Who we are
Oozoa Biomedical is a Vancouver-based international consulting company established in 2000 and owned by David Mortimer PhD and Sharon Mortimer PhD, who have over 80 years of experience in the field between them.
During the last 2 decades the Company has served clients in Canada, USA, UK, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Eire, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Egypt, Kuwait, Qatar, Tunisia, Nigeria, South Africa, Guyana, Jamaica, Australia, New Zealand, Philippines, India, and China in various areas of reproductive biology and biomedicine in humans, as well as in domesticated and laboratory animals.
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Dr David Mortimer, PhD
David is President and co-owner of Oozoa Biomedical. After 14 years of academic research and teaching experience, during which time he was also responsible for diagnostic and therapeutic laboratory services, in the UK, France and Canada, he spent 8 years as an IVF Scientific Director in the private medicine sector in Australia. During the last 30 years he has undertaken a wide range of consultancy and advisory work in various areas of reproductive biology and medicine in human, domesticated and laboratory species covering products, equipment and services from both the diagnostic and therapeutic perspectives.
Dr Sharon Mortimer, PhD
Sharon is co-owner and a Director of Oozoa Biomedical. She became a Clinical Embryologist in 1985 and has served as Laboratory/Scientific Director for a number of Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) clinics in Canada, receiving CFAS Certification as an ART Laboratory Scientific Director in 2013. She is currently an Adjunct Professor in the UBC Division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility, and the Scientific Director of the Fertility Laboratory, Eastern Regional Health Authority in St John’s, Newfoundland. Her consultancy work has covered ART laboratory design and operations, as well as research communications, including grant writing, grant and manuscript editing, and mentoring of junior faculty in grantsmanship.
The Oozoa Story
Our life’s work is dedicated to ensuring that singleton pregnancies become standard practice. Our goal is to redefine the norm.
Our motivation is driven by personal experience: our own (naturally-conceived) multiple pregnancy, with our triplets born premature at 28 weeks’ gestation. One of the triplets was stillborn, leaving us with twins: one of whom almost did not survive. After two years of investing in round-the-clock care and managing compounding medical costs a deep shift happened and the focus was formed for our professional careers. So began our journey to ensuring that infertile couples seeking IVF treatment don’t have to face multiple pregnancy, and all its attendant risks, as a side effect of needing to transfer multiple embryos to achieve higher success rates. We started Mortimer Scientific Consulting during this period when we were based in Sydney, Australia, providing services primarily to biotech companies.
As dedicated academics and curious scientists we are passionate about leading our industry, agitating long-held beliefs, and creating change to set a new standard in the ART industry. Together, we have over 80 years of experience in assisted reproductive technologies and the precise and delicate process of creating competent embryos. We have spent decades not only perfecting the systems and science in the clinical environment, but also understanding the emotional journey of IVF patients in order to educate clinical teams in compassionate service delivery.
David started his academic science career in the field of human infertility before there was any human ART beyond artificial insemination. Beginning with a degree in Zoology at the University of Bristol, UK, in 1974, with a fascination with sperm morphology he went on to earn his PhD in Edinburgh in 1977 and then completed three post-doctoral fellowships over 6 years (Edinburgh, Paris and Birmingham). Through his dedicated focus on gamete and embryo physiology he has earned an international reputation as an academic researcher, consultant and thought leader in the field of ART.
Sharon was always going to be a scientist – although she originally wanted to be an astrophysicist. As part of her undergraduate studies at the University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia, she took an Animal Development course in 1981, which was heavily based on the developing field of IVF, and she was hooked. After a couple of years working in a clinical immunology laboratory, she trained as an embryologist at the Royal Women’s Hospital in Melbourne in 1985 – and felt like she’d come home. Working with IVF pioneers, and others from around the world, Sharon found a passion for teaching, training, and helping people to develop new skills and create new knowledge.
Mortimer Scientific Consulting’s services evolved, along with our expertise, into a full-scale consulting practice in 2000. Oozoa Biomedical Inc serves clinics, manufacturers and distributors with the interest of improving our field and fulfilling our purpose. Over the past 3 decades we have provided consultancy services of various types to more than 150 clients in 29 countries across all continents except Antarctica. Major projects have included setting up state-of-the-art ART centres, andrology and embryology laboratories and cryobanks, all based on the principles of Total Quality Management.
Our depth of experience, and desire to create change, led us to write the essential survival guide to successfully managing the modern-day IVF lab. With high profile media coverage of mistakes at IVF clinics and escalating regulatory scrutiny, there became an increasing pressure for professional accreditation. Modern accreditation schemes require quality management systems, but quality management beyond the basics is often poorly understood by biomedical scientists. Oozoa has established turn-key systems and provides customized services for fertility clinic teams to drive unparalleled results. We focus on taking a holistic approach to fertility and are dedicated to mentorship and ethical practice within our industry.
There is an indefinable magic to working with a group of people who are committed to achieving a positive goal – people who have the individual and collective trust and self-confidence to accept and implement recommendations to support the changes needed. The change process requires a lot of self-reflection, and a lot of education, which ideally leads to personal and organizational growth – and hopefully to the development of new ideas and solutions.
In one sense, our fundamental role is as enablers – to work with the team to solve existing problems, and to provide the knowledge and resources to allow the team to not only provide a great service to their patients, but also to support new studies for the creation of new knowledge for the benefit of the field.
Together we share a commitment to remaining open, inquisitive and committed to learning. This allows us to improve the lives of those who require our service and to provide the best chance of achieving a healthy pregnancy, and taking home a healthy baby.