OvaScience

{{short description|Previously publicly traded biotechnology company}} {{Infobox company | name = OvaScience, Inc | logo = | type = Public | industry = Biotechnology, infertility treatment | fate = Reverse Merger with Millendo, Therapeutics, Inc.<ref name="businesswire.com">{{Cite web|url=https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180809005194/en/OvaScience-and-Millendo-Therapeutics-Announce-Merger-to-Create-Leading-Rare-Endocrine-Disease-Company|title = OvaScience and Millendo Therapeutics Announce Merger to Create Leading Rare Endocrine Disease Company|date = 9 August 2018}}</ref> | predecessor =  | successor =  | founded =  | founder = Michelle Dipp, Richard Aldrich, Christoph Westphal, Jonathan Tilly, and David Sinclair | defunct = {{End date|2018}} | hq_location_city = | hq_location_country = | area_served =  | key_people = | products = | owner =  | num_employees = | num_employees_year =  | parent = }}

'''OvaScience''' was a publicly traded biotechnology company, focused on female infertility. It was founded in 2011 by Michelle Dipp, Richard Aldrich, Christoph Westphal, Jonathan Tilly, and David Sinclair and is based on scientific work done by Tilly concerning mammalian oogonial stem cells and work on mitochondria by Sinclair.<ref name=S1>{{cite web|title=OvaScience S-1|url=https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1544227/000104746912008575/a2210793zs-1.htm|publisher=OvaScience via SEC Edgar|date=August 29, 2012}}</ref><ref name=TechRev20161209/> Tilly's work was expectedly met with skepticism, as it warranted a paradigm-shift; however, many labs across the world have been able to reproduce his results over several decades.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Woods|first1=Dori C.|last2= Tilly|first2=Jonathan L.|title=Revisiting Claims of the Continued Absence of Functional Germline Stem Cells in Adult Ovaries|journal=Stem Cells|volume=41|issue=2|pages=200–204|doi=10.1093/stmcls/sxac083|pmid=36472569|year=2023|doi-access=free|pmc=9982064}}</ref>

== History == As of December 2016, the company was developing two in vitro fertilization services.<ref name="TechRev20161209" /> One service, called "Augment", would harvest putative oogonial stem cells from a woman, extract mitochondria from those cells, and inject them into an oocyte from the woman, along with sperm, in a form of augmented intracytoplasmic sperm injection ("ICSI").<ref name="TechRev20161209">{{cite news|last1=Weintraub|first1=Karen|title=Can fertility startup OvaScience really help women conceive late in life, as promised?|url=https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603065/rejuvenating-the-chance-of-motherhood/|work=MIT Technology Review|date=December 9, 2016|language=en}}</ref> In the other, which it calls "OvaTure," it would harvest putative oogonial stem cells from a woman, mature them into oocytes ''in vitro'', and then fertilize them with ICSI.<ref name="TechRev20161209" /> It had introduced the Augment service in 2014 in ten clinics located in the United Arab Emirates, Canada and Japan.<ref name="TechRev20161229">{{cite news|last1=Weintraub|first1=Karen|title=Fertility company Ovascience is struggling to survive|url=https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603274/turmoil-at-troubled-fertility-company-ovascience/|work=MIT Technology Review|date=December 29, 2016|language=en}}</ref> The company's claims about its services were controversial from their first announcements.<ref name="SIRF">{{cite news|last1=Boyd|first1=Roddy|title=Irreproducible Results, Inc.|url=http://sirf-online.org/2015/04/06/irreproducible-results-inc/|work=Southern Investigative Reporting Foundation|date=April 6, 2015}}</ref>

Dipp, Aldrich, Westphal, and Sinclair had previously worked together to found and develop Sirtris Pharmaceuticals around Sinclair's work on resveratrol — the company was sold to GlaxoSmithKline in 2008 for around $720 million and then was absorbed into GSK in 2013 after reservatrol was abandoned in 2010;<ref name=S1/><ref name=TechRev20161209/><ref name=SIRF/> Dipp, Westphal, and Aldrich were also involved in Alnara Pharmaceuticals, which was sold to Eli Lilly in 2010 for around $180 million and was also later abandoned by its purchaser when its technology failed.<ref name=SIRF/>

