Ferring Pharmaceuticals, the privately owned Swiss drugmaker, has signed a merger agreement to acquire Gameto, a US biotechnology company that develops cell-engineering treatments for reproductive health. The companies announced the deal on October 27, 2026.
The transaction is worth up to $1.3825 billion (about €1.24 billion), but that figure includes payments tied to development, regulatory and commercial milestones. Neither company disclosed how much Ferring will pay at closing or how the milestone payments are divided, and no closing date was given.
Completion depends on customary and other closing conditions. Until then, Ferring and Gameto will continue to operate as independent companies, according to the announcement.
What Gameto built
Gameto's lead product, Fertilo, is meant to shorten in vitro fertilisation. Conventional IVF usually requires about two weeks of hormone injections before eggs are retrieved. Fertilo is designed to let clinics collect immature eggs after one to three days of stimulation and then mature them in the lab, European Biotechnology reported.
The method builds on a technique known as in vitro maturation. Gameto uses induced pluripotent stem cells to produce ovarian support cells that behave like the granulosa cells surrounding an egg in the body. A patient's immature eggs are cultured alongside these cells; the stem cells themselves do not become eggs.
Fertilo is still investigational in the United States and has not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. It is available in Australia, Argentina, Peru and Mexico. A Phase 3 trial, registered as NCT06858111, plans to enrol 500 participants and compares Fertilo with standard in vitro maturation culture medium, measuring ongoing pregnancies at 12 weeks. When Gameto announced its Series C in 2025, it said an interim readout was expected in late 2026.
Gameto also has two other programmes: Deovo, a laboratory model for testing how drugs affect the female reproductive system, and Ameo, a cell therapy intended to treat effects of menopause, pharmaphorum reported.
“This is a defining moment for Gameto and for our mission to transform reproductive health.”
Why Ferring is buying
Reproductive medicine is Ferring's core business. The company, founded in 1950 and based in Saint-Prex, Switzerland, sells fertility hormones including Menopur and Rekovelle, and also has businesses in gastroenterology, urology and uro-oncology. It has operating subsidiaries in more than 50 countries and markets its medicines in over 100.
Ferring reported revenue above €2.5 billion (about $2.8 billion) in 2025, up 10%, driven mainly by Menopur and the bladder cancer gene therapy Adstiladrin, according to pharmaphorum.
Fertilo would sit alongside rather than replace hormone treatment, since patients still receive a short course of stimulation. In the announcement, the companies said combining Gameto's science with Ferring's reproductive-medicine business and global reach could widen access to fertility care. Ferring chairman and chief executive Jean-Frédéric Paulsen said Ferring had been helping people build families for more than 50 years.
The founders and the funding
Gameto was founded in 2020 with about $3 million from early backers including Coinbase co-founder Brian Armstrong, Atomic founder Jack Abraham and investor Shervin Pishevar, according to Dealroom. Its co-founders include entrepreneur Martin Varsavsky and Dina Radenkovic Turner, who has been chief executive since 2021. Christian Kramme is chief scientific officer. European Biotechnology reported that the technology came out of geneticist George Church's laboratory at Harvard.
The company raised a $33 million Series B in 2024 led by Two Sigma Ventures and RA Capital, with Insight Partners, Future Ventures and BOLD Capital Partners also taking part, MedCity News reported. In August 2025 it raised a $44 million Series C led by Overwater Ventures, bringing its total funding to $127 million. Dealroom's company profile lists a lower total of $117 million.
Turner called the agreement a defining moment for Gameto and its mission. The company has not disclosed its headcount.
What comes next
The value of the deal to Gameto's shareholders will depend largely on Fertilo's progress. The milestone structure means a significant part of the headline price is only paid if the product clears further development steps, wins regulatory approval and sells. The companies did not say which milestones apply.
European Biotechnology noted that the US trial tests whether Gameto's engineered cells improve on standard in vitro maturation, and does not directly compare Fertilo with conventional, fully stimulated IVF.
Reports differ on where Gameto is based. MedCity News described it as a New York company in 2024 and European Biotechnology still calls it New York-based, while its 2025 funding announcement was datelined Austin, Texas, and pharmaphorum and Dealroom place it in Austin.
