Pairing high clinical standards with empathy, thoughtfulness and a space that supports people through one of the most personal chapters of their lives
“I had access to good doctors and care, but not enough context early on. I understood fertility in abstract terms, not in a way that helped me make calm, informed decisions. Like many people, I assumed time was more flexible than it actually is.”
YEARS ago, the public would rarely see a fertility clinic outside of a hospital setting, despite the fact that the Philippines has hosted skilled fertility doctors and clinics for more than two decades.
“What I saw was an opportunity to add a different kind of setting and patient experience alongside that existing strength,” said Margareth Wang, founding CEO of GenPrime and Rhea Fertility, in an interview with The Manila Times.
GenPrime Fertility Manila was designed as a dedicated, end-to-end clinic where patients can start with questions, access diagnostics and receive treatment in one continuous flow, feeling supported both medically and emotionally throughout the process.
“We were very intentional about removing unnecessary friction in the journey, so care feels cohesive rather than fragmented,” Wang said.
That philosophy extends to the physical space itself. In Manila, the clinic unfolds in a serene, hospitality-inspired environment designed by JJ Acuña. Consultation rooms, the operating theater, andrology and embryology labs, recovery spaces and cryo-storage all sit under one roof, allowing care to move smoothly without stressful transitions. Soft lighting, warm textures and a minimalist layout help create a space that feels calm and quietly reassuring — elements that matter more than people often realize in fertility care.
At its core, GenPrime Manila is about meeting patients where they are. While high clinical standards are a given, Wang emphasized the human element. “What we focused on was pairing that with empathy, thoughtfulness and a space that supports people through one of the most personal chapters of their lives,” she said.
A personal mission
Wang’s drive is rooted in her own journey. “My own experience made it clear how late most people encounter real fertility education,” she shared. “I had access to good doctors and care, but not enough context early on. I understood fertility in abstract terms, not in a way that helped me make calm, informed decisions. Like many people, I assumed time was more flexible than it actually is.”
As she navigated egg freezing across different stages of her life and various health care systems, she encountered a recurring issue: information often arrives when decisions already feel emotional or urgent.
“Most people are not uninformed because they are careless,” Wang noted. “They are building careers, relationships and lives. They simply have not been given clear, practical information early enough to understand how fertility fits into the bigger picture of their health.”
Manila stood out to Wang as both an obvious and meaningful choice for GenPrime Fertility’s sixth global destination, joining locations in Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Los Angeles.
“The Philippines has a population of over 115 million, yet until recently, there were fewer than 10 IVF clinics serving the entire country,” Wang said. “For a country where family is such a central part of life, that gap felt important to acknowledge and respond to.”
She observed that Manila is currently in a moment of transition. More Filipinos are delaying family-building for personal, professional or economic reasons. “Careers are increasingly global, timelines are shifting and people are asking more proactive questions about their reproductive health,” she added.
Overcoming complexity
Building a clinic in Southeast Asia is a complex endeavor, but Wang noted the challenges weren’t just logistical. “The hardest part was not construction. It was aligning people, standards and ways of working across very different health care systems, while keeping the patient experience front and center.”
Consistency of care was the priority. Wang and her team spent significant time working with local doctors, embryologists, nurses and regulators to build trust and understand local operations. In Manila, this resulted in co-locating GenPrime with Eluvo Health’s first physical presence, bringing diagnostics and broader reproductive health into one connected flow.
To anchor their standards, the embryology labs were developed in collaboration with Genea Fertility in Australia. The clinic also utilizes tools like Embryonics to provide additional layers of insight for clinicians while keeping decision-making firmly human.
“Building outside hospital systems added a level of difficulty and definitely stretched us at times, but it also gave us freedom,” Wang said. “We could design the clinic end-to-end around people.”
Journey of perspectives
Wang’s move from New York to Southeast Asia was a major professional and personal shift. She initially moved to Singapore with Bridgewater Associates to establish their office there.
“Living in this region opened my eyes in a new way,” she admitted. “I found the art and culture scenes across Southeast Asia incredibly inspiring ... those experiences deepened my understanding of place and context, and changed how I see the world.”
Relationship-building proved to be the bedrock of her success in the region. Many friendships evolved into partnerships and advisory roles for Rhea and GenPrime. Even after leaving the corporate world, staying in Southeast Asia felt natural. “Singapore had become home,” she said.
Returning to roots
Though she found success in finance and leadership, health care feels like a homecoming for Wang. The daughter of a late anesthesiologist, she grew up around medicine. While she studied at Harvard University with an initial focus on pre-med, she was eventually drawn to economics, art history and the social sciences.
“Today, working in health care, it feels like a return home — informed not just by science, but by a broader perspective on how care is shaped, experienced and delivered,” she said.
Now, Wang divides her time between GenPrime clinics and visiting family in New York. Recently, she was in Manila to open a second location in Makati. When she isn’t working, she finds restoration in art and design. During the holidays, she took her New York-based family to Indonesia and Thailand.
“I’m usually working throughout the year, so those few days of slowing down — sharing meals, enjoying unstructured time and simply being together — meant everything,” she said.
