker 3: IVF and fertility testing regardless of sex, sexual orientation, gender identity,
Speaker 3: or marital status.
Speaker 1: And so because of that, they've had to open up
Speaker 1: more clinics in eras where those clients are, and that's
Speaker 1: expanded their footprint quite a bit.
Speaker 2: So, Jackie, as you say, this company's been around since
Speaker 2: twenty eighteen, what made you want to write about it now?
Speaker 1: At the time, I had been reporting on kind of
Speaker 1: the health tech space and the impact of venture capital
Speaker 1: dollars flowing into a sector where the stakes are really
Speaker 1: high and the priorities that investors have that end up
Speaker 1: being imposed on the companies that they back can sometimes
Speaker 1: conflict with patient care. And this had come onto my
Speaker 1: radar after looking at my own Instagram and my own TikTok.
Speaker 1: I'm a thirty two year old woman and exactly the
Speaker 1: kind of demographic that kind Body targets, and I had
Speaker 1: gotten some of these ads for a while and got
Speaker 1: curious about why that marketing was pretty targeted and if
Speaker 1: anyone else was getting it. I had gotten a tip
Speaker 1: from a user on Reddit that was commenting on kind
Speaker 1: of their experience at the company. They were a former employee,
Speaker 1: and they basically told me, you should really look into
Speaker 1: those laboratories where these IVF treatments are really happening. And
Speaker 1: it didn't take long for me to uncover some other employees,
Speaker 1: both current and former staff, that were really concerned about
Speaker 1: the quality of care and what the rapid expansion meant
Speaker 1: for their ability to provide good quality care to patients.
Speaker 2: So let's talk about that. What exactly did you find
Speaker 2: At a couple.
Speaker 1: Other clinics, and namely the Brian Park, New York City location,
Speaker 1: there were a few accidents that involved embryos being dropped,
Speaker 1: being left out that had disrupted an IVF cycle, which
Speaker 1: is basically the process in which a woman in jext
Speaker 1: herself with hormones, the eggs are retrieved, the embryos are
Speaker 1: fertilized and eventually implanted, and so that cycle was disrupted
Speaker 1: because of a mistake that the clinic had made. And
Speaker 1: so a couple of these accidents left a real impression
Speaker 1: on some of the employees who had been working there
Speaker 1: who saw this firsthand. There was a couple in New
Speaker 1: York who had sought treatment in the Prime Park, New
Speaker 1: York City location and were looking to basically have an
Speaker 1: embryo transfer. They had a number of embryos already stored
Speaker 1: at the company, and when they got there they were
Speaker 1: notified that the wrong one had been defrosted, and they
Speaker 1: weren't really in a position to make much of a choice.
Speaker 1: So one option would have been to refreeze the embryo
Speaker 1: and risk that embryo being damaged, or continue with the transfer.
Speaker 1: They decided to continue with the transfer. It didn't result
Speaker 1: in a successful pregnancy, and that can happen for a
Speaker 1: variety of reasons. Kind Body has said that they acknowledged
Speaker 1: the mistake, but pointed to the fact that this doesn't
Speaker 1: really happen that often at their clinics. Another thing to
Speaker 1: note about this particular incident is that it was the
Speaker 1: wrong embryo for a variety of reasons that aren't completely
Speaker 1: clear to us. According to current informer employees, it might
Speaker 1: have been the wrong quality embryo, it might have been
Speaker 1: the wrong gender. It's already a really fraught time. It's
Speaker 1: an emotional period for a family, and so even though
Speaker 1: it didn't result in a successful pregnancy, it left them
Speaker 1: with a lot of reticence to continue IVF going forward.
Speaker 1: In total, we uncovered three incidents in New York. One
Speaker 1: of them involved the wrong embryo being thought, another one
Speaker 1: an embryo was accidentally dropped, and another one was left
Speaker 1: out in room temperature and effectively destroyed. And in that case,
Speaker 1: it was the woman's last embryo and extremely unfortunate because
Speaker 1: the company's way of remedying that was to offer her
Speaker 1: unlimited IVF cycles forever, but she ultimately was not able
Speaker 1: to conceive at kind Body.
Speaker 2: And what did kind Body say when you asked them
Speaker 2: about each of these incidents at the New York location.
Speaker 1: They acknowledged that they had happened and pointed to some
Speaker 1: improvements that had been implemented since. And some of those
Speaker 1: include color coating dishes and requiring what they call additional
Speaker 1: verification for labels to prevent that going forward. Now we
Speaker 1: know that one of the earliest accidents occurred in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one. However, we we also found an example in
Speaker 1: an Atlanta clinic that just occurred this past March.
