Issue 56: 2035 vision | £80m for Amber Therapeutics | Bayer & Samsung menopause sleep study | Kindbody IPO?

+ lots more in your weekly round-up of women's health innovation and FemTech news

Jun 14, 2024

Hello! You’re reading issue #56 of FutureFemHealth, here to bring you your weekly news about innovation in women’s health innovation and FemTech (w/c 10 June 2024).

This is a slightly later-than-planned newsletter as I digested and reflected on this week’s Decoding the Future of Women conference in London (you can read my key takeaways here!). One comment from Goddess Gaia’s Priya Oberoi stuck with me: “Community is the superpower of women’s health.” That speaks to a key part of my mission here at FutureFemHealth - to help surface and bring together what’s happening in this space to help facilitate those connections and collaborations. I’ve returned from Decoding fired up and ready to help more than ever!

🌟 Coming up today we’ve got:

👀 Is this women’s health in 2035?
💰 £80m funding for Amber Therapeutics’ urinary incontinence therapy
🛏️ Bayer taps Samsung wearables for menopause sleep study
✅ Time for an IPO? Kindbody’s founder returns as CEO

Got news to share from the world of FemTech and women’s health innovation? Let me know at anna@futurefemhealth.com

👀 2035 - an opportunity or a threat?

person sitting on top of gray rock overlooking mountain during daytime — Photo by Denys Nevozhai on Unsplash

Coinciding with London Tech Week was the release of a new report from Ultra Violet Agency, a trend forecasting and marketing agency exclusively focused on the future of women’s health.

‘FemTech Futures 2035: The Trends Shaping the Next Decade in Women’s Health’ outlines the technological and medical advancements that will become readily available, and even normal, for women (with a focus on the US).

Hyper-personalised healthcare, artificial wombs and a sharp rise in egg freezing are just some of the advancements we can expect to see in the next ten years in female health.

And while we often focus on the opportunities that innovation in women’s health can bring, Ultra Violet’s founder Anna Butterworth goes further labelling this the “radical opportunity era”. She says we’re at a crossroads where the promise of technology offers both major benefits or a dystopian future.

Because how do we protect ourselves “when the technology that’s used to detect cancer cells in a mammogram is the same that’s used in a military drone. It will become increasingly difficult to separate the ‘good’ innovations from the problematic or dangerous ones.”

The key point is this - we need to be intentional in shaping the future. A future that we want to see. Yet it’s not just on us, and the time is now to get it right.

As Anna explains:

"The current system won’t provide the transformative opportunities we need to close the gender gaps that exist in health. To catalyse this change we need to hold our leaders, businesses, and corporations accountable, compelling them to design products, services, and infrastructure that prioritise environmental sustainability, community welfare, work-life balance, and overall wellbeing.”

Continue reading: FutureFemHealth

💰 Funding, deals and investment news

📌 UK: £80m for Amber Therapeutics’ urinary incontinence therapy. This start-up just landed one of Europe’s largest ever Series A funding rounds for a med-tech company - and it’s tackling women’s health! