Luma Fertility’s first centre reached break-even within its first year. What were the key operational and business decisions that helped achieve this?
At the outset, it is important to understand what we were trying to differentiate because fertility is a very competitive segment. There are more than 200 centres just in Mumbai, so the question was: why create one more centre?
I come from an entrepreneurial background. I had created a fitness marketplace platform called Fitternity, which was acquired by Cult.fit, and I had no plans of creating an IVF centre. But my personal journey led me to it.
Between 2020 and 2023, I went through multiple rounds of IUI, IVF and other treatments. It was a very frustrating experience. I kept asking myself, “Everything that I’m seeing is optimised for the doctor and the clinic, but who is thinking about the patient?”
Why was nobody thinking about the woman going through this? Why was the journey so non-empowering, non-empathetic and nontransparent? Eventually, my husband told me, “Just build it or stop complaining.”
I said, how can I build it? I am not a doctor. But then the idea was to create something that combines clinical excellence, which is obviously critical because patients come here with a clinical outcome in mind, with a significantly better patient experience.
I attribute our break-even and scale to bridging a gap that existed in the market. During my research, I met more than 200 women because I wanted to understand whether I was the only person who felt this way. Many women described feeling like they were being treated like cattle. They felt that nobody was really holding their hand through the journey.
So, what we tried to do was create a place that combines clinical excellence and good infrastructure with care and comfort. There is a care navigator who acts as a single point of contact through the journey. There is an app and there is transparency around the process.
We believe India is moving towards what I would call healthcare 2.0. Just because hospitals and healthcare centres have traditionally operated in a particular way does not mean they have to continue doing so. We asked ourselves, what does fertility care 2.0 or IVF 2.0 look like?
The challenge going forward will be to replicate the same level of patient-centricity and empathy across multiple centres as we expand.
What differentiates Luma from other fertility providers?
I think clinical excellence is a given. Clinically, we are at par, if not better, with the best centres out there.
Beyond the clinical side, I would highlight three things. First, every patient who walks in is treated with empathy and support. The care navigator and the entire care ecosystem are centred around the patient.
We have identified 55 friction points in the fertility journey and have built solutions around each of them. For example, if a patient needs an injection administered during the treatment cycle, we can send nursing staff to her home or office so that she does not have to disrupt her schedule and come to the centre.
The second is convenience. We have looked at the entire patient journey and identified convenience as an area that has traditionally been overlooked. The clinic does not feel like a conventional clinic. It feels more like a wellness centre. Our charges are transparent, and we are open seven days a week, from 8 am to 8 pm.
The idea is to meet the patient where she is, rather than always asking her to come to where we are.
The third is how we integrate holistic care. You are not just treating somebody’s ovaries or uterus. You are treating the whole person. When you are preparing somebody for pregnancy, you cannot ignore psychological wellbeing.
A person may have good AMH levels and good fertility parameters, but if she is not psychologically prepared for the journey, how is she going to go through it? So we focus on psychological counselling and nutrition as part of the overall approach.
Another area I care deeply about is fertility preservation. I regret not freezing my eggs at 27 because I did not know that it was an option. I never wanted to have children at that point, but I changed my mind at 34. I wished I had known about egg freezing earlier.
That is one reason our eggfreezing programme is an important part of what we do. It is an outcome-based programme targeting 12 eggs. It allows women to understand where they are in their fertility timeline and what options are available to them, without feeling judged.
We are also taking fertility awareness programmes into corporates. Again, the idea is to reach women where they are, rather than waiting for them to find us.
You are targeting 30 per cent quarter-on-quarter growth going forward. What will be the key drivers of this growth?
One of the biggest drivers will be expansion into more locations. We are currently in Bandra in Mumbai and will gradually look at national expansion.
The second driver will be our increased focus on fertility preservation. Even though we may be doing a significant volume of egg-freezing cycles, we believe we are only scratching the surface.
In the US, one in three cycles are egg-freezing cycles, whereas in India it is less than one per cent. There is significant scope for women to preserve their fertility and for couples to consider embryo freezing, particularly as people are getting married at 30 and beyond.
