Revenues at Sims Clinic hit by IVF tourism as fertility business records €2.85m loss for 2024

New accounts show the fertility service company recorded the €2.85m pre-tax loss after revenues declined by 5%

The Sims Clinic operates its network of fertility services clinics in Cork, Carlow, Limerick, Dundalk, and two in Dublin, at Swords and Clonskeagh.

The Sims Clinic last year recorded pre-tax losses of €2.85m as the re-introduction of IVF tourism continued to hit clinic revenues.

New accounts filed by The Sims Clinic Ltd show the fertility service company recorded the €2.85m pre-tax loss after revenues declined by 5%, from €8.07m to €7.64m, in the 12 months to the end of June 2024.

The fall in revenues continued the trend from the prior year, when revenues went down by 21.5%, from €10.16m to €8.07m.

The directors say the reintroduction of IVF tourism had a negative impact on volumes in 2024, as it had in 2023.

The company’s pre-tax loss of €2.85m last year is an 11% decline on the pre-tax losses of €3.2m in the prior year.

The Sims Clinic operates its network of fertility services clinics in Cork, Carlow, Limerick, Dundalk, and two in Dublin, at Swords and Clonskeagh.

The company website confirms it is opening a new satellite clinic in Wexford next month.

In their report, the directors say the company “has sufficient liquidity and other resources to support its ongoing operations through the support provided by its intermediate parent company Virtus Health Pty Ltd”.

The Sims Clinic’s biggest cost is staff costs and it reduced last year from €5.8m to €5.3m, as numbers employed declined from 100 to 85, made up of 63 clinical staff and 22 in administration.

The firm’s revenues were made up of €6.9m in IVF revenues and €725,398 in diagnostic revenues.

The firm’s losses last year take account of non-cash depreciation of €290,788.

The clinic has benefited from the introduction of the State’s publicly funded assisted human reproduction treatment and is one of eight HSE-approved clinics to provide the service.

At the end of June last, the company’s shareholder funds totalled €262,150, while cash funds decreased from €186,023 to €70,533.

The directors say the company is licensed by the Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA).

They state: “It is crucial to the survival of the business that the HPRA licence is maintained and that strong controls are in place to ensure that professional malpractice or patient error does not occur.

“To this end, stringent controls are in place to safeguard the interests of the patients at all times.”