Swiss pharma company Ferring Pharmaceuticals has agreed to acquire startup Gameto for up to $1.38bn as the company looks to bolster its standing in the reproductive health space.
At the heart of this proposed deal is Gameto’s lead asset and in vitro maturation (IVM) programme, Fertilo, which the company designed to reduce the burden of in vitro fertilisation (IVF) and egg freezing.
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Currently, patients receiving IVF generally receive 10-14 days’ worth of hormonal injections to encourage implanted eggs to mature within the body – a process that can be costly and burdensome from an economic, time and safety perspective for a recipient.
However, Fertilo takes a different tack – harnessing engineered young ovarian support cells to encourage eggs to mature outside of the body. Through this approach, Gameto claims that Fertilo can shorten IVF and egg freezing from 14 to three days, while diminishing the cost and impact of treatment and improving overall accessibility to IVF.
Fertilo is currently available to clinics within the Asia-Pacific and Latin American regions, while the solution remains in the late phases of clinical development within the US. Currently, Gameto is conducting the Phase III FIRST trial (NCT06858111) in this region, with the study pitting Fertilo against CooperSurgical’s Medicult IVM – the first product of its kind to hit the market.
Fertilo is not the only asset to gain from the acquisition for Ferring, however, as the deal will also see the Swiss pharma absorb Gameto’s early pipeline of women’s health solutions. This includes Ameno, a preclinical-stage, hormone-balancing cell therapy designed to mitigate the unwanted impacts of menopause, and Deovo, a discovery-stage in vitro organoid model of the female reproductive system.
This will add to Ferring’s selection of IVF and reproductive medicine assets, including female infertility treatment, Menopur (menotropins for injection) – which was one of the primary financial growth drivers for Ferring in 2025, alongside bladder cancer gene therapy, Adstiladrin (nadofaragene firadenovec-vncg).
Women’s health comes into the spotlight
While women’s health has traditionally been under-considered, experts at the recent 2026 Women’s Health Week Europe conference noted they are now optimistic for the future of the segment, as global regulators and governments shift policies around aspects like data collection in clinical and post-marketing studies.
Similar positive changes are being made in securing investment for women’s health ventures, with the UK and Europe seeing record funding flowing into women’s health in 2025. However, data from the World Economic Forum still paints a solemn picture, as women’s health only receives 6% of private healthcare investment. Of this allocation, 90% flows into women’s cancers, reproductive and maternal health.
During the conference, experts pointed towards the need to close the data gap to facilitate the continued development of safe and effective medicines for women, while educating investors and government bodies on the importance of developing women’s health solutions.
