Greece looks to promote its fertility treatment sector

Athens

MAKING babies is a business as well as a way of life for father of eight Kostas Pantos. As founder of Genesis, Greece's biggest fertility clinic, he oversees 5,000 cycles of treatment every year, or about a third of the total in the country, and five times what he did just a few years ago. Away from the wrangling over Greek finances, the medic and his team want to make Greece a hub for assisted reproductive technology, or ART, a worldwide market predicted to exceed US$20 billion by 2020.

"There might be a financial crisis, but people will still pay to get a child when they want one," said Dr Pantos, 58, as he monitors a procedure that he can see on a live television feed in his office. "We're booming."