On November 2, 2026, STAT published the first part of an eight-month investigation by Megan Molteni (with freelance reporter Edward Chen) into an offshore mitochondrial replacement therapy (MRT) industry, popularly called "three-parent IVF." The technique was developed to stop mothers passing on mitochondrial disease. STAT found it is being sold to older women as a fertility treatment, even though the evidence that it helps them is scant. MRT is illegal in the United States. STAT reports that over the past decade hundreds of women, many in their late 40s or early 50s, have travelled to clinics in Eastern Europe, Mexico, the Bahamas, the Philippines and elsewhere. A large share were connected to those clinics by International Fertility Group of North America (IFG), a medical-tourism facilitator based outside Chicago.

Why It Matters

**The fertility "add-on" market is getting regulatory and press scrutiny.** IVF add-ons have long been sold to desperate, older, self-paying patients with weak evidence, and the US ban hasn't stopped Americans buying them; it has moved the procedure offshore through US-based brokers. This investigation arrives as women's-health M&A is accelerating ([Cinven/Theramex](/stories/cinven-acquires-theramex-womens-health), [Ferring/Gameto](/stories/ferring-acquires-gameto-fertilo)) and as egg-quality technology is being hyped. Expect closer scrutiny of medical-tourism facilitators' advertising, which could come from the FTC rather than the FDA, since IFG does not perform procedures. **For femtech founders and investors**, the takeaway is about evidence. "Mitochondrial rejuvenation" is a story investors like, but STAT's reporting shows that consumers and clinicians are now asking for peer-reviewed live-birth data rather than webinar slides. Companies working on egg quality, ovarian ageing or IVM should expect that same standard to be applied to them.

The pitch and the data. IFG's marketing said younger donor eggs, "filled with robust mitochondria," would "boost egg energy." One post read: "With age, egg 'batteries' lose power." The company claimed 34 babies born through its program as of February 2025 and a pregnancy rate above 50%, but has published no data in reputable peer-reviewed journals. STAT found that research, some of it unpublished, shows MRT does not work for most older women, because their infertility has causes other than worn-out mitochondria. Leading scientists in the field called the marketing to women of advanced maternal age misleading. The average age of a patient in IFG's program rose from 39.2 in 2022 to 45.6 last year, according to a webinar slide STAT viewed. One Dutch patient, 46, paid more than $30,000 for a transfer at the SAGA Clinic in Tirana, Albania. It failed. A Bay Area fertility specialist known as "The Egg Whisperer," Aimee Eyvazzadeh, told STAT she had referred about 50 patients and had "not had a success story yet." STAT also reports shoddy record-keeping at one clinic, incomplete data in marginal journals, and one ancestry-test result that raised questions about the source of a child's DNA.

The response. After STAT's July inquiries, IFG paused new MRT patients. Last week it removed all mention of MRT from its website, calling the move "a precautionary communications decision, not a finding on the accuracy of each individual statement." IFG says it is not a licensed clinic and does not perform procedures, and that it "does not characterize innovative treatment as guaranteed." STAT's second part (November 3) covered safety. Tech Times, summarising both parts, reports that STAT documented 72% reversion of donor mitochondria to the mother's variant in one child born through a Ukrainian clinic, above the roughly 50% level at which mitochondrial disease typically appears. It also reports that some of the technique's pioneers are calling for a moratorium on disease-prevention use, while the UK, Australia and Belgium cautiously expand licensed trials. Medical Daily put the broker fees at $20,000 to $30,000. "You're paying for the privilege of being a guinea pig," Johns Hopkins bioethicist Jeffrey Kahn told STAT.

Sources

Update — 2026-11-05

Initial entry — story first created.