The Hewitt Fertility Centre, based at Liverpool Women's Hospital is the first UK clinic to adopt TMRW’s state-of-the-art technology for the safe management of frozen eggs and embryos, providing a new standard of care for fertility patients.
TMRW Life Sciences, a fertility technology company automating the IVF lab, today announced its global expansion with the adoption of its technology in the United Kingdom. The Hewitt Fertility Centre, will become the first clinic outside of the United States to adopt TMRW Life Sciences’ CryoRobot Select (CRS), an automated platform for the safe management and storage of frozen eggs and embryos.
Thanks to advances in assisted reproductive technology, more people are building families and storing frozen eggs and embryos – often for decades – than ever before. The UK’s Health Strategy is making sure that this growth is inclusive, and the government’s decision in 2022 to increase storage time limits for frozen eggs and embryos from 10 years to 55 years was an important response. But both efforts are overwhelming the legacy, manual storage systems and laborious hand-labelled identification methods that fertility clinics have relied upon for decades.
Dr Rachel Gregoire, Scientific Director/HFEA Person Responsible of The Hewitt Fertility Centres said “I am delighted for our patients and for the scientific team that we can finally announce the introduction of the CRS into our clinical pathways. It is a credit to Rebecca Lunt, Lead Clinical Embryologist and the team who have worked tirelessly with the incredible people at TMRW to make this happen. Almost three years ago the Hewitt Fertility Centre demonstrated that manual cryostorage involves potential unnecessary handling events of patient samples in storage, and we are so pleased to be the first fertility clinic outside of the USA to offer this innovative CE Marked technology for our patients. We all wish to thank Liverpool Women's NHS Foundation Trust for listening to us and for investing in this technology so that the Hewitt Fertility Centres can continue to be leaders in offering safe and innovative fertility treatments.”
Over the last three years, the Hewitt Fertility Centre has completed in-depth studies to quantify the potential hazards associated with manual cryostorage of eggs and embryos following fertility treatment. The studies’ findings show that there continues to be risks associated with manual cryostorage for in vitro fertilisation (IVF), even when clinics use radio frequency identification (RFID) witnessing technology and with well-established standard operating procedures to reduce risk.
Rebecca Lunt, Lead Clinical Embryologist said “Here at the Hewitt Fertility Centre the team are over the moon to introduce the TMRW CRS into clinical use for our patients. After several years of working with TMRW to help reduce unnecessary risk in the cryolaboratory for both staff and patient samples, we are excited that this amazing technology is here and we can offer state-of-the-art storage to Hewitt Fertility patients who opt to use it. This has been a real team effort, with the team in Hewitt working closely with TMRW's fantastic team, but also a big thanks to Liverpool Women's NHS Foundation Trust for being dedicated to patient safety and investing in this technology.”
TMRW’s CRS is an automated platform that combines proprietary, state-of-the-art hardware and software to safely track, monitor and store frozen eggs and embryos. For the first time in the United Kingdom, frozen specimens can now be digitally identified and tracked, safely managed with automated robotics, and remotely monitored around the clock. The CRS helps reduce potential points of failure by 94% compared to manual specimen management and storage systems, and it helps fertility clinics safely scale to meet growing patient demand.
"Our partnership with The Hewitt Fertility Centre represents the first step in our global expansion and illustrates our commitment to raising the global standard of care,” said Louis Villalba, Chief Executive Officer at TMRW. “We applaud The Hewitt Fertility Centre for being the first IVF clinic outside of the United States to adopt our CE Marked and FDA Cleared specimen management system. Our collaboration heralds a new era of safety and precision in managing frozen eggs and embryos in the UK.”
TMRW received a CE Mark for the CryoRobot Select in September, enabling commercialization across the UK and Europe. To earn the certification, the CRS was developed with state-of-the-art standards and met rigorous clinical safety and efficacy requirements established by European Medical Device Regulations. Along with an earlier clearance by the Food and Drug Administration, the European approval makes TMRW’s robotic systems a new global standard.
Patients who wish to request the CRS for the storage of their eggs or embryos can contact the Hewitt Fertility Centre on 0151 702 4121 for more information or speak to their Healthcare Professional at their consultation.