An ova bank, or cryobank, or egg cell bank is a facility that collects and stores human ova, mainly from ova donors, primarily for the purpose of achieving pregnancies of either the donor, at a later time (i.e. to overcome issues of infertility), or through third party reproduction, notably by artificial insemination.
[1][2][3] Generally, the main purpose of storing ova, at present, is to overcome infertility which may arise at a later age, or due to a disease.
The ova are generally collected between 31 and 35 years of age.
[4] The procedure of collecting ova may or may not[5] include ovarian hyperstimulation.
[6] It can be expected however that ova collection will become more important in the future, i.e. for third party reproduction, and/or for producing stem cells, i.e. from unfertilized eggs (oocytes).