Dr Louise Rix, a former VC at Forward Partners, will take up a new role as chief medical officer at femtech start-up Béa Fertility.
Co-founded by Tess Cosad, embryologist David O’Rourke and product engineer George Thomas, Béa Fertility is developing at-home fertility treatments for people who are struggling to conceive naturally.
As chief medical officer, Louise will help to develop Béa’s hardware and digital fertility products, playing a pivotal role in the development of a portfolio of evidence-based fertility treatments and solutions.
She will lead on the creation of educational content and resources to support users on their fertility journeys. Louise will also drive Béa Fertility’s go-to market strategy for the product launch in summer 2022.
Dr Rix said: “In my time at Forward I’ve looked at thousands of decks and spoken to hundreds of businesses. None have interested or excited me quite so much as what Tess and the team at Béa are building.
“Infertility is a big and growing problem. It’s extremely painful for the people who experience it. Of the women who struggle to conceive, 50 per cent say it is the single most upsetting event of their lives. Yet we don’t talk about it enough and the systems and treatments in place to support these women haven’t changed significantly for years.
“Béa is on track to completely transform how we approach fertility care; helping to ease the pain for families by bringing education, support, transparency and affordability to the market. I’m really excited to be a part of this journey and to be able to make a tangible difference to women’s lives within a sector I’m so passionate about.”
Dr Rix is a qualified medical doctor who spent several years working for the NHS. During her three and a half years at Forward Partners, Louise backed start-ups including Koyo Loans, FairHQ, Highr and a personal diagnostics company yet to be announced.
Tess Cosad, CEO and co-founder of Béa Fertility, said: “We couldn’t be more excited to be welcoming Louise onto the team. Her wealth of knowledge, expertise and enthusiasm for what we’re building knows no bounds and we’re incredibly honoured that she has chosen to join us at this crucial time in the evolution of the business.
“She’s going to play a key role in helping us educate women about their fertility and the options available to them. She’s also going to help us further our fundamental goal of creating new fertility pathways so that people don’t have to go through invasive and expensive fertility treatments right at the start of their fertility journeys.
“We’re all so excited to be working with Louise – and we cannot wait to see where she can help us take this.”
The first product in development is the Béa Treatment Kit, bringing back a clinical treatment called ICI (or Intracervical Insemination) that was popular until the 1970’s, when IVF began to be successfully commercialised.
Béa’s ICI method involves using a device to place a small cup of semen close to the cervix, where it’s left in-situ for up to six hours. During that time, the user can go about their days as normal. Two weeks after their treatment, the user takes a pregnancy test.
