🔒CEO Verrastro helps grow Farmington fertility clinic’s mission, reach

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Paul Verrastro thought he'd be a government policy wonk in public health, not working in health care, but he found his calling running a facility that helps couples struggling with infertility have babies.

He landed at the Farmington-based Center for Advanced Reproductive Services almost 20 years ago and was promoted to CEO last spring from chief operating officer.

“I fell in love with the emotion of [obstetrics] and fertility just took it to a whole new level,” said Verrastro, 53, who grew up in Waterbury, attended college in New York City and spent five years there with St. Vincent's Hospital as a practice coordinator, then women's practice administrator before joining the Center.

He speaks like a proud father as he describes its work.

“I always say to people, this center is like my child,” Verrastro said. “I'm really protective of it, I'm really proud of it, I try to make sure everybody does right by it because it provides such a critical mission to people.”

It's a life-creating mission of helping couples have babies, through in vitro fertilization (IVF) and intrauterine insemination, (IUI). The Center has been responsible for 12,000-plus live births since 1982.

Society, science, technology and insurance have changed a lot since then in ways that have benefited the growing industry.

Trends include more women having babies later due to their career focus, waiting for Mr. Right or second marriages. By their late-30s, though, women are considered of advanced maternal age because their natural fertility begins to diminish and egg quantity and quality decline, increasing risk of chromosomal abnormalities.

Science, however, allows preimplantation genetic screening, taking embryos from an IVF cycle, testing them for genetic abnormalities, then implanting only a healthy embryo. Also, insurance coverage for IVF cycles was extended beyond age 40 under the Affordable Care Act.

While women are trending older, 60 percent of the Center's patients still remain under 37, according to Verrastro.

For women up to age 37 in IVF, there's about a 60 to 64 percent chance of a live birth occurring and about 80 percent will get pregnant within their first year of trying, he said.

It ranks well versus national averages, Verrastro said, citing the latest Society for Advanced Reproductive Technology data from 2015.

The Center has been “pretty much No. 1 in the state for, I'd say, the last 15 years,” measured by live births, he said.

Through another trend, elective single embryo transfer, the Center has greatly reduced the chances of a mother having multiple babies at once, which can result in premature delivery, lower birth weights and expensive stays in neonatal intensive care units, which insurers want to avoid.

“Our goal is to identify one super embryo to put back to have one baby and that is the result of improved technology and procedures throughout the clinic,” Verrastro said, adding that for all IVF births where patients used their own eggs, 82 percent led to a single child being born.

“The holy grail of all this is you put one in and you maintain a high pregnancy rate,” he said.

Genetic testing advances

The Center, through its Farmington headquarters and satellite offices in Hartford and New London, sees about 1,500 new patients a year. They include couples experiencing infertility, lesbian couples, younger women who freeze their eggs to implant later (a growing trend), and couples with no fertility issues but with defective genes, like cystic fibrosis, that can affect offspring.

For the latter, the Center does pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, where the woman goes through an IVF cycle, a number of embryos are created in the lab and biopsied to determine which lack genetic disorders and can be implanted.

“It's an example of how technology over the last 10 years has really evolved,” Verrastro said of genetic testing.

With advancements in genetics and personalized medicine, but the number of infertile couples relatively fixed, “there will probably at some point be just as many people going through this for a genetic reason as an infertility reason,” he said.

In infertility cases, about a third are attributed to the female, a third to the male, with the other third a combination of problems in both, or unexplained.

The Center is operated by In Vitro Sciences, a wholly owned subsidiary of Avon-based Women's Health USA. The Center was founded in 1982 at UConn Health, which in 1998 outsourced management to In Vitro Sciences. The Center's building was razed for Bioscience Connecticut in 2014 and relocated 2 miles away at its current location on Batterson Park Road.

It maintains an academic and clinical affiliation with UConn and manages the fertility fellowship, training the next generation of fertility doctors.

Verrastro oversees about 130 full- and part-time and per-diem staff with an annual budget of about $35 million. The Center has six doctors.

Its current five-year strategic plan includes adding another doctor in July 2019 and fourth office by the end of this year and another by mid-2019.

Among fertility clinics, “we've really taken control of the majority of the state” outside Fairfield County, which has ample clinics and is outside the Center's focus area, Verrastro said.

Yale is another competitor but the Center's program “is probably twice the size of Yale's,” he said.

Dr. John Nulsen, the Center's medical director, said Verrastro's influence has been significant since his arrival. The number of doctors, offices and annual IVF cycles have tripled, the latter hitting about 1,300.

“There is no way we would be where we are now without his leadership,” Nulsen said. “He's really evolved and developed into a tremendous, respected and competent leader, but he works, I feel, in a very compassionate way with all the staff,” Nulsen said.

Mindfulness influence

Verrastro studies emotional intelligence, or mindfulness, and encourages staff to experience its benefits. He regularly brings meditation experts to help staff on things like managing stress productively.

Physical fitness is a big stress reliever for Verrastro and his husband, Scott Yohe, who formerly sold large capital medical equipment. The two have been together 20 years, married for five.

Verrastro hits the gym almost daily and runs 5Ks and half-marathons. He's also an equestrian, but no longer owns horses. Verrastro also enjoys being a member the past seven years of the weekly Rainbow Bowling League for LGBTQ individuals.

A theater buff, he and Yohe regularly attend shows in New York.

“People have to have happy, healthy personal lives in order to be really productive employees,” he said. “I don't think you can have one without the other.”

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