Whether she is designing a clinical flow or a dinner menu for friends in Singapore, Wang remains guided by the discipline she saw in her parents. “Clarity, integrity and consistency compound over time,” she said. “They shape not just outcomes, but the kind of life and relationships you end up with along the way.”
QUICK QUESTIONS
What is your biggest fear?
My biggest fear has always been feeling trapped. I’ve felt it at different points in my life — in relationships, in jobs, even in decisions I made willingly and then questioned later. That sense of being boxed in, with no clear way forward, is deeply uncomfortable for me.
For a long time, I thought that fear came from external things: expectations, timelines, roles you’re supposed to grow into by a certain age. Over time, I realized something harder and more freeing. Most of the time, the trap isn’t real. We build it ourselves through fixed ways of thinking about who we are, what’s possible or what we’re allowed to change.
Reading “Mindset” by Carol Dweck was a turning point for me. It gave language to something I was already struggling with and helped me see how often fear shows up as rigidity.
What really makes you angry?
I’ve learned over time that anger is rarely the whole story. It’s usually pointing to something underneath it, like hurt, frustration or vulnerability. During business school at Stanford, I learned how important it is to slow down, name the real emotion and communicate from that place. That shift has made me a better leader and a better human.
That said, the moments when I still feel anger most clearly tend to come from injustice. As a child, I was bullied for being different while growing up in a small town. That sense of being singled out or othered stays with you. I know how lonely that can feel, and I never want someone else to experience it in silence.
What motivates you to work hard?
The earliest model for hard work came from my parents. They emigrated from China to the United States after meeting in medical school and built a life from the ground up while raising two daughters. Growing up, I absorbed a deep respect for education, for caring for others through your work and for doing things properly. Their expectations were high, and for a long time, my motivation came from wanting to meet them.
Early in my career, I worked hard because it was what I should do and what I was capable of doing. A few years ago, that shifted. I started asking myself what I actually wanted to build, not just what I could achieve on paper. That question changed everything.
What makes you laugh the most?
Unexpected wordplay gets me every time. Especially a slightly cheesy pun delivered completely deadpan. The drier and more unnecessary it is, the better. There’s something very satisfying about humor that sneaks up on you and refuses to take itself seriously.
What would you do if you won the lotto?
Honestly, I’d probably take a portfolio approach. The finance geek in me would invest a portion sensibly, because old habits die hard. I’d put meaningful capital behind the arts and cultural organizations I care deeply about and I am already involved in, and I’d continue investing in the growth of Rhea and GenPrime. I’d still be building, just with a much better buffer.
If you could share a meal with any individual, living or dead, who would they be?
Italo Calvino. “Invisible Cities” is one of my favorite books. I love how it uses imagined places to explore memory, longing and how we experience cities beyond their physical form. Living and building in Southeast Asia, where ideas of home, movement and foreignness are deeply layered, made the book feel even more alive to me. I think sharing a meal with Calvino would feel like talking about the world sideways, which is often where the most truth lives.
What was the last book you read?
The last full book I finished was “To Paradise,” by Hanya Yanagihara, which is saying something because I’m terrible at finishing books while traveling for work. I loved her writing and the way she develops characters whose inner lives are shaped by race, class and power, with the story moving between New York and this region.
At the moment, I’m partway through “The Line of Beauty,” the Michael Ovitz book, and a stack of Mary Oliver’s poems. I’ve accepted that I only really finish books when I can sit with them properly over a quiet weekend.
Which celebrity would you like to meet for a cup of coffee?
Alex Eala. Since this is The Manila Times, I’ll try my luck in case she’s reading. I grew up playing tennis and still love watching the sport, and I’ve loved seeing how she represents the Philippines on the global stage with so much focus and confidence. She also seems to have a great personality, which never hurts when you’re inviting someone for coffee.
What is the most daring thing you have ever done?
Leaving a stable, senior role to build Rhea and our GenPrime network. It meant walking away from security and a clear trajectory to pursue something that felt deeply aligned with my values, even though the outcome was far from certain.
This wasn’t just about starting a company. It was about building a mission-driven team, earning trust and growing across new markets with different health care systems, cultures and expectations. The work required patience, humility and a willingness to learn continuously.
Over time, seeing a group of thoughtful, committed people come together around the same purpose has been one of the most rewarding parts of the journey. The daring part wasn’t the initial decision. It’s been choosing, day after day, to stay with the responsibility of building something meaningful and lasting.
What is the one thing you will never do again?
I will never ignore my own intuition to meet someone else’s expectations. Earlier in my life, I spent more time calibrating to external voices than developing trust on my own. I made decisions that were reasonable and well-intentioned, but not always fully aligned with what I felt or wanted.
Over time, I learned that intuition is something you build by listening to it, not something you wait to earn. When you trust it early, decisions may still be difficult, but they tend to be clearer and more honest.
Now, whether it’s in relationships, health or building Rhea and GenPrime, I’m far more intentional about listening to that inner voice and letting it guide my choices. It hasn’t removed uncertainty, but it has given me something far more durable: self-trust.