Opening avenues to combat infertility. With this objective, Oxolife has developed a pioneering drug that improves the embryonic implantation process and increases pregnancy rates. Infertility affects 75.8 million women worldwide, and more than 3 million assisted reproduction techniques are performed each year. However, more than half of them fail due to implantation failures or early pregnancy loss.
This is where Barcelona-based Oxolife comes into play, to increase embryonic implantation and pregnancy rates with its drug. OXO-001, however, was initially created to address polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), as there is currently no drug available on the market that specifically addresses it, despite being the most common endocrine disorder —until now, medicines have focused on treating symptoms, ranging from skin problems to obesity, and not the syndrome as such—.
In this context, the biotechnology company, now with a team of four people, is studying the use of its drug to treat infertility associated with PCOS, where "pregnancy success rates are very low," as explained by the co-founder and CEO of the biotech, Agnès Arbat. Now, Oxolife is immersed in a funding round with which it aims to raise about 22 million to enter phase 2 of the clinical study.
Arbat, a specialist in clinical pharmacology, focused on Oxolife after 15 years working in the pharmaceutical industry. From the beginning of her career, she was clear that she was interested in women's health: "There are many very prevalent pathologies that have no treatment; there are many patients who suffer for many years without treatment." With this foundation, she specialized in this field and gained expertise in drug development processes, always with a focus on women's health.
The leap from the pharmaceutical industry to leading her own project was driven by cases in her environment marked by infertility and pregnancy complications. "Seven embryo transfers, four years of treatment, and a lot of suffering" of a close friend served as a lever for Arbat to decide to launch what is now Oxolife.
It was in 2011, while working at Bayer, that the biotechnology company began to take shape. It did so with Arbat and her partner, Ignasi Canals, who had experience with the molecule they wanted to work on, in which they saw a potential use to treat polycystic ovary syndrome, which can cause menstrual irregularities, obesity, skin problems, and also infertility. What's more: it is one of the main causes of sterility.
Globally, this "complex syndrome" affects between 10% and 15% of women of childbearing age; however, 70% of those affected worldwide are undiagnosed. In this context, Arbat and Canals began to conduct tests with mice, and already in 2011 they obtained the first results: "They were impressive at a preclinical level," summarizes Arbat. And the data corroborates this: While with polycystic ovary syndrome only 9% of females became pregnant, with their drug the figure rose to 80%.
The first approved patent arrived in 2013, and then they decided to formally found Oxolife. Meanwhile, Arbat continued to combine the impulse of the startup with her work, until in 2018 she made the definitive leap, when Oxolife's drug was already in preclinical stages, after passing through a pharmaceutical company with which they signed a licensing agreement in 2014 and which expired precisely in 2018.
"I decided to give myself a year to raise a round of funding," Arbat recalls. Finally, this goal materialized in a five-million-euro round in 2020, led by CDTI and the venture capital firm Inveready, and in which BStartup of Banco Sabadell participated, in addition to private investors from the Capital Cell platform. These funds took Oxolife's drug to phases 1 and 2 of the clinical study, which assess the safety and efficacy of the treatment. "We have positive results from phase 2 to improve embryo implantation," Arbat highlights.
Now, they are immersed in a new challenge: to raise 22 million for the specific indication of polycystic ovary. And it is that Oxolife's will is "to make a holistic approach to the syndrome, regardless of the woman's reproductive desire," in order to improve her health in the case of having polycystic ovary. The challenge, however, is not minor, since raising capital in the health sector is not easy: "We are at levels below 2017."
"The difficulty is extreme"
"There are resources, but there is a lot of containment in investment," Arbat points out. To add more complexity to their purpose, "women's health matters to less than 5% of investment". The diagnosis is clear: "The difficulty is extreme." However, as Arbat points out, "some small investments are beginning to be seen in projects linked to women's health; these are the first green shoots."These green shoots are sown with initiatives beyond financing, such as recognitions like those received by Oxolife and its co-founders. Among them are the Catalonian Health award, which recognized the biotech's work in February, and also Arbat's recognition by the EU Woman Innovator Awards 2025. To these distinctions, an even more recent one is added: the European Investment Bank (EIB) recognized her two weeks ago as the winner of the Open Call for Advancing Innovation in Women's Health. The award was presented in Vienna during the international Bio-Europe congress while, in Barcelona, Oxolife participated in the Smart City Expo World Congress, within a Deep Tech Summit organized by Barcelona Activa. The award, which places Arbat among the leading women innovators in women's health, recognizes her pioneering work, as well as "her commitments to solving critical needs in women's health."
Beyond treatment
In fact, Arbat's will regarding PCOS is to go beyond drugs: she aspires to "map the journey for patients with polycystic ovary," since often "they don't even know which specialist to go to" to treat the diversity of effects caused by the syndrome. With this objective, they will work todefine profiles, identifying patient groups to facilitate diagnosis and their path to address its effects through the most suitable specialists."At Oxolife, we are committed to understanding these pathologies from the ground up," for which they incorporate new analysis technologies with AI. As Arbat explains, "we take advantage of new technologies to accelerate the development of our drug and to break down barriers. There are many, but we are working hard to overcome them."