Mass High Tech May 17, 2004

From personal need springs testing company
By Dyke Hendrickson

The story goes that about a decade ago, biotech executive Craig Sockol and his wife were having difficult determining why she could not become pregnant.

The pair looked into numerous studies on impediments to pregnancy and finally found their way to a Harvard lab that was doing research on infertility.

Sockol was so impressed by the research and potential results that he acquired the technology and started a company.

Oh, yes, the information gleaned helped the couple produce two children.

Today Sockol heads Repromedix Corp., a Woburn company that is a national laboratory specializing in advanced reproductive testing.

The mantra of the 10-year-old enterprise is “helping doctors help couples.”

The company recently launched two new tests for male infertility that, taken together, provide an indication of the sperm’s ability to achieve pregnancy and live birth.

Repromedix’s Advanced Male Reproductive Potential Panel includes the Sperm DNA Fragmentation Assay and Sperm DNA Decongestion Test.

Results suggesting low to poor fertility potential indicate that a couple has little or no chance of conceiving a child naturally or through assisted reproductive technologies such as in vitro fertilization or intracytoplasmic sperm injection.

When conducted at the outset of infertility treatment, these tests could eliminate emotional and financial costs and perhaps lead a couple to pursue other options, such as sperm donation or adoption.

The tests are used by physicians and their patients throughout the United States and Canada.

Company officials say that couples who choose their tests, which are often reimbursed by insurance plans, can often avoid the expensive, painful and time-consuming in vitro fertilization procedures.

“For many couples, especially in their 30s, the question of achieving pregnancy is a crisis event,” said Sockol, a native of Brookline who has been in the field for almost three decades.

“Male infertility is a significant medical problem, with 40 percent of all infertility ascribed entirely or in part to male factors and an additional 20 percent unexplained.”

The launch of the male infertility tests comes just one month after Repromedix received $1.6 million in expansion investment capital from Brook Venture Partners LLC and the Massachusetts Business Development Corp. in Wakefield.

“This company has a great management team,” said Frederic Morris, a principal in Brook Venture Partners. “They have been growing at close to 40 percent and have many customers.

“Plus they are focusing on a good demographic. Close to 15 percent of couples don’t conceive when they want to and often look for answers before going on to the next step in terms of children.”

Before joining Repromedix, Sockol was the co-founder and senior vice president of Immunotech Corp., where he was responsible for the development and worldwide marketing of novel immunodiagnostic laboratory products.

He was manager of new products and regulatory affairs at Baxter Healthcare-Clinical Assays and held technical positions at Ciba-Corning.

Sockol holds an M.S. in clinical biochemistry from Northeastern University and a B.S. in chemistry from the University of Massachusetts.