Canada just had its biggest year for fertility funding ever

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Welcome to The Buzz, a twice-weekly newsletter covering the biggest stories in fertility, reproductive health and family building. Whether you're a patient, a clinic coordinator or someone who just thinks reproductive healthcare matters, we're glad you're here. This is our first edition, so please give us feedback.

Let's get into it.

CANADA

In the past 12 months, more Canadian provinces moved on fertility funding than in the previous decade combined.

BC launched its first-ever publicly funded IVF program in July 2025, covering up to $19,000 per cycle. Saskatchewan introduced a 50% fertility tax credit. Ontario is investing $250 million over three years to triple IVF capacity, with 25 clinics receiving first-round funding and a new $5,000 tax credit. Quebec funds one cycle including meds. Manitoba and Nova Scotia offer 40% credits. Newfoundland bumped its subsidy to $20,000.

The holdout: Alberta, which has no funded fertility program, no tax credit and no plans to change that. And federally, the Liberals campaigned on a $20,000-per-cycle national IVF program. The November budget didn't include a dollar for it, but say it will come in “due course”.

Worth noting: most provincial "funding" is actually tax credits, meaning patients pay upfront and claim back 30-50% later. If you don't have $15K in savings, that's not help — it's a rebate you can't access. BC and Ontario are the only provinces with actual program-level funding, and Ontario's waitlists are still significant. Canada is nowhere near Denmark or Israel, where IVF is fully publicly covered.

But the direction is unmistakable. A year ago, most provinces offered nothing. Now almost all of them offer something. The question is whether what they're offering is actually enough.

US POLICY

On Thursday, the White House unveiled TrumpRx.gov, a government-run website listing 43 prescription drugs at steep discounts and an interesting name. Among the drugs: fertility medications that just got dramatically cheaper.

The fertility drug Cetrotide saw the biggest percentage drop on the entire platform — falling from $316 to $22.50 per dose. Gonal-F, the most commonly prescribed IVF drug in the US, dropped 83%. One health economist estimated those cuts could reduce the cost of an IVF cycle by about 20%.

The platform works through deals the administration struck with five drug manufacturers so far, who agreed to sell medications at "most favoured nation" pricing — meaning Americans pay what patients in other developed countries pay.

The fine print: The discounts are only for patients paying out of pocket. If you have insurance covering your meds, your co-pay might already be lower. Purchases through TrumpRx don't count toward your deductible. And the site doesn't sell drugs directly — it generates coupons and redirects you to manufacturer websites or pharmacy partners.

That said, for the significant number of Americans whose fertility treatments aren't covered by insurance, this is meaningful. As one patient advocacy group told CBS News, fertility drugs are rarely covered, so direct-to-consumer pricing "could benefit a lot of people."

The bottom line: Real savings for cash-paying IVF patients. But this isn't free IVF. Drugs represent about 20% of the total cost of a cycle. A single round of IVF still averages $24,000 in the US. The bigger fight remains insurance mandates and employer coverage.

SCIENCE

A study published in Science this week found that finerenone, an existing medication used for chronic kidney disease, may help women with premature ovarian insufficiency (POI) — a condition where the ovaries stop working properly before age 40. It affects up to 3% of women and has had essentially no treatment options beyond symptom management.

Researchers at the University of Hong Kong discovered that the problem isn't with the eggs themselves, but with the tissue surrounding them. Scarring (fibrosis) in the ovarian stroma blocks a key protein that "wakes up" dormant follicles. Finerenone, an antifibrotic drug, reduced that scarring.

In a pilot trial of 14 women with POI, several saw dormant follicles develop into mature eggs after taking the drug twice a week. Those eggs were successfully fertilized in the lab.

Why it matters. This is still early — fourteen patients is a tiny trial and larger studies are needed. But the approach is novel: instead of targeting the eggs, they targeted the environment around the eggs. If this holds up, it could open a completely new treatment pathway for a condition that has been frustratingly untreatable. And because finerenone is already FDA-approved for another use, the regulatory path to broader trials could be faster than building from scratch.

US ACCESS

California's SB 729 requires large-group health insurers (employers with 100+ staff) to cover fertility treatment, including IVF. The law covers up to three egg retrievals and unlimited embryo transfers. Originally set for July 2025, Governor Newsom delayed implementation to January 1, 2026, with plans rolling out as employer contracts renew.

The real headline is the definition change. California expanded its legal definition of infertility to include LGBTQ+ couples and unpartnered individuals, meaning these groups can no longer be denied coverage under the old requirement that you "try" to conceive through intercourse first.

If you're in California and unsure whether your plan qualifies, RESOLVE has a decision tree to help.

Worth noting: A follow-up bill (SB 62) was signed in 2025 to extend fertility coverage to individual and small-group plans starting in 2027. California is building this incrementally, and it's worth watching as a model for other states.

COMMUNITY

Last May, a car bomb destroyed the American Reproductive Centers fertility clinic in Palm Springs, California, in what the FBI called an act of domestic terrorism. The bomber, driven by anti-natalist ideology, was the only person killed. Four others were injured. Miraculously, none of the clinic's eggs or embryos were lost.

Nine months later, the clinic has been operating from a temporary location across the street, completing about 15 embryo transfers a month while planning a $20 million rebuild set to open fall 2026.

What's stayed with many people is the response of the clinic's founder, Dr. Maher Abdallah, who offered to pay for the bomber's funeral. "We're for life," he said. "I really don't care much about his ideology, and the last thing I want to do is promote it." In a moment that could have defined his clinic by violence, he chose to lead with grace.

Why we included this. Fertility care is healthcare. The people who provide it and the patients who rely on it deserve to feel safe. As the political conversation around reproductive technology intensifies, this story is a reminder that the stakes aren't abstract.

That's it for Issue #1. We'll be back on Friday with a look at the business side of fertility: who's raising money, what tech is coming to clinics and how the industry is changing from the inside.

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See you Friday, The Buzz team 🐝