Max Planck start-up Ovo Labs develops drugs to improve fertility treatments
A moment before division: The human egg prepares to partition its DNA.
© MPI for Multidisciplinary Sciences/ Agata Zielinska
To the point
- Oocytes with altered chromosome numbers: From the age of 35, fertility in women decreases and the risk of miscarriage rises. Chromosome abnormalities occur more frequently in aging oocytes and, among other things, reduce the chance of pregnancy.
- Spin-off from the Max Planck Institute: Founded in January 2025, Ovo Labs is a biotech company that has emerged from the Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences in Göttingen (Germany). The company develops novel therapeutics to improve the quality of human eggs. The active compounds are designed to help women remain fertile for longer and increase their chances of a successful pregnancy and in vitro fertilization.
- Novel active compounds: The underlying technologies were transferred to the start-up through an exclusive license agreement with the technology transfer organization Max Planck Innovation. The company has now raised four million pounds in a seed financing round to advance the development of the active substance towards clinical trials.
Ovo Labs is tackling a big problem in in vitro fertilization - the poor quality of the eggs. "In our research, we have succeeded, for the first time, in visualizing how unfertilized human eggs collected for in vitro fertilization prepare for fertilization: We observed how they develop and expel half of their DNA. This enabled us to elucidate what makes this process so error-prone and why these errors increase in aging oocytes," explains Schuh, who heads the Department of Meiosis at the Max Planck Institute.
To improve the quality of unfertilized human eggs, the biotech company has three therapeutic approaches: EmbryoProtect 1, 2, and 3. "These have the potential to reduce genetic errors in eggs, known as aneuploidies," reports Agata Zielinska, co-founder of Ovo Labs and former scientist in the Department of Meiosis at the Max Planck Institute. The goal of the Ovo Labs team, which also includes biologist and strategy consultant Oleksandr Yagensky, is to develop therapeutics that - after approval - can be seamlessly integrated into standard in vitro fertilization treatment, without placing additional stress on patients.
Funding for pioneering scientific work
Creator Fund and Local Globe led the first round of financing for the start-up. Other investors included Blue Wire Capital, Ahren Innovation Capital, as well as Antonio Pellicer, founder of the world's largest chain of in vitro fertilization clinics. "The first round of financing will help to further develop the therapeutics for clinical trials," Yagensky says. Product development will take place at the Life Science Factory in Munich (Germany).
On part of Max Planck Innovation, Mareike Göritz, Senior Patent and Licensing Mangager, as well as Ulrich Mahr, Member of the Management Board, closely supported the founding team during the pre-foundation and financing phases. "The extensive expertise and outstanding commitment of the Ovo Labs team are impressive and provide an excellent basis for further developing the therapeutic approach towards clinical application," Göritz says. "We are proud to support the team on this journey - with the aim of giving women worldwide more hope of fulfilling their desire to have children," Mahr adds.
