Australia’s Monash IVF CEO quits days after second embryo mix-up in 2 months

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By Rishav Chatterjee

(Reuters) -Australian fertility business Monash IVF said on Thursday that chief executive officer and managing director Michael Knaap has resigned, days after the company disclosed a second fertility clinic mix-up within two months.

Shares of the company ended the session 9.1% higher, indicating the news helped alleviate investor concerns that had sent the stock plummeting 38% in the two months since the first mix-up was revealed after market hours on April 10.

The IVF provider’s finance chief, Malik Jainudeen, has taken over as acting CEO.

The company, which has not yet disclosed the reason behind Knaap’s resignation, did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Knaap had served as Monash’s CFO for more than three years before taking over as CEO in April 2019.

The second mix-up, reported a few days ago, raised concerns about an industry that did not have much active government attention until recently.

In April, the fertility company confirmed a mix-up at its Brisbane clinic, where a patient unknowingly gave birth to another couple’s child after an embryo from a different patient was mistakenly transferred.

“Monash IVF has a lot of work to do to win back public trust and confidence, (and) they need a strong leadership team to do that,” said Mary-Anne Thomas, Victoria’s Minister for Health.

Jefferies analysts, in a note from June 10, said they believe publicity around these incidents will likely lead to Australian IVF market share losses in the shorter-to-medium term.

(Reporting by Rishav Chatterjee and Sherin Sunny in Bengaluru; Editing by Sumana Nandy and Alan Barona)