== Financing == The company's A financing round was $6 million, financed by Longwood Fund and Bessemer Venture Partners, and it raised a $37 million B round in early 2012, funded by General Catalyst, BBT Capital Management Advisors, Cycad Group, Hunt BioVentures, RA Capital, Longwood, Bessemer, and other undisclosed investors.<ref>{{cite news|title=OvaScience grabs $37M B round for fertility treatments|url=http://www.fiercebiotech.com/r-d/ovascience-grabs-37m-b-round-for-fertility-treatments|work=FierceBiotech|date=April 3, 2012|language=en}}</ref>

OvaScience held its public offering in 2012, and part of its pitch to investors was that its services would probably not be regulated by the FDA so it would probably be able to start generating significant revenue in the US by the end of 2013, but in 2013 the FDA ruled that it would need to file an investigational new drug application before it could start marketing the service; OvaScience's shares fell 40% in response.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Carroll|first1=John|title=OvaScience shares blitzed after FDA steps in to supervise lead product|url=http://www.fiercebiotech.com/regulatory/ovascience-shares-blitzed-after-fda-steps-to-supervise-lead-product|work=FierceBiotech|date=September 11, 2013|language=en}}</ref>

Its share price reached about $50 in January 2015.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Hough|first1=Jack|title=OvaScience Stock Could More Than Double|url=http://www.barrons.com/articles/SB52018153252431963983004580528492660296482|work=Barron's|date=March 20, 2015}}</ref>

By September 2016 OvaScience had raised and spent around $228 million.<ref name=TechRev20161229/> In early December its shares were trading at around $3; in mid-December 2016 the company's shares fell around 50% when it announced layoffs and the departure of its CEO and chief operating officer in the face of sales continuing to fall below expectations.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Weisman|first1=Robert|title=OvaScience shares plunge amid layoffs, abrupt departure of top executives|url=https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/12/22/ovascience-shares-plunge-amid-layoffs-abrupt-departure-top-executives/BQaJ53AdZrtMB36S0BOcQP/story.html|work=Boston Globe|date=December 22, 2016}}</ref>

In 2015 venture capital companies invested $118 million in companies addressing infertility and in 2016 they invested around $100 million; along with OvaScience, other companies with significant investment included Natera, Femasys, and Progyny.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Zakrzewski|first1=Cat|title=VCs See Opportunity in Growing Fertility Market|url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/vcs-see-opportunity-in-growing-fertility-market-1486470601|work=Wall Street Journal|date=7 February 2017}}</ref>

On August 9, 2018, a merger agreement was announced between OvaScience and Millendo Therapeutics, Inc., in a reverse merger transaction, where Millendo's leadership team and development pipeline would continue on post-transaction.<ref name="businesswire.com">{{Cite web|url=https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180809005194/en/OvaScience-and-Millendo-Therapeutics-Announce-Merger-to-Create-Leading-Rare-Endocrine-Disease-Company|title = OvaScience and Millendo Therapeutics Announce Merger to Create Leading Rare Endocrine Disease Company|date = 9 August 2018}}</ref>

==See also== * Mitochondrial replacement therapy

==References== {{reflist}}

==External links== * {{official website|http://www.ovascience.com}} * {{cite news|last1=Hardymon|first1=G. Felda|last2=Nicholas|first2=Tom|last3=Stuart|first3=Toby|last4=Fisher|first4=Noah|title=Case Study: OvaScience|url=https://hbr.org/product/OvaScience/an/815058-PDF-ENG|work=Harvard Business Review|date=September 5, 2014}}

Category:Biotechnology companies of the United States Category:Biotechnology companies established in 2011