In 1978, Louise Joy Brown was celebrated as the world's first "test tube baby," born as the result of in vitro fertilization (IVF). Today, Brown is 44 years old, and what was a technological triumph in 1978 is almost routine today, with half a million babies born every through IVF. But Harry's guest this week, gynecologist and investor David Sable, thinks IVF still isn’t nearly as reliable or accessible as it should be. From his studies of infertility services, he’s convinced that society is on the cusp of bringing down the cost and raising the success rate of IVF, so that it can finally become an affordable solution for millions more people every year who want to start or grow their families. And he thinks one of the keys to the next big wave of advances in IVF will be artificial intelligence. 

As you’ll hear in this week's interview, Sable thinks most IVF labs today still operate almost like artisanal kitchens, with way too much riding on the judgment of individual doctors and technicians. He thinks machine learning algorithms could supplement human expertise at many points in the process, and turn what’s essentially a craft into a truly automated and predictable industry. His central argument is that IVF won’t truly be democratized until providers have “engineered the hell out of” the procedure, to increase success rates and lower the chances that patients will have to pay for more than one cycle of the treatment. At the same time, he says the concept of value-based care needs to make its way into the IVF world, so that patients and their insurers or their employers only pay when the procedure works, not when it fails. 

Stay tuned to future episodes for more discussion about the role of AI in IVF.

For a full transcript of this episode, please visit our episode page at http://www.glorikian.com/podcast 

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