Fertiligent
 
Fertiligent develops innovative infusion devices. Their first product, the ”Evie” insemination device is currently undergoing trials in Europe. HCEG owns a minority stake in Reproductive Sciences Limited (“RSL”), the owner of the worldwide sales and marketing rights to Fertiligent’s products. RSL anticipates launching the product commercially in 2010. T RSL also plans to develop its suite of slow release devices and reproductive health products.

The Fertiligent ”Evie”, is a pioneering slow-release device designed to provide significantly higher pregnancy success rates than intrauterine insemination (“IUI”) – a procedure sought by more than 1.4 million women each year worldwide. In addition, the slow release technology developed by Fertiligent could be adapted to a much broader range of procedures and applications.

Whilst IUI has been a popular option prior to considering more aggressive and expensive treatments such as In Vitro Fertilisation (“IVF”), success rates are only 12%. Research has shown that by using the Fertiligent Evie success rates are in the 15%+ range. The Evie product is fully disposable and will be cost effective.

The World Health Organization estimates there are 60 to 80 million infertile couples worldwide. In the U.S., approximately six million couples or 10% of couples of childbearing age are clinically infertile and expenditures relating to fertility services are in excess of $2 billion each year. RSL estimates the world market for fertility services to be approaching $5 billion.

The incidence of infertility has been rapidly growing in the developed world. A demographic shift toward the deferral of marriage and first birth has increased the age at which women are first having children. In the U.S., one in every five women now delay attempts to conceive until after they are 35 years of age and studies have shown that a 35-year-old woman is almost three times as likely to be infertile as a woman of 25.