Oxolife and the EIC Accelerator: 96 of 408 IVF Patients Reported

OXO-001 is aimed at the moment in IVF when an embryo has been placed in the womb and has to implant. Oxolife, a Barcelona company founded in 2013, is developing OXO-001, which it describes as a first-in-class, oral, non-hormonal tablet that acts directly on the endometrium, the lining of the uterus, to make implantation more likely. The project the EIC Accelerator selected at its October 2025 cut-off, OXO-ART, is described in the winner list as a tablet "to enhance live birth in women undergoing assisted reproductive technology".

The evidence so far comes from one phase 2 trial. ClinicalTrials.gov records that it enrolled 408 women at 28 sites and was completed in December 2023. The results Oxolife presented in July 2024, according to the conference release, cover an exploratory subset of 96 of them. In that group, 42.6% of the women on OXO-001 had a live birth, against 35.7% on placebo.

A tablet for the uterus, not the ovary

Oxolife positions OXO-001 as non-hormonal and aimed at the womb rather than at egg production. The company says it acts on the endometrium, and a 2021 collaboration release from Rutgers University adds that it improves ovulation and has restored ovulation and reproductive capacity in animal models of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), the second indication the company is pursuing. That release states that no drug on the market targets embryo implantation. The sources reviewed do not describe the molecule's chemical class or its molecular target.

Before the phase 2 trial, Oxolife reported more than 30 preclinical efficacy and safety studies, with implantation increases of up to 65% in animals, and a completed phase 1 safety study, per its funding announcement of June 2020 and the Barcelona Science Park, which it joined at the time.

The phase 2 trial: 408 enrolled, 96 reported

The trial, OXOART2, was randomised, double-blind and placebo-controlled. Its registry entry lists two doses, 200 mg and 300 mg, against placebo, in women having a single fresh blastocyst transferred after IVF or ICSI with donor eggs. The registry names one primary outcome, the ongoing pregnancy rate ten weeks after transfer, and lists 15 sites in Spain, 7 in Czechia and 6 in Poland. The study started in September 2021, reached primary completion in August 2023 and was completed in December 2023. On 4 November 2026 the registry showed no posted results.

What Oxolife presented at the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE) meeting in Amsterdam in July 2024 was an exploratory subset: 96 women aged up to 40, 54 on OXO-001 and 42 on placebo, according to the release. The release does not say how the 96 were chosen from 408, how many received each dose, or what the primary outcome showed for the full trial population. No such full-population result was found in the releases and press coverage reviewed for this article.

In the release, only the first and earliest measure was described as statistically significant: a positive pregnancy blood test in 75.9% against 52.4%. Oxolife itself said the trial was "not powered to confirm that the differences for these outcomes were statistically significant", as reported by Clinical Trials Arena. Side-effect rates were similar in both arms, mostly headaches, nausea, vomiting, gastrointestinal complaints and dizziness, and babies showed no developmental differences from placebo at six months, per the release. The sources also differ on dosing: the registry describes two tablets once daily, while FemTech Insider reported it as taken twice daily.

Agnès Arbat, the chief executive, said in 2024 that the company was "already planning a pivotal phase 3 clinical trial" that would add women using their own eggs, per Pharmafocus. Searches on 4 November 2026 found no announcement that a phase 3 trial or a PCOS trial has started.

The money behind the company

Oxolife's first funding round, €5 million in June 2020, was led by Inveready and the Spanish public innovation agency CDTI, with BStartup, HighStick2019 and private investors, after €1.2 million raised from private investors through Capital Cell earlier that year, per Capital Riesgo and the Barcelona Science Park. The plan then was a pharmaceutical partner to finish development. No such partnership has been announced; in April 2025 the company was described as fundraising and exploring partnerships, per Lioness Magazine.

The Spanish company register, as reproduced by Empresia and Infonif, records seven capital increases since 2014 and a board appointed in July 2020 on which Inveready Asset Management sits. The register entries show nominal share capital only, not the amounts paid in, so the chart below tracks the rounds, not the money. The filed accounts are not freely available in either source, and no staff or revenue figure is used here.

What OXO-ART promises, and what can be checked

With no CORDIS summary yet, the project's scope is known only from the winner list and the ACCIÓ announcement: an oral, non-hormonal tablet to raise live birth rates in assisted reproduction. The obvious next step for that goal is the confirmatory trial Oxolife announced in 2024. Whether OXO-ART funds that trial, part of it, or other work is not public.

1. Safety in humansReportedPhase 1 completed and similar side-effect rates to placebo in phase 2, per the company and the ESHRE release.
2. Higher live birth rate in IVFSignal only+6.9 points in an exploratory 96-woman subset; not shown to be statistically significant.
3. Full phase 2 primary outcomeNot publishedNo result for all 408 women in the registry or the coverage reviewed.
4. Phase 3 with women's own eggsNot startedPlanned in 2024; no start announced by 4 November 2026.
5. PCOS indicationPreclinicalDescribed in April 2025 as preparing for phase 2.

Recognition, and the European case

The EU has already backed the founder: Agnès Arbat won the Women Innovators category of the 2025 EU Prize for Women Innovators, run by the EIC and the EIT, worth €100,000 and presented on 3 April 2025 at the EIC Summit in Brussels, per Lioness Magazine. The trial itself was European: all 28 sites are in Spain, Czechia and Poland, per the registry. The policy backdrop is demographic: the Commission adopted a communication, "Demographic change in Europe: a toolbox for action", on 11 October 2023.

Oxolife was not asked for comment for this article. The reporting is based on publicly available sources, listed below.