AiThority Interview with Eran Eshed, CEO and Co-Founder at Fairtility

Please tell us about your current role in the company and how you arrived at Fairtility.

I am the CEO and Co-Founder of Fairtility, where we are working to power in-vitro fertilization (IVF) through transparent AI to improve outcomes.  My 20-plus years of experience in tech was focused on connecting people through wireless and broadband communications – an important and useful endeavor. There came a point however, where I wanted to do something more impactful and meaningful with this tech background – make a positive change in people’s lives.  

My AI partner and I spent time researching various fields in healthcare that would most benefit from incorporating an AI intervention.

While I believe there are many fields of medicine that stand to benefit, the opportunity to affect change in the stagnated field of IVF was certainly a meaningful endeavor. The type of analysis and data that is collected and reviewed in IVF and how it could be applied to improve outcomes and increase access to treatment presented a natural fit for AI technology to make a quantifiable difference. 

What is the idea behind using AI for IVF treatment? How does it improve the outcomes of IVF treatment?

IVF has been around for 40 years and has seen some innovation in biotech but very little use of data science and AI. IVF and particularly processes involving the embryology lab include several critical decision points that are traditionally evaluated by IVF practitioners and in many cases, recorded by means of pen and paper. This method of assessment is variable and subjective in nature and therefore, maintains unpredictable variability as evidenced by the 30 percent success rate prospective parents achieve on the first IVF cycle.

Fairtility’s AI-powered tool can help IVF professionals make the most of data through standardized and reproducible evaluations already providing a clinically significant ~10 percent improved performance over expert embryologists. Transparent AI explains the why of the data with biological information. Knowing the ‘why’ assists and supports IVF professionals at various decision-making junctures in the IVF process, allowing for improved embryo selection and reproducible predictability, leading to improved outcomes with fewer cycles to live birth. 

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Please tell us a little bit about CHLOE EQ and how it was developed for clinical purposes.

CHLOE EQ is an AI decision support tool that was developed to provide Embryo Quality Assessment which supports the prediction of blastulation (embryo development), the prediction of implantation and ploidy, the integrity of chromosome sets in an embryo cell. Based on this information, CHLOE EQ ranks embryos in order of priority. It also provides automatic annotations for specific changes during embryo development and pronuclei count which support fertilization assessment. 

Information provided by CHLOE EQ™ can then assist embryologists and IVF professionals in the decision of prioritizing the most viable embryo for treatment, especially when there are multiple embryos deemed suitable. CHLOE EQ™ is designed to add efficiency to embryologists’ workflow, automating manual steps, including annotation of each embryo and written daily observations into each patient’s electronic medical record (EMR). Embryologists verify the system’s automatic annotations that are then immediately integrated directly into the EMR. CHLOE EQ™ provides embryologists with previously unachievable data supporting embryo selection, creating an opportunity to clearly explain analysis results based on quantifiable biological parameters.  

Could you tell us the importance of achieving the CE MDR approval and how it would influence the use of AI for IVF?

Having gained regulatory acknowledgment in Europe, under the more stringent directive that the CE MDR provides, we are now commercially launching CHLOE EQ in clinics across the EU while continuing to uphold the highest standard of this classification. With the EU IVF market size estimated to reach over $2 billion by 2027, we see tremendous opportunities to demonstrate the clinical efficacy and impact of CHLOE EQ™ ahead of US market entry next year.

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What are the major challenges that your AI solutions solves for clinicians, embryologists and parents?

Data science cannot solve biological problems, but IVF is primed for optimization. Our AI solution stands to impact the field of IVF by improving access to IVF treatment and engage with transparency throughout the process.  Presenting explainable data supported by clinical evidence bridges communication and provides a foundation of trust between embryologists, clinicians, and parents.   

For embryologists, CHLOE is a trusted partner designed to add efficiency and standardization to the workflow. Through automating previously unachievable data collection and analysis based on over 5 million data points, CHOLE provides embryologists results based on quantifiable biological parameters supporting embryo selection. The key advantages that CHLOE offers are accuracy and consistency leading to uniform and accurate embryo assessment. This provides clinicians with trustworthy and comprehensive insights they can discuss with their patients, or prospective parents.  

For prospective parents, the explainable data behind the clinician recommendation reshapes the conversation and invites prospective parents to take part in the discussion and make informed decisions along with their IVF team. 

In many countries, s** determination is illegal. Could you throw some light on how your AI technology could meet legal obligations in such countries and still benefit the outcomes of IVF treatment?

Our technology does not have any s** determination aspects – our AI-based CHLOE embryology assistant helps with embryo quality assessment, or in other words, the likelihood of the embryo to implant and create a pregnancy.

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Please tell us about the future you foresee for the ethical use of AI and image recognition in embryology and other clinical diagnostics –

The area that is actually most susceptible to having implications in this regard, is genetic testing, for obvious reasons. AI today is capable of assessing the chromosomal integrity of an embryo with fairly high accuracy, but not yet anything on the genetic composition. As we gather and curate more data and enhance our AI model capabilities and predictability, we may need to address similar ethics-related paradigms. In any case, there are established precedence with rules and regulations, so this wouldn’t be a de-novo discussion.

Your advice to AI innovators when it comes to providing solutions to the healthcare industry.

I think there is tremendous importance in remaining realistic and honest in this industry. I would say don’t oversell or overpromise your technology’s abilities. Be transparent and focus on your customers’ needs. All too often, even in our IVF space, we see solutions looking for a problem and not the other way around.

Thank you, Eran! That was fun and we hope to see you back on AiThority.com soon.