Inside the global business of ‘three-parent IVF’

Key Points:

• Hundreds of women, mostly in their late 30s to 50s, have traveled internationally to undergo mitochondrial replacement therapy (MRT), or "three-parent IVF," marketed as a fertility solution despite limited evidence of its safety or effectiveness for age-related infertility.
• The International Fertility Group of North America (IFG) facilitates MRT treatments abroad, charging upwards of $30,000, but has not published peer-reviewed data to substantiate its claims of over 50% pregnancy success rates, raising concerns among experts and former patients about misleading marketing and lack of transparency.
• Scientific investigations reveal MRT is unlikely to overcome infertility caused by factors other than mitochondrial dysfunction in older women, with experts warning that many clinics exploit patients desperate for genetically related children by offering unproven and costly treatments.
• IFG recently paused new MRT patient enrollment amid scrutiny, removed promotional materials from its website, and faced criticism for opaque corporate ties and inadequate follow-up data from partner clinics, reflecting broader ethical and regulatory challenges in the unregulated international MRT market.
• Leading researchers emphasize the need for rigorous clinical trials to evaluate MRT's safety and efficacy before wider use, cautioning that current commercial applications constitute experimental procedures with unknown long-term impacts on children conceived through MRT.