A single in vitro fertilization (IVF) round can cost between $15,000 and $30,000 and is often not covered by health insurance. But Pozitivf Fertility, a San Antonio, Texas-based IVF clinic, has found a way to cut that cost to as low as $7,900.
The company was founded by Francisco “Paco” Arredondo in April 2022. He previously founded fertility clinic the RMA of Texas, which he sold in 2018 to Aspire Fertility, and had worked in the facility that performed the first IVF procedure in Mexico in 1989.
The company currently has about 25 employees, including two physicians, fertility coaches, nurses, an embryologist, and an administrative team.
From 2015 to 2019, about 11% of men and women ages 15 to 49 experienced infertility challenges in the US, according to a 2024 study. In the US in 2021, nearly 240,000 patients used assisted reproductive technology (ART) treatments—which is most often IVF—to try to conceive, according to the CDC.
But the cost is “out of reach” for many patients looking to have children, according to KFF, which reported in 2020 that most patients pay out of pocket for IVF. The cost of medications for IVF has also jumped 84% in the last 10 years, drug discount company GoodRx said, compared to 37% for drugs in general.
With his latest IVF venture, Arredondo is hoping to “[streamline] the process, [by] only using things that add value to the process of IVF.”
Cutting costs. One way the company cut costs was by reducing tests and medications Arrendondo said “you don’t need,” like preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidy, and reducing use of medications and hormones, which he said complicates the process and makes it more expensive.
Some medical research, like one study from the American Society for Reproductive Medicine published in 2019, supports this claim. The ASRM study looked at IVF “add-ons” like testosterone, aspirin, and DHEA hormones, and the authors concluded they had not found “robust high-quality evidence to routinely advocate any of them in current practice,” suggesting that some patients may not need every test or treatment.
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How it works. Patients complete an anti-Müllerian hormone blood test, which tells the providers about their ovarian reserve, and do a semen analysis before their first visit to Pozitivf. This differs from other clinics, Arredondo said, as the patient and doctor usually must meet before the physician understands a patient’s medical history.
“When we remove all those add-ons that do not have value,” he said, “by streamlining, by removing waste, and by simplifying the process—that’s the way that we have been able to reduce cost significantly and share that reduction in cost with the patient.”
Pozitivf also makes its prices public, which Arredondo said is rather unconventional, and this allows patients to decide early on if they can commit financially.
Success rate. Despite the streamlining, the model seems to work. Of the 245 IVF procedures done at Pozitivf this year, 121 patients, or 54%, have ongoing pregnancies according to company data shared with Healthcare Brew. For comparison, in 2021, the CDC reported there were 97,000+ babies born using ART practices from 413,000+ ART cycles, which is a 23.5% success rate. The agency also reported 2.3% of the approximately 3.6 million babies born annually in the US are conceived using ART.
As of February, Pozitivf has raised $20 million in funding, and the company plans to expand to Houston, Dallas, and Austin, Texas, Arredondo said.
“We literally have one patient every week crying…because they did not believe that they could afford IVF,” he said. “That is the daily energy that fuels all the effort of the team at Pozitivf.”