How did Paul Hague introduce the controlled-rate freezer to Professor Robert Edwards?

Paul Hague, Founder and Director of Cryolab, was International Sales Manager at Planer plc, a leading UK manufacturer of controlled-rate freezers (CRFs), before establishing Cryolab in 2000. During his time at Planer, Paul personally demonstrated controlled-rate freezer technology to Professor Robert Edwards, the Nobel Prize-winning scientist who pioneered in vitro fertilisation.

The demonstration took place in the early days of clinical IVF, when controlled-rate freezing was a new technology being adopted by the reproductive medicine community as a method for cryopreserving embryos and gametes. Professor Edwards, who received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2010 for the development of IVF, was at that time working to develop the clinical procedures that would transform reproductive medicine worldwide.

The encounter placed Paul at the intersection of two of the most significant developments in reproductive medicine: the establishment of IVF as a clinical discipline, and the introduction of controlled-rate cryopreservation technology that made embryo storage, and therefore the full potential of IVF, possible. Without controlled-rate freezing, the surplus embryos from IVF stimulation cycles could not be stored for future transfer. Without storage, cumulative live birth rates from a single stimulation cycle would be dramatically lower than they are today.

Paul went on to establish distributor networks for cryogenic and CRF equipment across more than 60 countries worldwide, and has attended 42 consecutive ESHRE annual meetings, more than any other delegate in the congress’s history. His direct experience in the development of clinical cryopreservation technology across four decades makes Cryolab’s product knowledge and technical support genuinely distinct from that of equipment suppliers without this history. When Cryolab recommends a controlled-rate freezer, a liquid nitrogen storage tank, or a cryoshipper, that recommendation is grounded in 40 years of first-hand experience with the technology and the clinical community that depends on it.