LSI Alumni Innovator Spotlight: Calla Lily Clinical Care’s Lara Zibners

Calla Lily Clinical Care is challenging outdated norms in women’s health with Callavid, a first-of-its-kind vaginal drug delivery platform designed to replace painful daily injections and leaky pessaries. Co-founded by pediatric emergency physician-turned-entrepreneur Dr. Lara Zibners and private equity investor and medtech entrepreneur Thang Vo-Ta, the company is addressing the often-overlooked shortcomings of fertility and gynecologic care.

A Physician’s Mission to Fix What She Endured

Dr. Lara Zibners didn’t set out to become a startup founder. As a board-certified pediatric emergency medicine specialist and trauma educator, she spent her career treating patients, not pitching to investors.
But seven failed IVF rounds and the physical and emotional toll of progesterone treatment changed everything. “It was, by far, other than not getting pregnant, the most traumatic part of IVF,” Zibners said.

Her transition to entrepreneurship began when she was advising a company with a leak-free period care product, Tampliner. What intrigued her most was the underlying potential of the platform as a basis for vaginal drug delivery. “What I went through is very traumatic, but the possibilities of what we can do are so endless and amazing. I just believe.”

Her experience with painful daily intramuscular injections and leaky vaginal pessaries propelled her to team up with Thang Vo-Ta, a former Goldman Sachs private equity investor and serial entrepreneur who had previously developed and commercialized the Tampliner two-in-one tampon and mini panty liner combo. Together, they relaunched as Calla Lily Clinical Care, with a focus on the medical opportunity. 

She describes her role with characteristic humility: “I call myself the Chief Cocktail Officer. I’m not the technical person … I bring the real, lived experience.”  As she and Thang began their journey together, she started dreaming, literally, of a better way. “I started having dreams, nightmares actually, about injecting progesterone. I don’t want other women to go through that,” she said.

Reimagining a Broken System

Across IVF and the prevention of threatened miscarriage and preterm birth, vaginal progesterone delivery offers a clinically sound, less invasive alternative to injections. But current options come with serious drawbacks: leakage, anxiety over placement, uncertainty about receiving the full dosage, and emotional distress. “Vaginal drug delivery is a uniquely unaddressed area because women don’t want to talk about it and men don’t want to hear about it,” Zibners said.

She’s committed to changing that stigma head-on. “If nasal drugs leaked the way vaginal drugs did, that problem would have been solved years ago because men wouldn’t want stuff running down their face,” she quipped.

The company’s solution, Callavid, was designed to address every pain point in the standard of care. It provides leakage protection, placement and dosage confidence, comfort and convenience, mess-free insertion and removal, and reduced variability in drug absorption.

The initial focus is a 400mg progesterone Callavid for IVF luteal phase support and threatened miscarriage. What sets it apart is its user-centric design. “You want to get the right medication to the right spot in the right dose, without the systemic side effects,” said Zibners.

By eliminating leakage and building confidence in the treatment process, Callavid reduces a major source of stress and uncertainty during critical moments in care, offering not just clinical improvement but emotional relief.

A Platform for More Than Progesterone Delivery

Callavid isn’t a single product; it’s a platform. The technology behind Callavid is adaptable. Each drug has different physical properties and clinical requirements, and the platform can be tailored to meet them. Development has started for Callavid to be used in dozens of future indications beyond IVF and miscarriage prevention, including:

• Prevention of preterm birth and preeclampsia
• Menopause hormone replacement therapy (HRT)
• Vaginal microbiome therapies
• Pre-cancerous cervical lesions, HPV infections, and endometriosis
• Other women’s health conditions, including vaginal candidiasis and vulvovaginal atrophy

“I see a world where eventually every woman takes vaginal progesterone at some point in her life. We’d like to be the company to make that possible,” Zibners said. “Progesterone is just the tip of the iceberg; there are so many other therapeutics that could and should be given vaginally.”

Global Ambition and Momentum

The initial market opportunity for Callavid spans $22+ billion, including: 

• $2.7B for IVF and miscarriage-related progesterone delivery
• $5.5B for preterm birth and preeclampsia prevention
• $14.7B for microbiome-related therapies

The company’s progress to date includes:

• $1.3M NIHR funding to prepare for and conduct a clinical feasibility study
• Confirmed approval pathway with MHRA (UK), with a pivotal 55-patient study to achieve the IVF and miscarriage prevention indications, demonstrating bioequivalence with an existing progesterone product
• FDA 510(k) clearance for the underlying consumer technology
• Manufacturing readiness, including proprietary automation in place
• Patents granted across Europe, the U.S., Canada, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, China, India, and Brazil

A Relentless Vision

For Zibners, Calla Lily is more than a company. It’s a chance to prevent others from reliving her pain. “Women are willing to do almost anything to have a baby,” she said. “But they shouldn’t have to suffer to do it.”

And she’s not backing down.

“You need someone like me who’s willing to say the word vagina 50 times a day on LinkedIn to change the conversation,” she says.

Zibners isn’t just changing the conversation; she’s building the platform that will deliver the future of women’s health.