Role of FemTech in scaling women's care

'Advances in biomonitoring technologies for women’s health' article, published in Nature Magazine, review addresses the long-standing bias in biomedical research and healthcare toward male populations, which has resulted in women (and transgender individuals) being underrepresented in studies, diagnostic norms, and device design. The review explores applications of wearables and biosensors across multiple domains of women’s health, including fertility, pregnancy and maternal health, hormonal monitoring, vaginal infections, gynecologic and breast cancers, and osteoporosis. 📌 For example, devices that track basal body temperature, sweat biomarkers, or hormonal shifts can help with ovulation tracking and fertility. 📌 In pregnancy, smart textiles, abdominal sensors, and wearable ECG/uterine contraction monitors are being developed to continuously monitor maternal and fetal biomarkers. 📌 On the diagnostic side, innovations in point-of-care assays and microfluidic devices are being adapted to detect vaginal pathogens (e.g. via pH, enzymatic markers, or nucleic acid amplification) and early signals of gynecologic cancers (liquid biopsy, micro-exosome capture, multifunctional immunosensors). The authors argue that this gap contributes to delays in diagnosis, suboptimal treatments, and systemic inequities in women’s health. They survey emerging technologies—especially wearable sensors, point-of-care diagnostics, and AI/ML tools—that can help close that gap by enabling continuous, non-invasive biomonitoring tailored to female physiology. However, the authors underscore significant barriers and challenges to adoption. Many of the devices are still in prototype or small-scale testing stages and lack validation in diverse, large populations, especially in low-resource settings. Usability, user compliance, comfort, data interpretation, cost, and integration with clinical workflows are major hurdles. In addition, socioeconomic and digital divides—such as access to internet, smartphones, and health literacy—can limit uptake among marginalized groups. The review also discusses how AI and machine learning could amplify the impact of biomonitoring by improving predictive accuracy and pattern recognition, though models must be trained on more balanced, representative datasets to avoid reinforcing bias. Find out more via link 🔗 https://lnkd.in/d-xh9R6m #femtech #womenshealth #innovation #biomonitoring #biomarkers

It’s an exciting and pivotal moment in #womenshealth. It finally feels like there is momentum on our side, but we can’t take it for granted. Historically, biomedical research has centered on men. Decades of research that excluded women has allowed mysteries to persist on diseases that impact women. As a result, women have often been dismissed, misdiagnosed, and faced poor outcomes, with a diminished quality of life, and bear a far disproportionate burden for health. Pregnancy health is an important example. For centuries, pregnancy has been shrouded in mystery and we’ve relied on outdated standards of care that have failed to address truly massive problems: Who is at the highest risk of complications? Why are these devastating complications impacting some pregnancies while sparing others? The key to improved outcomes is an understanding the root causes of diseases that impact women. This requires deep research and investments in this area. The first wave of women’s health startups focused on scaling digital service models to create access to healthcare. They paved the way by eliminating the taboo surrounding women’s health and spotlighting the unmet need in fertility care access, family planning, and menopause care, to support women throughout their lives.   Building on these foundations, a new generation of startups has invested deeply in biological research to advance the field and to better serve women. Companies like Mirvie and Gameto use biology to better understand diseases that impact women, to open up a personalized and proactive approach to care rather than simply managing symptoms. We also need to recognize the visionary champions of women’s health who have invested in and supported startups making real progress on tackling unmet needs in the field: Cathy Friedman, Deena Shakir, Holly Maloney, Sarah Pinto Peyronel, Leslie Schrock, Alice Zheng, Maneesha Ghiya, Linda Greub, Lexi Henkel, Chelsea Clinton, Olivia Sterns Walton, Melinda French, Tracy Warren, Jessica J. Federer, and the list goes on. We’ve come far in a short time with their support. The work doesn’t stop just because we have momentum. We need more tireless entrepreneurs like Dina Radenkovic (Turner) of Gameto, who create new categories and solve long-standing problems to improve women's health. Hopefully, in the not-so-distant future, we can catch up, and women’s health can be just health, in sync with other areas of medicine. Read more in my joint op-ed with Dina in Fast Company on how biology catalyzes breakthroughs in women’s health.

