KUALA LUMPUR (March 22): Alpha IVF Group Bhd, which staged a lukewarm listing debut on Bursa Malaysia on Friday, said the fertility care company is in a sunrise industry in Southeast Asia, with strong demand for in-vitro fertilisation treatment amid declining birth rates.
Women are opting to start families at later ages, typically in their early thirties, potentially leading to lower chances of pregnancy, Alpha IVF group managing director Datuk Dr Colin Lee Soon Soo told reporters after Alpha IVF’s listing on Friday. Coupled with the significant decline in sperm counts globally, the need for medical assistance in achieving pregnancy is on the rise, he noted.
“If you were to look at the demand for IVF, a simple formula is that for every 800 people, one IVF cycle is required,” Lee noted. “With a population of 32 million people, Malaysia requires 40,000 IVF cycles per annum but it is only doing about 9,000 per annum.”
Indonesia is “even more incredible”, requiring “400,000 cycles per annum with a population of 320 million people,” he said. “However, they are only doing less than 15,000 cycles per annum.”
Shares of Alpha IVF staged a lukewarm trading debut on Friday, amid subdued broader market conditions after the fertility care company’s RM466.5 million initial public offering (IPO).
Malaysia’s total fertility rate, which indicates the average number of children born to a woman during her reproductive years between 15 and 49 years of age, has fallen to the lowest in 50 years and below the rate of 2.1 which a population needs to replace itself, according to official statistics.
While the cost of medical treatment has been rising over the past years due to medical inflation and the strengthening US dollar, Lee said the company has been able to absorb these rising costs without passing much onto its customers, thanks to the increasing economies of scale.
Alpha IVF mainly focuses on assisted reproductive services with a strong emphasis on in-vitro fertilsation, a medical procedure where eggs are collected and fertilised by sperm in a laboratory, before implanted in the womb. The company currently operates two centres in Malaysia and one in Singapore.
The company aims to target the largely untapped market segment of Muslim patients through the upcoming launch of its fourth specialist centre, which will be attached to KPJ Damansara Specialist Hospital 2, Lee said.
“We expect to tap into the existing clientele of KPJ, which is predominantly Muslim” and (Muslims) have a strong presence in Indonesia and the Middle East, he said. “We will work together with KPJ to market the IVF services to these two predominantly Muslim areas,” Lee added.