Speaker 2: Kind Body also said it conducts a root cause analysis
Speaker 2: after incidents, including the ones Bloomberg raised and correct processes
Speaker 2: where necessary. In her reporting, Jackie found that examples of
Speaker 2: embryos being mislabeled, lost, or accidentally destroyed occurred in four
Speaker 2: clinics around the country over the past three years, according
Speaker 2: to two current employees and a dozen former employees.
Speaker 1: Some other issues that the company went through included how
Speaker 1: they retrofit clinics, and that was done, according to employees,
Speaker 1: done in a hasty way that resulted in issues like
Speaker 1: gases being omitted into the clinic from sewer pipes that
Speaker 1: were left open that occurred in Austin and Atlanta. The
Speaker 1: HVAC systems were installed properly that led to a flood
Speaker 1: after a leak leading to a ceiling being burst open.
Speaker 1: And the reason that significant is because they occurred in
Speaker 1: areas that were adjacent or very close to the embryology lab.
Speaker 1: And embryology labs require very specific specifications to make sure
Speaker 1: that the air quality is monitored appropriately. Things like temperature
Speaker 1: and what they call volatile organic compounds things like perfume
Speaker 1: can actually impact the development and the quality of an embryo,
Speaker 1: and so having a flood coming through the ceiling or
Speaker 1: foul smelling gases in Austin seeping into the clinic are
Speaker 1: actually quite significant risks for an IBF lab.
Speaker 2: And I imagine you asked kind Body about that as well.
Speaker 1: Yes, and they admitted that they had issues when these
Speaker 1: clinics opened up, that they remedied these issues in a
Speaker 1: timely manner. But from what we understand, current informer employees
Speaker 1: in other clinics, like in Brian Park, which is one
Speaker 1: of the longest running clinics, have continued to struggle with
Speaker 1: HVAC issues as early as twenty twenty. The company says
Speaker 1: that they immediately addressed them.
Speaker 2: In a statement, kind Body also said no patients, tissues
Speaker 2: or embryos were directly impacted, and it said that to
Speaker 2: suggest that kind Body's laboratories are substandard and not meeting
Speaker 2: industry norms is false. After the break, how does kind
Speaker 2: Body compare to other US fertility clinics, Jackie? How were
Speaker 2: you able to find patients to speak to?
Speaker 1: Sources obviously could not disclose their identity for privacy reasons
Speaker 1: and health laws and HIPPA that prevented them from doing that,
Speaker 1: but there were some that had left reviews on sites
Speaker 1: like Yelp and Google and Reddit, and it was months
Speaker 1: of trying to track these people down. But the more
Speaker 1: specific accounts I was able to get from current and
Speaker 1: former employees, the better I was able to do that.
Speaker 1: But it was really hard because people want to move
Speaker 1: on from this, and even when in some cases where
Speaker 1: their embryos were mishandled and it was traumatic at the time,
Speaker 1: in some cases they ended up having a baby, and
Speaker 1: so in their minds, they want to move on from
Speaker 1: that incident, given the outcome eventually was a positive one
Speaker 1: for their family.
Speaker 2: And you say you've spoken to quite a few employees
Speaker 2: at different locations at the company. How were you able
Speaker 2: to find them and why were they willing to speak
Speaker 2: to you.
Speaker 1: I spoke to nurse practitioners, doctors, lab professionals, everyone across
Speaker 1: finance to sales to marketing. So over three dozen people
Speaker 1: I connected with had different types of experiences that intersected
Speaker 1: with these accidents. The clinical professionals, so the doctors, the embryologists,
Speaker 1: the lab professionals felt compelled to speak to me because
Speaker 1: they saw how quickly the company was expanding and they
Speaker 1: were concerned that more accidents could happen. They had initially
Speaker 1: thought about some of the mishandling incidents kind of like
Speaker 1: startup growing pains that this can happen at many companies.
Speaker 1: It's not unusual in the fertility industry for accidents to happen.
Speaker 1: It's risky business. But many employees shared with me that
Speaker 1: the company was expanding at an even faster clip, and
Speaker 1: with this IPO kind of looming as this big goal,
Speaker 1: what it would take to get there and what that
Speaker 1: would mean for patients, The potential for more mistakes was
Speaker 1: really concerning for them.
Speaker 2: Jack, As you say, IVF is an imperfect science, it's difficult,
Speaker 2: and people make mistakes. How how different is kind Body
Speaker 2: from the thousands of other fertility clinics around the country
Speaker 2: when it comes to mistake rates or mishaps or things
Speaker 2: that just don't go right.
