Axes Enters the Fertility Business in Spain: the Group Buys Ovoclinic Barcelona

The assisted reproduction sector is more alive than ever. Despite the current context marked by the crisis caused by the pandemic, corporate moves in the healthcare industry do not cease. On this occasion, the family office with offices in the Czech Republic, Axes Capital, has acquired the Ovoclinic Barcelona clinic, as confirmed to PlantaDoce by industry sources familiar with the transaction.

Axes Capital is an international family office focused on investments in the following sectors: healthcare, real estate and renewable energies. It has offices in North America and Europe (Montreal and Prague).

Ovoclinic Barcelona is an assisted reproduction clinic located in the Sant Antoni district of the Catalan capital, specifically at 46 Comte d’Urgell street. The company is formed by a team of medical professionals with more than twenty years of experience in assisted reproduction techniques, embryologists and nurses. The amount of the operation has not been disclosed. The managing partner of Axes is Edouard Perra, who is also the CEO of Unica Clinic, a group of centers specialized in assisted reproduction treatments with facilities in Prague and Brno. It was in Brno that the original clinic was established in the early 1990s.

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The managing partner of Axes is Edouard Perra, who in turn is the CEO of Unica Clinic

Also, in 2014 Unica entered into an exclusive partnership with McGill University in Montreal (Canada). Unica’s centers treat patients from more than thirty different countries and its professionals come from eight different nationalities.

Perra is also a board member of the International Fertility Alliance (IFA). It is an alliance of fertility experts, in vitro fertilization (IVF) patients, organizations and institutions. Members of this alliance include Montreal Medical International, Unidad de Medicina Reproductiva and the Hospital General de la Universidad de Valencia, among others.

Spain is one of the leading countries in assisted reproduction. There are currently 280 specialized private centers in operation, with Catalonia, Andalusia, Valencia and Madrid accounting for around 70% of the total. In recent years there has been a trend towards concentration, as a result of corporate operations led by some of the main operators in the sector.

In Spain, there are more than 200 private centers specialized in the assisted reproduction sector

The top five operators brought together 56% of the aggregate turnover of specialized centers in 2019, according to Informa’s latest DBK Sector Observatory. The combined market share of the top ten group slightly exceeded 70%. In 2021, a rebound in demand is expected, sustained by the implementation of treatments postponed in the previous year, so that the turnover generated by assisted reproduction centers could recover the levels reached in 2019.

The downward trend in the fertility rate, driven by the increase in the average age of the first childbearing among Spanish women, continues to provide a favorable framework for the demand for assisted reproduction services to continue to grow in the medium term.

In recent weeks, the assisted reproduction sector has been in turmoil

The Generalife group, owned by the Investindustrial investment fund, will soon open a specialized practice in the heart of Milan, just a few meters from the Duomo. The Milan center will be added to the Italian facilities of Genera Roma, Genera Umbria (Perugia), Ruesch Genera Napoli (Naples), Genera Veneto (Venice), Demetra Firenze (Florence), Demetra Grosseto and Livet (Turin). In addition, EQT and Investindustrial have joined forces in a research project with the launch of the Novalbufera Business company. EQT, controlled by the Swedish Wallenberg family, took control of Igenomix in 2019. Since its entry, the company has grown to 19 laboratories spread across more than ten different countries.

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(Featured image by satyatiwari via Pixabay)

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