Hello from the FemHealth Newsletter!

Technology and research transforming women’s health & wellness.

Hi there,

Natasha here, and we are saying hello to the first edition of this new monthly newsletter I am calling FemHealth. The goal of this newsletter is to bring you into the world of technology for women, covering innovations and research to better women’s health and wellbeing. 

A little about me. I am an Artificial Intelligence (AI) research engineer working on creating technology to solve the protein folding problem. Before, a large part of my work was focused on building AI models to automate breast cancer diagnosis. The topic of women’s health has always been close to my heart. The space is growing fast, and as I am reading the news, I want to share the summary of the most exciting developments with you.

If you like this edition of the newsletter, support me by sharing it with your friends!

Now into the world of technology… 

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First of all, I want to share a little background of the femtech space. Femtech is a buzzword that was coined by Ida Tin, a founder of a period tracking app Clue. She introduced the term in one of her discussions with investors. There is some controversy behind using the ‘femtech’ term, but let’s not get attached to the words and use it from time to time. Anyways, back to the tech!

Technology for women covers software, devices, and services that help support, track, and improve women’s health and wellness. The main goal of the industry is not to rebrand or adapt the technology developed for males or the general public, but to come up with innovative solutions to the challenges that are only faced by women.

The main streams of work in this industry are in the following areas:

• Fertility and reproductive wellness: period and fertility tracking, birth control, forms of  conception (in vitro fertilization, intrauterine insemination, intracytoplasmic sperm injection), egg donation and preservation.

• Pregnancy and nursing care: technology that focuses on women’s health and wellbeing during pregnancy and after birth. 

• Chronic diseases: diagnosis and care for conditions, such as cancer (breast and ovarian certainly, but also all other forms of cancer), mental illness (including PMS and PMDD), heart health, and more. Women’s longevity can also be placed into this category.

• Sexual health: sexual education, sexual and pelvic health, menopause and hormonal disorders.

• Wellness: the overall emotional and physical state of a woman.

Why technology for women?

Digital health technology has shown a potential to have a large impact on both women’s life’s quality and span, from improved detection and management of human health conditions to fine-tuning everyday lives of individuals interested in optimising their health, lifestyle, and longevity. 

During the adventure of building this technology, it is important to recognize the difference in women’s care compared to men. Women and men both suffer from unique diseases. Distinctive to women are breast and cervical cancers, longer lifespans, and higher risks of showing signs of depression and anxiety. Unfortunately, the list doesn’t stop there.

Women face idiosyncratic challenges, and special attention needs to be paid to address those challenges.

Women’s digital health space remains vastly underfunded, even though it holds a strong potential for investments and startups. Based on the recent Rock Health report, the amount of funding raised by femtech startups doubled this year, going from $774 million in 2020 to $1.3 billion in August 2021. It sounds like a large number, but it accounts for only 7% of the funding received for all digital health startups, growing from just 3% from the year of 2011. The majority of the companies receiving funding were focusing on reproductive health. Unfortunately, this is the period that constitutes for less than a third of a woman’s lifespan! There is still a lot of work left to do outside of pregnancy, fertility, and motherhood. 

We do, however, expect to see a large number of new startups, exciting news, and funding to be placed towards solving the problems in this section. This is why I have created this newsletter to guide you in the developments in technology for women’s health. Let’s see what happens in the future. 

Reading:

Developing female-centric health and beauty care with FemTec Health. Kimon Angelides, a former founder of Livongo, DiabetesAmerica, mAbGen, EarlyBird Pharmaceuticals, Merlin LifeSciences and Vivante Health, raised $38 million in investor cash to start his new venture, which is now in the women's digital health space. FemTec Health aims to improve all areas of a woman’s wellbeing – from reproductive health to emotional and sexual wellness. Bringing together daily consumer and biometric data with genetic, microbiome information and psychosocial and diagnostic test results, the company finds personalised products and care actions for a woman. You can read more about this exciting startup here.

Excited for the new generation 3 Oura? Track your sleep, heart rate and temperature; energize, focus, and calm your body, and receive instant feedback on your body's current state. For the women readers, Oura ring has a capability to accurately predict when your period is coming by measuring the fluctuations in your body temperature. Read more here. 

Can Ro deliver to its expectations given the employee dissatisfaction? Ro is one of the leading companies in digital personalised healthcare. Its initial goal was to build a solution for men with erectile dysfunction, but over the years the company grew into an influential telehealth empire. Earlier this year, Ro acquired Modern Fertility to build another company’s pillar, this time in the women’s health space. There is a lot to do, but based on the employees' reviews Ro’s mission might be different from what the company promises to deliver. Read more about the discord here. 

Bringing Oura Ring mainstream. Oura recently hired Karina Kogan from Peloton as the first chief marketing officer. With her extensive marketing experience, her job will be to bring the Oura ring mainstream. Read more about it here. 

That’s it for now. Till the next time!

Yours,

Natasha