CHA Healthcare buys major Australian fertility center

South Korea’s medical center operator CHA Healthcare Co. said on Monday it has acquired the management rights of Fertility Specialists of Western Australia (FSWA), a major fertility center in Western Australia. CHA Healthcare made the deal via its subsidiary City Fertility National Network, an Australian in vitro fertilization (IVF) service group.

FSWA owns two fertility centers in Perth, the capital of Western Australia. The center conducts more than 1,200 IVF treatments a year, which account for 30% of all the IVF treatments carried out in Perth.   

CHA Healthcare entered the Australian infertility treatment market in 2018 when it acquired City Fertility, which owned seven fertility centers. The Korean firm increased the number of centers to 16 targeting Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney, the populations of which have high proportions of women of childbearing age. Through the FSWA deal, CHA Healthcare will own a total of 18 fertility centers across Australia.       

CHA Healthcare is expanding its presence in the Australian infertility treatment market. It has dispatched Korean medical professionals of parent group CHA Medical Center to Australia since the acquisition of City Fertility to deliver its infertility treatment techniques. It carried out around 7,000 IVF treatments last year and aims to conduct more than 10,000 treatments per year by 2026.

“CHA Healthcare has built a solid foundation for international medical care in Australia. It will expand the global network in Southeast Asian countries such as Vietnam and Indonesia,” said CHA Healthcare CEO Cho Seong-soo. 

CHA Healthcare was founded in 2013 as a subsidiary of CHA Biotech Co., Korea’s leading stem cell therapeutics developer. The medical center management company is operating 81 general acute care hospitals and IVF clinics in seven countries including the US, Japan, Singapore, Australia and Korea.

CHA Healthcare manages CHA-Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles, the first US-based hospital owned by a Korean medical group. It also owns a 24% stake in Singapore Medical Group (SMG), which has more than 30 clinics in Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam and Australia.

Write to Min-Soo Han at hms@hankyung.com
Jihyun Kim edited this article.