Gameto raises US$17m to advance female reproductive health

A New York-based biotech company has announced an additional US$17m in funding to develop therapies for improving women’s reproductive health. 

Gameto uses its cell engineering platform to develop cell therapies that target disease and drive research in the field.

The new financing brings the company’s total capital raised to US$40m and will allow Garmeto to close preclinical development partnerships with fertility clinics around the world.

After developing its cell engineering platform under a scientific research agreement with George Church’s lab at Harvard Medical School, Gameto announced plans for three sequenced programs.

The first programme, Fertilo, is a biologic for IVF and egg freezing, aiming to make the process shorter, safer, and more effective.

The biologic for egg maturation, which has already entered preclinical development in partnership with fertility clinics in the US and in Spain, is derived from engineered ovarian supporting cells to facilitate a lower hormonal burden during IVF and egg freezing.

This is hoped to allow women to obtain eggs in a shorter, more natural process without the risk of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome.

Currently, egg maturation drugs are hormone-based and the process is long, and expensive, with potential side effects.

The biotech company aims to bring to market a new mechanism of action to both reduce the number of hormonal injections and improve the efficacy of the process.

Gameto is developing novel treatments across fertility and women’s health, leveraging its proprietary technology to create a robust pipeline of compelling products,” said Dylan Morris, managing director at Insight Partners which led the funding round.

“We are excited to partner with the Gameto team as they translate their transformational developments into therapies that will ultimately improve human lives.”

Dr Dina Radenkovic, CEO of Gameto, said: “We’re thrilled to have Insight join us in our mission to create novel therapies that improve women’s lives.

“Infertility is one of the first manifestations of accelerated ovarian decline. I’m incredibly excited that Gameto’s technology could enable much cheaper, safer, faster, and more effective egg freezing and IVF.

“Our program Fertilo could help give women the power to have families at our own pace, when and how we want to do so.”

Gameto’s other programmes include Deovo, an organoid of the female reproductive system, and Ameno, a cell-based therapeutic to ameliorate the health consequences of primary ovarian insufficiency and menopause.