Speaker 1: The government does not have any repository or database for
Speaker 1: tracking these accidents. There is a study that we point
Speaker 1: to in the story that tracks one lab across twelve
Speaker 1: years and they find that these kind of accidents occur
Speaker 1: onesid of every two thousand cycles. And kind Body says
Speaker 1: that their overall incident rate across all of their clinics
Speaker 1: is aboutzero point two percent, and that aligns with what
Speaker 1: that study found. However, that studies just looking at one lab,
Speaker 1: which is not really comparing apples to apples to kind
Speaker 1: Body's incident rate because kind Body would not disclose what
Speaker 1: each clinics incident rate was.
Speaker 2: In a statement provided by kind Body, Stephen Cats, the
Speaker 2: chief executive officer of ARII Protect, a risk management and
Speaker 2: insurance company for IVF clinics including kind Body, said that
Speaker 2: kind Body's incident rates are in the lowest quartile of
Speaker 2: the clinics that he covers. Katz told Bloomberg that his
Speaker 2: firm covers about half of all fertility doctors and IVF
Speaker 2: labs in the country.
Speaker 1: Because there's no real mechanism or requirement for other fertility
Speaker 1: clinics to report these types of accidents, it's really hard
Speaker 1: to know what else is going on in the industry overall.
Speaker 1: And that really has to do with the fact that
Speaker 1: regulation in the industry isn't where it should be according
Speaker 1: to experts who follow the industry, And.
Speaker 2: What did they tell you specifically about that.
Speaker 1: So there's a few government agencies that touch aspects of
Speaker 1: the IVF industry. You have the Centers for Disease Control
Speaker 1: that are tracking which IVF labs are certified to be
Speaker 1: open and then you have the FDA that regulates things
Speaker 1: like medical devices used, but they don't actually regulate how
Speaker 1: the procedures are carried out. The FDA cares more about
Speaker 1: donor services, so how are embryos and sperm being stored,
Speaker 1: for example. And then you have independent bodies that are
Speaker 1: more like industry groups and a compilation of experts in
Speaker 1: the industry that set out these guidelines, but there is
Speaker 1: no real enforcement. The CDC is not tracking or policing
Speaker 1: how companies are actually carrying out some of these standards
Speaker 1: and practices, and because of that, the onus falls to
Speaker 1: the companies themselves. They end up self policing in many cases.
Speaker 1: And you can get accreditation by organizations like the College
Speaker 1: of American Pathologists. You get a nice stamp of approval,
Speaker 1: but that's a voluntary process, and so what that offers
Speaker 1: to patients is this stamp that gives you some layer
Speaker 1: of credibility. But that process, you get an inspection when
Speaker 1: you first open. Then you get this self completed checklist
Speaker 1: that clinics complete on their own, and then another inspection
Speaker 1: is conducted the following year, so that consistent follow up
Speaker 1: isn't really there, and that government oversight, isn't there either.
Speaker 2: Is this unique to the US or is this the
Speaker 2: way it's done around the world.
Speaker 1: No, you know, you have the UK, they have different
Speaker 1: regulations for things like a process called double witnessing, and
Speaker 1: that's really important because double witnessing is when you have
Speaker 1: at least two embryologists overseeing what's going on in the
Speaker 1: embryology lab. At kind Body, there were times when there
Speaker 1: was only one embryologist in the lab when some of
Speaker 1: these procedures were being conducted, and current informer employees say
Speaker 1: that that was a big problem because as they got
Speaker 1: more patients, some of these embryologists were getting burned out.
Speaker 1: In the UK, for example, it's mandated by law that
Speaker 1: you have to have at least two people double witnessing
Speaker 1: two humans, and the experts that we spoke to said
Speaker 1: that there is no replacement for having another human there
Speaker 1: and at accompanied at kind Body. In the US, that
Speaker 1: isn't really mandated by law.
Speaker 2: And Jackie, what did kind Body say about this question
Speaker 2: of whether embryologists that their labs were burnt out overworked?
Speaker 1: They said that they were staffing their clinics appropriately and
Speaker 1: they said that they staff it according to volumes, so
Speaker 1: on more high volume days that they would staff it
Speaker 1: up with more people. But they also pointed to the
Speaker 1: fact that turnover among embryologists is at what they called
Speaker 1: the industry level, and that they weren't an outlier in
Speaker 1: that way.
