They have made their names achieving miracles for thousands of childless couples. And now fertility doctors have become Britain's new millionaires, according to new figures, outranking even plastic surgeons in the high-earners league.
Top of the list is Dr Mohamed Taranissi, who runs a private clinic in London's Wimpole Street and is estimated to have a £20m fortune, which makes him the country's wealthiest doctor.
A controversial figure in the world of medicine, the Egyptian-born Dr Taranissi runs the Assisted Reproduction and Gynaecology Centre (AGRC), which made a pre-tax profit of more than £4m in 2004, a figure that has more than doubled over the past four years.
Another doctor who has become fabulously rich from the baby-making business is Professor Ian Craft, who runs the London Fertility Centre in Harley Street. As the principal shareholder, the 68-year-old has made more than £9m in fees and pension payments over the past seven years, according to his latest accounts at Companies House.
And in vitro fertilisation (IVF) expert Dr Simon Fishel has seen profits in his clinics, the Centres for Assisted Reproduction (Care), treble over the past three years to £1.9m. As a major shareholder, Dr Fishel, who runs the company along with Dr Simon Thornton and Dr Ken Dowell, was paid dividends of £160,000 in one year alone as well as taking a cut of fees for being on the board of Care's subsidiary companies.
An estimated one in six couples now experience trouble conceiving, and the record profits enjoyed by fertility doctors reflect the huge demand for treatment, especially over the past decade. Most of the 50,000 test-tube babies created in Britain since 1978 were born between 1997 and 2000.
However, experts also warn that the growth in private treatment demonstrates that the NHS is still providing inadequate and patchy treatment for patients and that many desperate couples are being forced to go private, especially those with only a slim chance of getting pregnant.
New research published next month will reveal that the worldwide market in fertility treatment is now worth more than £3bn. Academic Debora Spar, in her book The Baby Business, argues that the potential for exploitation is huge and that more safeguards for patients must be put in place.
"You have a large number of potential customers each of whom is willing to do whatever it takes and pay whatever they can to purchase the product at hand," said Professor Spar, of Harvard Business School.
"When you have this kind of demand some of the suppliers are going to make lots of money."
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