One Family Helping Others Create Theirs

How the Agora Clinic became one of Sussex’s most respected and cherished businesses

Some businesses are built to be sold. Others like the Agora Clinic are built to become a legacy; a place devoted to creating families, and to endure as one.

Nearly twenty years ago, Dr Carole Gilling-Smith made a decision that would shape the future of fertility care in Sussex. Having built a distinguished career as an NHS Consultant Gynaecologist, academic researcher and pioneer in reproductive medicine, she chose to step away from a system she believed could no longer deliver the deeply personal, innovative and compassionate care patients deserved.

Instead, she built something different. Founded in Hove in 2006, the Agora has grown into Sussex’s largest independent fertility centre, supporting thousands of people across Sussex and beyond on their path to parenthood through a model that combines world-class science with warmth, honesty and patient-centric care.

In an era when the NHS is increasingly stretched, and private fertility healthcare is growing exponentially but becoming increasingly corporate, the Agora has remained proudly independent, clinician-founded and values-led.

The UK’s only Family Led IVF Clinic

Today, it is also something rarer still: believed to be the UK’s only Family Led IVF Clinic, with the next generation now helping shape its future.

Carole’s daughter Michèle, Director of Operations, plays a central leadership role across the business. Her older son Sebastian oversees marketing, digital strategy and patient communications, helping patients find trusted information in a crowded online world. Her youngest son Chris, as Finance Manager, brings a fresh perspective to the next chapter of growth while pursuing his ambition to study medicine. Behind the scenes, Carole’s husband Stephen Ulph has led the design and construction of each clinic site over the years.

All this gives the Agora something few healthcare organisations can claim; succession rooted not in sale value, but in shared purpose.

Reputation, quietly earned

The clinic’s growth has never come through heavy advertising, but through word-of-mouth reputation. Former patients recommend it to friends. GPs recommend it to patients. Families return for siblings. Trust, built quietly over almost two decades, has become one of the organisation’s greatest assets, recognised publicly through verified reviews and the Doctify Certificate of Excellence, alongside local recognition including CEO of the Year and Large Company of the Year at the 2024 Sussex Business Awards, and MD of the Year at the 2025 Dynamic Awards.

Yet the Agora’s success has never relied on sentiment alone. Its reputation is underpinned by serious medicine.

World-class fertility care, genuinely on your doorstep

The Agora Brighton flagship houses one of the most advanced fertility laboratories in the South of England, affectionately known to the team and their patients as the Rainbow Suite. Every stage of treatment, from consultation to ultrasound monitoring, egg collection, embryology, embryo transfer and aftercare, is carried out here in Sussex, by the clinic’s own 70-strong team, in its own state of the art laboratory.

The Agora offers IVF, ICSI, donor conception, surrogacy, fertility preservation and advanced genetic pathways, delivered by an experienced multidisciplinary team using the latest evidence-based techniques.

Genetics that empower patients

Where clinically appropriate, the clinic offers advanced genetic screening. PGT-A (Pre-implantation Genetic Testing for Aneuploidy) can help identify embryos with the correct number of chromosomes, supporting informed decisions for patients whose circumstances make it valuable. PGT-M and PGT-SR (testing for specific inherited conditions) allow families who carry a serious genetic disease to reduce the risk of passing it on. These are tools that empower patients, offered thoughtfully, ethically and individually.

Ethical, transparent pricing

That same principle shapes the clinic’s approach to pricing. While many clinics present beneficial laboratory technologies as costly extras or ‘add-ons’, the Agora has chosen a more transparent model, including ‘advanced embryology’ such as blastocyst culture, time-lapse embryo monitoring (the Embryoscope) and EmbryoGlue within all of its IVF packages, whether NHS or privately funded. The guiding principle is simple: patients should understand clearly from the outset exactly what they are paying for, and why.

Just as importantly, the Agora remains committed to equitable access. Alongside self-funded treatment, the clinic has long delivered substantial NHS-funded fertility care to the same standards, reflecting Carole’s belief that the chance to build a family should never depend solely on wealth or postcode.

Inclusivity, from the beginning

At a time when many of those trying to build families felt overlooked, the Agora was already creating thoughtful pathways for same-sex couples, solo parents, donor conception families, surrogacy journeys, trans and non-binary patients, and others whose circumstances may once have left them feeling excluded elsewhere. Their first experience at the Agora goes beyond clinical expertise. It is the feeling that, for the first time, someone really understands and cares.

People, technology and the next chapter

That human focus extends well beyond patients. Carole has long believed that exceptional care can only be delivered by teams who themselves feel respected, supported and able to flourish. Workplace wellbeing, flexible working, leadership development and staff continuity have therefore become strategic priorities within the business.

That thinking is now shaping the clinic’s next phase of innovation. The Agora is embracing carefully chosen new technologies, including artificial intelligence and smarter digital systems, not to replace its people but to elevate their experience. AI is being implemented to reduce administrative burden, support precision in the laboratory and clinical workflows, and free highly trained professionals to spend more time where they add greatest value – with patients.

At the Agora, innovation is embraced only if it helps both those seeking a family, and those helping them create one.

A Sussex legacy

Over four decades in medicine and nearly twenty years in business, Carole has held firm to one belief: that values and performance are not opposites; the strongest organisations achieve both.

Recent awards have acknowledged that the Agora has done just that. But perhaps the most meaningful measure cannot be displayed in a trophy cabinet. It is found in nursery rooms, school gates and family homes across Sussex and beyond.

Over 5,000 children have begun their story at the Agora. Thousands more will follow in their footsteps as its next chapter is written by the family who built it.

The Agora Clinic
Brighton  |  Eastbourne  |  Worthing

www.agoraclinic.co.uk
01273 229410
info@agoraclinic.co.uk