Speaker 2: You also report about the pay and incentive packages for
Speaker 2: people who worked at kind Body and how that affected
Speaker 2: some of the procedures that were performed.
Speaker 1: That's right. Current and former doctors I spoke to said
Speaker 1: that kind Body had an aggressive sales culture that when
Speaker 1: patients came in for a consultation that nurse practitioners were
Speaker 1: required to basically call them back at least three times
Speaker 1: before they were taken off this interested list, and nurse
Speaker 1: practitioners and doctor said that they felt uncomfortable with that approach,
Speaker 1: that even though quotas kind of exist across the industry,
Speaker 1: that this is how a clinic makes money. That kind
Speaker 1: Body went about in an aggressive way by then telling
Speaker 1: doctors at monthly meetings, our numbers are low. We need
Speaker 1: to increase cycles. And one of the way they were
Speaker 1: told to do that is through a process called dual stimulation,
Speaker 1: basically makes a woman undergo the egg retrieval process kind
Speaker 1: of twice in one cycle. The dual stimulation procedure is
Speaker 1: really designed for women who produce relatively few egs, so
Speaker 1: you might see this more common in older women, and
Speaker 1: it's a procedure that's common in the fertility industry, but again,
Speaker 1: it's not typically used for women that are young and
Speaker 1: in good health. However, doctors told me that they felt
Speaker 1: pressured to recommend this procedure to even young, healthy patients
Speaker 1: in a bid to boost their quotas for the month.
Speaker 1: And the reason that's significant for the patient is because
Speaker 1: it's very taxing on the body and women don't really
Speaker 1: get a break to kind of recover. But from the
Speaker 1: company's perspective, they're able to extract more money from a
Speaker 1: process like that, it's more costly. Doctors said that they
Speaker 1: didn't feel comfortable kind of taking this approach, and that
Speaker 1: the quotas were emphasized pretty frequently throughout the year, and
Speaker 1: that that pressure has just become more intense as the
Speaker 1: company marches toward an IPO.
Speaker 2: And what did kind body say about all of this?
Speaker 1: Kind body pointed to the fact that quotas are not
Speaker 1: uncommon in the industry, which is true. They said that
Speaker 1: they left the discretion of what procedures to recommend to
Speaker 1: patients up to doctors, and they disputed the fact that
Speaker 1: they ever pressured clinicians, nurse practitioners included, to ever do
Speaker 1: anything that they didn't want to do.
Speaker 2: Jackie, we've been talking about the mistakes that happen in
Speaker 2: these labs. But what is kind body's success rate?
Speaker 1: So its overall life birth success rate is about the
Speaker 1: sixty three percent, and that's compared to a national average
Speaker 1: of about forty three percent as reported to the Society
Speaker 1: of Assisted Reproductive Technology.
Speaker 2: That would seem like a pretty good number for them
Speaker 2: to tout.
Speaker 1: It is, and it does show that they're able to
Speaker 1: be effective at helping people start a family, you know,
Speaker 1: and that could be for a variety of reasons, the
Speaker 1: types of treatment that they're doing that might be different
Speaker 1: from other clinics. That also has a lot to do
Speaker 1: with the people and the population that they're serving. So
Speaker 1: it's kind of hard to compare apples to apples, And
Speaker 1: some folks look at live success rates, but some experts
Speaker 1: say that it's not a perfect point of comparison because
Speaker 1: someone in Missouri, their demographic might look totally different than
Speaker 1: those success rates of New York because people in Missouri
Speaker 1: might be starting families at a younger age, and then
Speaker 1: therefore they have a better chance versus a woman in
Speaker 1: New York who might be in her forties and therefore
Speaker 1: having a lower chance of conceiving. So it's not a
Speaker 1: perfect number, but certainly one that kind Body is proud
Speaker 1: of and they deserve credit for.
Speaker 2: And we've been talking about regulation of this industry, but
Speaker 2: this is one number that the government really does pay
Speaker 2: attention to.
Speaker 1: Yes, and the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology has over
Speaker 1: four hundred member clinics that report data to that organization,
Speaker 1: and then those numbers are then fed up to the
Speaker 1: Centers for Disease Control. So the government does track this
Speaker 1: to a degree. What they're not really doing is enforcing
Speaker 1: the standards and the protocols for how these IVF labs operate.
Speaker 2: When we come back, what's next for kind Body, Jackie?
Speaker 2: As you said at the beginning, this company has big
Speaker 2: plans for its future. Where are they headed right now?
