Book Review: Biomedical Innovation in Fertility Care – Evidence challenges, commercialisation and the market for hope

Building on the 2016 BBC Panorama documentary 'Inside Britain's Fertility Business', which exposed the use of controversial fertility treatment add-ons in private fertility clinics (see BioNews 880), Manuela Perrotta's book, Biomedical Innovation in Fertility Care, unveils regulatory inadequacies that expose patients to abuse by the profit-driven medical industry. Perrotta makes a case for more ethical biomedical innovation in this book and proposes changes that put patients' interests and moral behaviour ahead of business interests.

In doing so, Perrotta explores the commercialisation of reproductive therapies, concentrating on the moral, practical, and legal problems that both experts and patients must deal with. The book criticises the marketing of reproductive treatment add-ons like EmbryoGlue and time-lapse imaging, which are portrayed as potential therapies for supporting pregnancies notwithstanding the lack of solid data proving their efficacy clinics (see BioNews 1240). This system presents serious ethical issues, especially when patients are asked to pay exorbitant costs for experimental procedures.

While reading the book, I found myself reflecting on how Perrotta highlights the restricted role of regulating authorities such as the Competition and...