Fertilis, backed by Hong Kong’s Li Ka-shing, calls in administrators

Shareholders in an Adelaide tech firm backed by Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing are trying to save it from collapse after falling into administration.

Fertilis co-founder Jeremy Thompson at UniSA’s Mawson Lakes campus. Picture: Tom Huntley

An IVF technology start-up backed by Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing has fallen into administration, with the company’s shareholders promising to inject new funds into the business in a bid to save it from collapse.

Adelaide-based Fertilis has been looking to commercialise its IVF micro-device, which has been designed to improve IVF success rates by automating the process in an environment that more closely resembles the conditions in the human body.

Mr Ka-shing’s venture capital firm Horizon Ventures led a $2.75m seed funding round in 2021, at which point the company was hoping to introduce its first commercial product by 2023.

However voluntary administrators have now been called in to help recapitalise the business.

Administrator Andrew Heard from Heard Phillips Lieberenz would not provided details about the company’s financial position, but confirmed the company’s director, Jeremy Thompson, and Fertilis shareholders were planning to pitch a repayment plan to creditors.

“The appointment is intended to help facilitate the recapitalisation of the company through a deed of company arrangement (DOCA), and the existing shareholders are working on this currently,” Mr Heard said.

Medical technology start-up Fertilis founder Professor Jeremy Thompson in 2022. Picture: Tom Huntley

“With a successful recapitalisation, the exciting work of Fertilis will be able to continue.”

Mr Thompson – a reproductive biologist who co-founded Fertilis in 2019 – has been developing the company’s technology since the 1990s.

The process involves automating the IVF process by putting each embryo in the company’s patented 3D-printed cradle, which is smaller than a pinhead in size.

The cradles then go onto a petri dish so clinicians don’t need to handle the embryo directly, thereby reducing the chances of human error.

While IVF has been earmarked as the primary application for Fertilis’s technology, it is also suitable for other cell culture treatments for chronic conditions, such as cancer, ­diabetes, spinal cord injury, sight loss and cystic fibrosis.

Technology entrepreneur Marty Gauvin was brought in as chief executive in 2019 to help commercialise the technology.

But company records show Mr Gauvin resigned as a director of the company in March. Other shareholders of the company include the University of Adelaide.

Fertilis also partnered with the University of South Australia and the Australian National Fabrication Facility (ANFF) in 2022 to secure access to what it described as the world’s fastest 2PP (two-photon polymerisation) 3D printer.

The $800,000 3D printer, at the ANFF’s ­Precision Engineering Centre at UniSA’s Mawson Lakes campus, was the first of its kind imported into Australia and one of just 15 globally.

Mr Thompson said at the time that the company was looking to raise more funds from investors as it looked to launch a product “in the next couple of years”.

“We have been doing a lot of prototyping and we’ve made the ­decision that over the next two years we’ll have a product in the marketplace,” he said at the time.

“We’re quite convinced that we can do this.

“We’ve done a lot of work on the regulatory requirements, we’ve done a lot of work on the size of the market and we’re very confident that we’ll meet those milestones.”

The US and Japan had been identified as key markets given their supportive regulatory regimes and the demand for IVF treatment in the two countries.