Big news for femtech in Europe 💜 Brussels just took the first real step toward a dedicated EU Women’s Health Strategy by 2029. Why does this matter? Because for the first time, women’s health is being positioned as a strategic EU priority, not just scattered pilots in a few Member States. That shift unlocks: ☑️ Coordinated EU research & innovation funding ☑️ Inclusion mandates in clinical trials ☑️ Reimbursement harmonization across countries ☑️ Shared health data infrastructure For founders & investors, this means: → Faster cross-border scaling → A new regulatory moat (think GDPR for women’s health) → Tailwinds for diagnostics, menopause, and trial-enablement At Daya Ventures, we’re already building toward this future: Neblina (EU-ready women’s health data), TrialMe (inclusive clinical trials), Glimmer (reducing perinatal anxiety & birth complications → lower claims costs + healthier workforces). This isn’t just policy. It’s a market unlock. And it could reshape how we fund, build, and scale women’s health innovation in Europe. What do you think - are we finally about to see women’s health treated as the economic priority it is? #Femtech #WomensHealth #Innovation #VentureCapital

The women's health market will hit $58 billion by 2029. Yet millions of women still feel invisible. Nine years ago, I was one of them. Lying in bed with severe Hashimoto's, unable to work, I searched desperately for solutions. Every app I found tracked periods or fertility. Or general fitness, sleep, mood and energy. Nothing connected the dots between my gut issues, my sleep problems, my anxiety, and my autoimmune flares. I needed integrated care. I got fragmented solutions. Today's femtech landscape shows how little has changed: 👉 Women's health market valued at $45.5 billion in 2025, projected to reach $58 billion by 2029 👉 Over half of femtech solutions target reproductive health and menopause only 👉 Endometriosis, PCOS, thyroid disorders, and autoimmune diseases affect millions but receive minimal innovation focus 👉 Poorly managed women's health costs the UK £11 billion annually in lost productivity alone 👉 Most women with multi-systemic conditions face significant care gaps with no integrated support Don't get me wrong, any progress in women's health is important and needed. The advances in reproductive health has been remarkable. Every woman deserves better fertility solutions, period care, and menopause support. But theres also more women still not being supported fully. ❕ The woman with Hashimoto's juggling five specialists who never talk to each other. ❕ The entrepreneur with PCOS whose anxiety spikes with her hormones, but no one connects them. ❕ The mother with endometriosis who knows her gut health affects her pain, but can't find anyone who treats both. Women are more than our reproductive and hormonal systems. We're complex beings with interconnected health needs. Our gut affects our mood. Our sleep impacts our hormones. Our stress influences everything. When I finally understood these connections, everything changed. I put myself in remission by treating my body as the integrated system it actually is. That's why I built Aeva Health. Not because I saw a market gap, but because I lived the problem. We do have cycle tracking, but it's connected to your complete health data. Your hormones don't exist in isolation from your digestion, your sleep, your stress levels. Our v2 app launches this November. It's for women with chronic health conditions and concerns Who want more than just to manage their health. Its for women who want long-lasting health solutions. For women who want to take control of their health today and for good! Every day, we hear from women who finally feel seen. Finally feel heard. Finally have their dots connected. That's not a business metric. That's lives changed. The women's health space is growing rapidly. And I'm very proud to be a part of that. But integrated care is vital for us to bridge the health gap. What connections in your health do you wish you understood better?

