Femtech is going mainstream. What’s next for the women’s health industry?
Article by Alison Paul, Senior Product Manager for Chatbots at Flo Health Inc.
At the women’s health innovation summit (WHIS Europe) in Basel, Switzerland this week, there was a real sense of excitement and anticipation. Rewind back to 3 years ago, pre-pandemic, where female health events were smaller or simply an undersized sub-segment of a larger healthcare conference. There were fewer companies, little investment, and a struggle for attention — but now things have changed.
Yes, it feels like women’s health (or femtech) is now taking off.
So what’s changed?
A number of social and economic trends have come together to create the perfect storm for the growth in women’s health.
1.The inequality between men’s and women’s health is there for all to see
Women are waking up to the inequality that has existed within healthcare systems for decades. As the founders of WHIS Europe took to the stage, many repeated what are now common facts about the troubled history of women’s health:
- Clinical trials were not mandated to include women until 1993 in the US (FDA) (source)
- The first comprehensive anatomical study of the clitoris was led by O’Connell and published in 1998 (source)
But it’s not just the echo chamber within the healthcare industry that are waking up to this. There is without a doubt a social movement happening empowering women to take control of their health.
Women are talking openly about the menopause and peri-menopause. The issues that women face have been well publicised through a number of documentaries and coverage throughout covid. Attitudes to menstruation are changing with brands, like Bodyform doing away with the ‘blue liquid’ in their ads, which was supposed to represent menstrual blood. Young people aren’t going to stand for the stigma around periods any longer.
2. The Covid crisis made healthcare systems worse, forcing many to look for answers elsewhere
We also know that many healthcare systems face a crisis brought to a head by Covid. Within the UK this is cataclysmic for women’s health.
Assisted fertility was always restricted by the NHS and seen by many as a postcode lottery. In some boroughs in London you can access 1 round of IVF and in others 3 rounds (source). I have friends who were told the NHS wouldn’t fund their IVF because their results were too hopeless. The situation is even worse for same-sex couples and single women wanting to go down the assisted fertility route. Added to which in the UK your healthcare insurance will not cover fertility, menopause or any chronic long term condition.
So where does that leave people? The answer is navigating the complex web of the UK self pay private healthcare system with expensive clinics and private hospital networks. This is where a growing cluster of start-ups come in. Many founders at the conference come with personal stories and experiences — going through a tough fertility or diagnosis journey and wanting to change things.
This comes not only from UK start-ups, but those across France, Spain, US — the picture is equally dire.. What is the answer? It’s to create cheaper, remote and smarter alternatives that are easily accessible online.
3. Employers are waking up to their responsibilities
Its interesting to see start-ups focusing on menopause now starting to emerge. These are far smaller in number and less established than the fertility cluster but there is the sense that this will be the next area to explode. Why? Firstly because of incredibly limited access to healthcare and treatment across many healthcare systems, both public and private. This leaves women with no options and searching for answers.
But interestingly what we can see is the employer market finally starting to take notice. Large corporations have become suddenly very aware that the peri-menopause and menopause occurs when women are usually at the height of their career, leaving many to re-evaluate their careers and take a step down. It’s another massive contributor to the void of women at the top of many companies. It’s definitely not the only one, but companies are beginning to take note and try to find solutions to support women.
At the conference we heard from Peppy health, who had made great strides in this market with 2 of the UK’s big health insurers. Why? Because of the weird juxtaposition where corporations need women to look after their health as they go through the menopause, but they can’t claim it on their insurance policies.
4. The success stories are becoming real
Flo and other companies who were there in the early years of femtech are now no longer the poor relation of the digital tech market. Flo is #1 Health and Fitness App by MAU in the US (Source sensor tower, Dec 2021), and has 43m MAUs.
We and other companies have been paving the way, showing over the last 5 years that there is a market and sustainable business model within women’s health. According to Crunchbase data, 2021 was a special year for femtech as global venture funding in the segment crossed the $1.2 billion mark for the first time. Maven Clinic raised $110 million and reached unicorn status, Elvie raised $87 million, and we at Flo Health raised $50 million.
What happens next?
From the summit it was clear that there are some emerging areas sitting within femtech and there are areas getting more traction than others with investors.
Fertility becomes affordable and accessible
One area with a clear market and a growing demand is fertility, where start-ups are creating cheaper options for women to finally take their fertility into their own hands, without paying the extortionate costs of private hospitals.
Start-ups like Apricity and Bea fertility are creating alternatives, and this could change everything for the huge and increasing volume of women who can access little to no help through their healthcare system or insurance.
Contraception is democratised
It’s clear now that young people are questioning contraception which is routinely handed out to many teens with no questions asked about their health and cycles.
Start-ups like Tuune and The Lowdown are changing this, helping people make an informed choice about the best contraception and even creating a social movement around these topics.
Women take charge of their own health data
With the growth of the wellness and fitness market women are used to having a wealth of their own data at their fingertips and this is now having a knock-on impact within femtech.
Start-ups such as Forth are giving users an accurate graph of their hormonal curve. At Flo this area represents a huge opportunity. Within the chatbot that I manage at Flo, we have over 4m sessions a day and in Flo as a whole we have 1bn logged cycles. The possibilities to help women take control and understand their cycles, risks and potential conditions are huge.
What are the challenges for femtech to overcome?
From all the panels at the WHIS there are still battles to overcome for our industry.
Investment
Many founders told stories of the battles they had getting mostly male investment firms and VCs interested. There were discussions about pitching, the abundance of personal stories and the challenges with securing funding. It was interesting to see the presence of pharma companies at the conference as well now wanting to really invest in this area.
Regulation
There was a lot of discussion about regulation and how to navigate the FDA and the changes to EU regulation. It’s a hard and complex world of medical devices. Some start-ups are pushing for more regulation and others are highlighting the problems and restrictions of pace that medical device regulation can bring.
Education and health literacy
A number of start-ups are creating products where there’s an unmet need that isn’t visible as a problem to the average person. We are relying on the charity sector, government and even pharma to educate the public about issues such as PCOS, endometriosis and raise awareness of conditions. But with organisations like Flo now at such a scale, we now have an ethical responsibility to take on this challenge too, with an ability to reach and educate women on a global scale.
Scientific research available
The issue that some start-ups face in the space is that they are in desperate need of more scientific research. Hormonal health is huge, growing and even crossing over to beauty. But the evidence base is still on the lower side, as one scientist called out at the conference. Even in PCOS and endometriosis, diagnostics are still fairly basic — with no significant developments in many years. But with big pharma committing to programs of women’s health, it looks like this is set to change.
Despite these challenges, there was a real coming together of the industry at the WHIS Europe. A sense that though we face these challenges — they are not insurmountable. The start-ups and scale-ups in femtech that are working so hard to secure their next funding rounds are going to change history and change the entire landscape of women’s health. And our mission? To create a world where women and people with periods can get easily accessible healthcare.
If you’re interested in joining Flo and building a future for female health contact us at: https://flo.health/careers
