And where do they store it?
Do they store it onsite?
So for six months, they're stored here onsite.
And then they eventually go to a
long-term storage facility.
In Hoboken?
In Boston.
Okay. I just assume Hoboken
because that's where people have a lot
of storage facilities when they live in the city.
Egg freezing has become an increasingly
popular option for people who don't want
to have kids immediately but might down the road.
Traditionally, it's cost between $10,000 to $15,000.
But now, one company is trying to drive that price down
to more like $5,000.
Actually, the price they advertise is $4,990,
but that sounds like they're selling a used car.
So I'm going to say $5,000.
This is Extend Fertility?
Extend Fertility is exclusively an egg freezing company.
We focus solely on women wanting to preserve
their fertility.
We're the first company in the nation that provides
that service.
It's a model for ultra-specialized medical care that's
meant to improve outcomes while decreasing cost.
How did you decide you were going to
do only egg freezing?
When I was working for a large, academically
affiliated, traditional infertility clinic,
I was seeing an increasing number of women
coming in to talk to me about egg freezing.
And it was an uncomfortable environment for them
sitting in a waiting room full of infertility patients,
usually couples who are sad
and desperate to have a child.
That just wasn't their story.
And then secondly, it was too expensive.
$15,000?
Correct.
And women either came to me, talked to me about it.
Sometimes had multiple appointments.
And then ultimately weren't able to find a way to do it.
Or did it but were stressed out from start to finish
as far as they knew they only had one shot
to be able to get eggs to freeze.
Sounds awful.
By doing only one thing all day every day,
Extend hopes to improve the freezing process.
But it still involves more than just showing up
one day for a procedure.
So I've decided to have my eggs frozen.
You're ready to move forward.
What happens?
So you're going to come in on your first day.
You're going to have blood work and ultrasound.
You're going to do that approximately 5 to 7 times.
You're going to start taking some injections.
Those injections are luteinizing hormone
and follicle stimulating hormone,
which the body normally produces just in smaller doses.
Do that for 8 to 12 days and that causes the ovarian
follicles to enlarge.
The medical team does an ultrasound every two days,
so you can watch the follicles grow.
In this image, this is an ovary, this outline over here.
And you have 1, 2, 3 black bubbles in that ovary.
Those are three follicles with active egg growth.
And then you're ready for the doctor to suck
the eggs out of the ovarian follicle with a needle
through the vaginal wall.
You'll have your procedure.
They extract, retrieving the eggs.
Harvesting.
They go to the embryologist to then freeze them.
And you label it like twice to make sure
that you know who's eggs they are.
I'm pretty positive she has quite a few methods
of labeling. Yeah.
Extend holds on to the eggs until you want them.
But that's where they stop.
They don't perform IVF.
All you're guaranteed is a dozen frozen eggs.
The cut off that we drew that we feel like is
a reasonable place to be is that no one should
be freezing fewer than about 12 eggs
from a statistical point of view.
Because what is the success rate
on of IVF?
Which you don't do IVF,
but what's the success rate of any average?
I'm sure it varies widely.
Whatever number you put out is going
to be the wrong number.
But just give me a number.
If you lump all of the IVF in the country
all cases, all reasons together in the US,
it's about 35% of IVF attempts result in a pregnancy.
But if you break that down by the main driver of success
which is age of the woman or age of the egg,
women who try IVF who are younger than 35
will have typically about a 50% or more chance
of success.
Women who try IVF and if they're 43 or older
will have about a 5% chance of success or less.
So it's an enormous variable when it comes to
age driving the likelihood of success.
Is this going to be something that eventually
is less of a social justice equality issue
when almost everyone can have access?
I do think that to a certain degree it will continue
in this direction.
But do I think that it's ever going to be something
we can deliver for $100, probably not.
There's a minimal standard that to do it
with a high quality, you hit a barrier.
People told Steve Jobs he was crazy.
Not too many people call me crazy.
How can you be that much lower than other places?
Because we're specialized.
Because you don't have other costs of other things.
Pretty much.
Like if you had a sore throat clinic
or a gall bladder removal clinic.
Because I've been trying to start a gall bladder
removal clinic in Brooklyn for a while now.
But nobody will let me touch them.
Because they're like you don't have experience
removing gall bladders.
But I'm like how do you get experience?
Well we actually have doctors who are
experienced in egg retrieval.
Right, they've done a lot of them.