Women don't skip healthcare because we don't know better. We skip it because we're exhausted. Because someone depends on us. Because there's always something, or someone, more urgent. We talk a lot about women needing to "prioritize self-care." But we don't talk enough about why we don't. It's not a knowledge gap. It's not a motivation problem. It's that our entire society is built on women being caretakers. We take care of kids. Aging parents. Partners. Households. Teams at work. And we're not just doing this by choice; we're expected to do it. Depended upon to do it. So when it comes to scheduling that doctor's appointment or addressing our own symptoms? It falls to the bottom of the list. Because if we stop, things fall apart. We've built a culture that praises women for holding everything together, even when it breaks us. This is why I care so much about how digital health companies design their solutions. Not apps that tell us to "take time for ourselves" (we know). But products that understand the actual constraints of women's lives. We're starting to see companies like Tia offering evening appointments and Midi Health providing on-demand coaching, but we're still not at true 24/7 accessibility that matches how women actually live. What would next-level solutions look like? Telehealth that doesn't require taking time off work. Mental health support that's available at 10pm. Virtual care that meets women across every stage of their health journey, including perimenopause and menopause, which are finally starting to get the attention they deserve. We have the science to build these. The demand is clear. But we need more companies willing to design for women's reality, not an idealized version of it. Because telling women to prioritize their health without acknowledging the structural barriers? That's not a solution. That's just more pressure on us to fix a system that depends on us sacrificing our well-being to function. We don't need more reminders to take care of ourselves. We need solutions that actually fit our lives. #womenshealth #femtech #digitalhealth #healthequity #caregiverburnout #maternalhealth

⚙️From Symptom Tracking to Clinical Infrastructure: Menopause Care Enters Its Data Era   🚀 Big news for menopause care: NIH-backed startup Amissa Health just launched what it calls the first clinical intelligence platform built specifically for menopause. This is AI infrastructure inside real healthcare settings, not another consumer app.   For too long, menopause symptoms have lived in notes apps, memory, and rushed appointments. That keeps care reactive, fragmented, and short-term. Amissa changes that by turning symptoms into structured, longitudinal clinical data that helps providers understand what patients are experiencing over time and adjust care more effectively.   What they’re doing: 📋 Standardized symptom tracking built into clinical intake ⌚ Optional wearable data from Apple Watch, Oura, Garmin, and Whoop 🧠 AI that does not diagnose or treat, but organizes data to surface patterns and changes 🩺 “Visit-ready” summaries so clinicians can quickly see what’s happening over time 📈 Already live in 10 real-world practices   This is how menopause becomes measurable medicine, not just a wellness conversation. With more than 75 million women affected and nearly $25B in excess healthcare spending, this $24.8B data blind spot is finally getting real infrastructure.   ✨ My take: This is what real progress looks like. Not another symptom tracker, but systems that make women’s experiences visible and usable inside medicine. When data lives within care, not just with patients, menopause stops being invisible and starts being treated like the long-term health transition it truly is.   #MenopauseCare #ClinicalAI #FemTech #HealthcareInfrastructure #WomensHealthInnovation #AIinHealthcare #MidlifeHealth #DataDrivenCare   https://lnkd.in/gmEfWAJC

The Hidden Power of Employer Benefits in Women’s Health 🩷 Fertility. Menopause. Maternal health. Once “nice-to-haves.” Now, business critical. The companies winning the war for talent have one thing in common: they’re investing in women’s health. 👩💻 In the U.S., this is already standard. Employers see women’s health benefits as a competitive advantage, not a perk. Platforms like Carrot, Kindbody, and Progyny, Inc. are rewriting the playbook for reproductive and family-forming support. 🌍 In the UK and Europe, we’re catching up.. fast. Companies are moving beyond “wellness” talks to real, tech-enabled care. Leaders like Peppy, Fertifa, and Carrot are making fertility, menopause, and hormonal health support accessible to workforces at scale. And innovators such as Maven Clinic, Hertility, and Flo Health Inc. are expanding the conversation to whole-person wellbeing, from cycle health to menopause to mental health. Advisers like Mercer and Aon are helping employers embed these into inclusive, measurable benefit strategies. I’m seeing it first-hand, candidates are asking about these benefits in the very first interview. Because women’s health benefits don’t just support wellbeing, they signal belonging. 🩺 Employer health benefits are now culture. 💡They’re part of your brand. For employers, it’s strategy. For talent, it’s proof their health matters. Comment below: - What’s one women’s health benefit your company has introduced that truly made a difference? - Are we doing enough to make women’s health part of the employee experience, or still just scratching the surface? -What’s the next frontier in women’s health benefits, and who’s leading the way? #Femtech #WomensHealth #EmployerBenefits #Recruitment #DigitalHealth #MenopauseAtWork #FertilityCare

