Aveya IVF: Pioneering Artificial Intelligence Technology in Infertility Treatments

Hampering the lives of millions of couples across the globe, infertility has been one of the major concerns, and to treat this problem, Aveya IVF has pioneered through technologically advanced techniques and solutions efficiently.

After gaining a national reputation as the fertility centre of last resort over the years, Aveya has not merely covered the aspect of physical needs and conditions but also the emotional & spiritual requirements that are required in a fertility journey.

Under the capable leadership of Dr Sahil Gupta, Aveya strives to build India's most technological advance chain of IVF clinics. 'We are using artificial intelligence and machine learning in addition to traditional methods of IVF to give a superior and predictable form of IVF treatment to our patients'

MORE ABOUT THE FOUNDER

Dr.Sahil Gupta, Founder, Aveya IVF is a Harvard Business School Alumni, an industry expert and serial entrepreneur. At the age of 28, he started Aveya Fertility, a disruptive network of affordable IVF centres in India, bringing hope to thousands of families. Building on his success, he is on a personal mission to develop high quality, affordable reproductive care in India.

The CEO Magazine, in conversation with the Founder Dr Sahil, got the chance to know more about the infusion of advanced technology and AI in the company, his personal growth, plans, changing trends and more;

How did 'IVF' industry happen for you, what was your rationale behind your career move?

IVF is traditionally considered a treatment for the rich. Infertility in the low strata of the society is used a taboo to exploit couples socially. During my days at Safdarjung Hospital, I realised that having a baby should be a right available to everybody, regardless of their financial status. This drove me to do research and find ways to make fertility treatment more available to the masses.

What kind of hurdles did you face while you picked this as a career or later?

Infertility is a booming industry as fertility rates are constantly rising in the country. Adding technology, whether its computer vision or machine learning or robotics, always gets a push back from the industry since infertility treatments haven't changed since decades. So, driving change and automating parts of the procedure was a significant hurdle in implementation as technology is usually not well accepted by doctors. 

What have you individually added to the organization/industry – of significance?

As the founder CEO of Aveya fertility, I believe we introduced the concept of affordable IVF in India.

On the technology side, At Aveya, we have used data from thousands of patients to develop a unique algorithm for ovarian stimulation protocol. This means that our patients have a scientific and predictable method of taking hormones as against the current hit-and-trial methods used in fertility clinics.

At Aveya, our algorithm will tell you statistically accurate odds and save you money by offering alternate forms of treatment like egg donation and surrogacy if your odds are low. This is absolutely unique to the IVF industry in India.

We are investing in developing technology that will put us ahead of the curve in the long term. Our doctors and embryologist have been working tirelessly since the past 4 years to collect every small piece of data available in every cycle of IVF.

Live birth rates in IVF process are statistically 35% and there is huge scope of improvement considering variations of success rates in different clinics and labs.

The kind of job you do, do you ever feet the performance pressure in providing client satisfaction? 

I love the challenge of being the CEO of this great organisation. We are at the forefront of innovation in terms of investing in technology and want to be the chain with the highest success rates all across the world.

Of course, a key part of learning is to fail and learn. We have multiple instances where some of our strategies fail but our collective knowledge and experience helps us get out of tough situations.

We are absolutely focused on customer satisfaction, we maybe building a company for profit but due to the nature of the industry, we have to be very empathetic to our clients. We hired psychologists to sit with our clients and provide support.

How is your relationship with your team, if you were your employee, would you be happy working for you?

The core management team at Aveya is like a group of friends. We are never shy of giving positive feedback and push each other to improve. If I were an employee, I would love to be part of such a team where there is so much potential to learn in a competitive yet relaxed environment. Infact, we take pride in leading the technology advancements in infertility in India. We invest in education, engineers and technology and collaborate with top scientists of the world to stay ahead of the curve.

Is there anything innovative that you introduced to the organization during your tenure of service?

Aveya has been a pioneer in using Artificial intelligence for Improving odds of IVF success.In the last couple of years, Artificial intelligence is making baby steps to increase the success rates of IVF treatment.

A majority of the success of an IVF process depends on the role of an embryologist. There has been no technology enhancements for these trained technicians in the past decade which assist them in standardizing the process. Therefore, there is a huge variability that can be seen in different labs.

An ideal way to solve this problem would be to completely automate this process and reduce the manual variability that is seen today. That would completely change the game in the IVF industry and make IVF a consistently successful procedure. 

As a fast growing company in fertility space in India and the goal to be India's biggest fertility chain, we are aware that we need to be front runners in developing and using technology and artificial intelligence tools.

We believe we are on the right path and given the huge sets of unique data that are collecting along the way, we may end up with a major breakthrough in the fertility industry that has a global game changing impact.

Do you believe that a major chunk of our population is yet alien to the idea of IVF?

I wouldn't deny that a vast chunk of the population is alien to the idea of IVF but it is rapidy changing because of the internet, social media and some popular Bollywood movies. It is so rapid, I would except the landscape to change within the next couple of years.

What core values have you maintained over your time of work that has kept you strong?

I think being honest with your team and the customer has been the core value at Aveya specially in the industry where there is so much distrust and so much uncertainty. I think the patients love the fact that we are truthful and transparent about their treatment and chance, no matter how uncomfortable that is.