Mumbai: Nova IVF Fertility, India‘s second-largest chain of infertility treatment clinics, plans to expand its network to 100 centres over the next four years through a combination of organic growth and acquisitions, a top executive told ET.

“When we acquired the company in 2019, our expansion and goal was a region of about 45 centres by 2023. So we are ahead of our goal. And we are already 62,” said Vishal Bali, executive chairman of Asia Healthcare Holdings (AHH), the healthcare platform’s promoter.

AHH, which bets on single-specialty healthcare, had acquired Nova in 2019. “The pace at which we are growing post AHH coming behind the enterprise… I see there is no reason why we will not have a hundred centres by FY27,” said Bali. “We are on the path of consistent organic and inorganic growth.”

The requirements of regulatory compliance will aid consolidation in the assisted reproductive technology (ART) sector, said Bali.

The Surrogacy (Regulation) Act 2021 and the Assisted Reproductive Technology (Regulation) Act 2021 are two laws that came into effect in 2022, aimed at regulating and supervising all ART clinics, laboratories, egg and sperm banks, and preventing the misuse of the procedures.

“The requirements of regulatory compliance will be very intense. It means that there will be additional costs that will come and hit the clinics,” Bali said. “We will see much more consolidation and a lot more growth coming into the sector on the back of these changes.” According to Bali, almost 90% of Nova’s work is ‘self-cycle IVF’, which is more compliant to the ART Act. Self-cycle IVF means a couple’s own gametes (sperms and egg) are used, whereas donor-cycle IVF uses sperm or egg from a donor.India’s IVF market is projected to expand from $793 million in 2020 to $3,722 million by 2030, with a CAGR of 16.5% owing to rise in infertility issues, according to Allied Market Research.