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Rohit Gutgutia: The IVF Price War, and Who Really Pays for It

Rohit Gutgutia/LinkedIn

Oct 14, 2026, 14:56

Rohit Gutgutia: The IVF Price War, and Who Really Pays for It

Rohit Gutgutia, Medical Director of Nova IVF Fertility, shared on LinkedIn։

“The IVF price war, and who really pays for it:
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Look at any IVF advertisement today, and the headline is the price. Lower every few months. Festive offers, zero interest EMIs, all-inclusive packages, ՛starting from՛ figures in big bold font. On the face of it, not a bad thing. IVF is out of pocket in this country, and anything that brings it within reach of more couples should be welcome.
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Every IVF lab runs on things the client never sees. Culture media, consumables, incubator space, quality control, and, above all, the time and attention of a skilled embryologist. These costs do not come down just because the advertised price does. So when prices keep falling, the pressure on all of us in the industry is to find savings somewhere. The real test is whether those savings come from genuine efficiency, or quietly from the lab.
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The outcome of a race to the bottom is predictable. Indian telecom showed us how it ends. A price war, a handful of survivors, and then prices go back up. But IVF is not mobile data. In telecom a bad month means dropped calls. In IVF it means a lost cycle, and that is time a couple never gets back.
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There is a better way to compete and a mature industry would choose it. Stop selling the cost of a cycle and start being honest about the cost of a baby. A clinic with a sound lab and honest counselling may charge more per cycle and still cost the couple less overall. Show what is included, upfront. Compete on outcomes, transparency and care, not on who can print the smallest number on a hoarding.
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That said, we in the industry have an obligation to bring prices down. The way to do it is through scale, and by combining clinical work with like-minded consultants, so that fixed costs are shared rather than duplicated. That is how prices come down without the lab, or the couple, paying the price.
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Price will always matter in India. But a client choosing IVF on price alone is a client the industry has failed to inform.
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To colleagues and those on the business side of IVF: is there a price below which a cycle simply cannot be done right?”