Speaker 1: They've been very open and transparent about the fact that
Speaker 1: they're looking to go public and that their last capital
Speaker 1: raise was the last one for twenty twenty three, that
Speaker 1: they want to take the next step and go public
Speaker 1: as a company, and in doing that, they're opening up
Speaker 1: more clinics in Texas, in Bethesda in Maryland, and also
Speaker 1: looking to get new contracts from the employer benefit space,
Speaker 1: going after some of these corporate clients that are looking
Speaker 1: to offer for to as a perk for their employees.
Speaker 1: And they're doing a good job of expanding in places
Speaker 1: where you would expect to see a soul cycle or
Speaker 1: a dry bar in these metropolitan areas.
Speaker 2: Our investors in the company aware of some of the
Speaker 2: things in your reporting.
Speaker 1: They're not aware of the full extent of the types
Speaker 1: of mistakes that have occurred. They said things like mistakes
Speaker 1: happen at any startup, that growing pains can occur, and
Speaker 1: that when it comes to opening a brick and mortar clinic,
Speaker 1: there is a lot of risks that come with that,
Speaker 1: but they're very confident in the company's ability to weather that.
Speaker 1: And a big reason for that is because the company's
Speaker 1: former CEO, who founded the company, Gina Bartazzi. She ended
Speaker 1: up taking a role as executive chairman when the company
Speaker 1: went through the merger with Bio's Fertility Institute, and that
Speaker 1: was the merger that really expanded their footprint across the country. Now,
Speaker 1: investors say that she's still fairly involved at the company.
Speaker 1: She does the investor calls, and she's a big reason
Speaker 1: why they remain so confident. She has the experience in
Speaker 1: fertility and with her somewhat at the helm that the
Speaker 1: company is really able to get to the next level.
Speaker 2: I imagine other IVF companies are watching kind Body, Are
Speaker 2: any of them starting to change the way they do
Speaker 2: business to be more like kind Body.
Speaker 1: The fertility tech sector has really boomed over the last
Speaker 1: few years, and in twenty twenty two, these startups raised
Speaker 1: over eight hundred million dollars in venture capital funding, and
Speaker 1: that's one indicator that shows investors are really eager to
Speaker 1: capitalize on the growth in this space and more companies
Speaker 1: not just like kind Body that are starting brick and
Speaker 1: mortar clinics, but also looking to other aspects of the industry,
Speaker 1: whether that's how you track data or people looking to
Speaker 1: be more of the middleman and kind of serving as
Speaker 1: a marketplace for fertility benefit. So across the board you're
Speaker 1: seeing fertility tech startups starting to sprout. Kind Body is
Speaker 1: really one of a kind in that it owns and
Speaker 1: operates its own clinics, and you don't see very many
Speaker 1: startups doing that because it's so hard to do that.
Speaker 1: It's capital intensive, it's expensive, and it requires a lot
Speaker 1: of expertise to set up these IVF labs. It's expensive
Speaker 1: to staff them as well. So kind Body is kind
Speaker 1: of an outlier in that way that they're really undertaking
Speaker 1: this approach in the industry, this vertically integrated model.
Speaker 2: As you continue to report on the story, what are
Speaker 2: you watching for?
Speaker 1: The global fertility market was worth about thirty five billion
Speaker 1: last year and it's expected to grow to eighty four
Speaker 1: billion by twenty twenty eight. The US is a large
Speaker 1: portion of this, and you have other countries like France
Speaker 1: and the UK putting up more regulations around how you
Speaker 1: track mistakes, what types of practices are mandated by law
Speaker 1: in an IVF lab, And what I'll be looking out
Speaker 1: for is to see which government agencies start to take
Speaker 1: more control of the standards and practices in embryology and
Speaker 1: IVF flaps in general in the US.
Speaker 2: Jackie, thanks for sharing your reporting, Thank you, thanks for
Speaker 2: listening to us here at the Big Take. It's a
Speaker 2: daily podcast from Bloomberg and iHeartRadio for more shows from iHeartRadio,
Speaker 2: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen,
Speaker 2: and we'd love to hear from you. Email us questions
Speaker 2: or comments to Big Take at Bloomberg dot net. The
Speaker 2: supervising producer of The Big Take is Vicky Ergalina. Our
Speaker 2: senior producer is Catherine Fink. This episode was produced by
Speaker 2: Sam Gobauer and Jilda Decarli. Jil de Garcia is our engineer.
Speaker 2: Our original music was composed by Leo Sidrin. I'm wes Kasova.
Speaker 2: We'll be back tomorrow with another Big Take dot the
Speaker 2: County to the Don Poking better