Awareness is still very low. Often, what prompts someone to consider egg freezing is hearing the experience of someone they know or look up to.
Ameera Shah, who is an investor and board member, is an example. She has spoken publicly about her own eggfreezing journey and having children later. Recently, around 60 women attended an event to hear her speak about that experience.
One point she made really stayed with me: you may not want children today, but you can change your mind. You are allowed to change your mind. She had her first child at 41 and twins at 44, and she said she would not have been able to do that without having preserved her fertility.
As women, we are perhaps the first or second generation in our families to become financially independent. I believe biological independence is the next step.
After several IVF cycles, I was told that I might need an egg donor. I was shocked because I did not even know that was an option. That experience made me feel that women need to know that these choices exist.
Ultimately, it is their decision. Today, around 30 per cent of IVF cycles are donor cycles. Awareness around fertility preservation and reproductive options therefore needs to improve.
Is cost also a major barrier to the uptake of fertility preservation and IVF?
Absolutely. Cost is definitely a factor. These are treatments that require financial planning.
But there are ways to address it. The cost can be broken down and paid through EMIs. Corporates can also contribute. If women are building careers and contributing to an organisation, companies could consider fertility benefits, including funding a portion of an egg-freezing programme.
In the US, fertility benefits are an important factor in decisions around changing jobs. If an employee can receive a funded IVF or eggfreezing cycle, that becomes a meaningful benefit. I see this gradually coming into India as well. We work with corporates that fund IVF and eggfreezing cycles for their employees.
At Luma, we have also tried to simplify the way egg freezing is discussed. Instead of telling women that they may need multiple cycles without giving them a clear objective, we looked at the numbers and created a programme targeting 12 eggs.
We have structured the programme at Rs 3 lakh, including two years of freezing, with EMI options. The idea is to create an integrated model and pricing structure that makes the treatment more financially manageable.
What parameters should fertility providers be tracking to give patients and the industry a more meaningful picture of outcomes?
The industry needs to track success rates and, more importantly, live birth rates, rather than simply reporting a success-rate number.
India does not currently have a standardised registry like the US or UK, where clinics report their numerator and denominator. There are also different definitions of what constitutes success. Is it beta-hCG? A heartbeat?
Pregnancy? Live birth? Is it based on embryo transfer or another parameter? There are many variables. In the absence of a standardised reporting framework, every IVF provider should ideally break down its success rates and track outcomes through to live birth rather than stopping at pregnancy rates.
At Luma, we are also planning to publish our livebirth outcomes. Transparency needs to include failed IVF cycles as well. You cannot only report successful outcomes. Patients need to see the complete picture.
We try to break down our success rates across different stages and provide a transparent view of outcomes.
But there is another dimension that is often overlooked: the patient experience. Nobody is really measuring that.
A patient does not want to be treated like a file. She wants to be treated like a human being. Are we measuring waiting times, convenience, empathy, transparency and clarity? I think there needs to be much greater focus on these parameters as well.
What needs to change for the fertility sector to scale without compromising clinical standards?
The last two decades have been about improving success rates. The next phase needs to focus on scaling that clinical quality while maintaining standards across centres.
As fertility providers expand, standardisation, transparent outcome reporting and consistent clinical protocols will become increasingly important. Technology will also have a role to play in making care more consistent and easier to navigate.
Where do you see technology genuinely changing clinical decisionmaking in IVF, and where should its role remain limited?
Technology can play a significant role in scaling care and managing clinical pathways. But ultimately, AI and technology should be evaluated based on what they can do for the patient.
Today, we have apps for almost everything in our lives. Fertility is a particularly timesensitive journey. Patients have to take injections and medicines at specific times, often linked to their menstrual cycle.
So why shouldn’t there be a patient-facing app for this journey?
At Luma, our patient-facing app tells patients where they are in their treatment journey and what is going to happen next. Their reports are available in one place, so they do not have to carry physical files.
The app also creates a calendar for injections, medicines and reminders. On the backend, there is a technology platform that helps doctors navigate the patient journey.
The objective is not to replace clinical judgement, but to use technology to make a complex, time-sensitive treatment journey easier for both patients and doctors.
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