Your Wearable Tracks Your Steps. The Next One Will Track Your Hormones. The Oura Ring tracks your sleep. The next generation of wearables will track your hormones in real time. This changes everything about how employers think about women's health benefits. FemTech has moved fast. Five years ago, the category was period-tracking apps. Today, clinical-grade wearables are measuring estrogen fluctuations, HRV, glucose response, and cycle phase — in real time, on your wrist. 72% of clinicians now report that patients are bringing wearable health data directly into appointments. That's not a consumer trend. That's a clinical infrastructure shift. What this means for employers: The question is no longer whether women have access to health data. It's whether the benefits platforms companies offer are built to receive and act on it. Two-thirds of employers plan to increase investment in women's health benefits in the next three years. The ones moving first aren't waiting for the technology to mature. The technology already has. Is your benefits team tracking this shift — or will you be building to catch up? #FemTech | #WomensHealth | #HRStrategy | #CorporateWellness | #DigitalHealth | #WearableTech

Women were excluded from clinical trials until 1993. That's 30 years of drugs, diagnostics, and treatment protocols built on male bodies and handed to women anyway. My guest this week is Mads Lillelund, CEO of Qvin the company that built the world's first FDA-cleared diagnostic menstrual pad. It detects diabetes, cervical cancer, endometriosis, STIs, ovarian cancer, and fertility markers all from menstrual blood that women have been throwing away for decades. Non-invasive. No needle. No clinic visit. In Stanford University and Roche validation studies, Qvin found 10% more HPV cases than the pap smear. The gold standard. Outperformed. FDA cleared. And now in active clinical trials across 24 Planned Parenthood sites in the US. We talked about: → What getting FDA clearance actually looks like when the FDA doesn't know what to do with your product. → Why endometriosis takes 7–10 years to diagnose and what Qvin found in the signal. → How you get a diagnostic pad to a woman in a village outside Nairobi with no mail system, no clinic, and a male aid worker. → What it means to be a male CEO building in women's health → The 10-year vision: when menstruation diagnostics aren't FemTech they're just medicine. This is one of the most important conversations in women's health I've had on this show. 1.8 billion people menstruate. Most of them have never had a diagnostic built for their biology. That's the gap, Qvin is closing it. Spotify 👉 https://lnkd.in/gyWqYeM8 Youtube 👉 https://lnkd.in/gXej2c-q Apple Podcasts 👉 https://lnkd.in/gVXPnEpp Brought to you by Ctrl.Alt.Thrive, the media arm of TechThrive Ventures in partnership with FemTech India. #GenderDataGap #WomensHealth #GenderDataGap #FDACleared #CtrlAltThrive #Qvin #FemtechIndia

We don’t need more pretty femtech. We need tools that actually work, in the exam room. A patient came to me with five tracking apps. Five different opinions on her hormones. Zero clarity. Total overwhelm. This isn’t rare. It’s the norm. I’ve seen too many tools built for the App Store, not for actual care. They’re shiny. They demo well. But they don’t reduce friction, enhance trust, or help us treat real patients in real time. And when it comes to menopause? If your app only tracks hot flashes, you’ve already missed the point, and the patient. At HerMD, we design differently. We integrate clinical realities with digital innovation. We build tools with physicians, for patients. We create systems that give women agency, language, and support. This isn’t about replacing providers. It’s about empowering women and helping clinicians listen better and treat faster. So here’s my ask for anyone building in this space: ✅ Involve MDs from the start ✅ Pilot in real care settings ✅ Solve real problems—not just pitch deck problems Because if it doesn’t work in a 15-minute appointment, it doesn’t work. Full piece here → https://lnkd.in/g6D4GGgx #FemTech #WomensHealth