Device offers cheaper IVF during lunch break

A new approach to fertility treatment that could allow women to have a cheaper form of IVF in their lunch hour is being developed. The Invocell device is designed to enable IVF to be performed without complex laboratory equipment and could make the procedure faster, more convenient and less expensive.

In standard IVF, eggs are fertilised with sperm outside the body, and any resulting embryos are left to develop in culture for three to five days before the best are transferred to the womb. The Invocell device is a sealed capsule that allows fertilisation to take place inside the body, in the vaginal cavity.

A woman would first be given mild drugs to stimulate her ovaries, and then eggs would be removed from them while she was under sedation. Up to seven eggs would then be put into the Invocell capsule, along with washed sperm.The capsule would then be placed inside the vagina. After three days, the patient would return for a second appointment, during which the capsule would be removed and any fertilised embryos examined for quality. The best one or two eggs would be transferred to thewomb.

The first appointment would take about 90 minutes and the second half an hour, according to Claude Ranoux, of BioXcell, the Massachusetts-based company that developed the device. Because eggs, sperm and embryos would at no point be stored outside the body, the technique means IVF could be performed in a doctor's office, without incurring the costs involved in incubation. Dr Ranoux said this would cut the cost of fertility treatment by hundreds of pounds. The typical bill in Britain is about Sterling pounds 2500 ($5300) a cycle.

BioXcell has completed about 800 trial cycles, obtaining a clinical pregnancy rate of 19.7per cent. The average success rate for conventional treatments for women aged under 35 in Britain is 29.6 per cent. BioXcell has applied for approval for the device from the US Food and Drug Administration, and it has also received a European Union CE mark.

Dr Ranoux said the company hoped to market it in Europe, including Britain, later this year.