Pergonal

Pergonal® is a fertility medicine used to stimulate ovarian follicles in infertility treatments, i.e. IVF. It is a preparation of gonadotropins containing follicle stimulating hormone and luteinizing hormone and extracted from the urine of postmenopausal women. It became available in the 1960s through the Serono company. It has been told that initially the company went to Italian convents and asked elderly nuns to establish collection centers. By now it has been largely replaced by purer forms of urinary gonadotropins and recombinant FSH preparations.

Its main side effects are multiple births and the ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome.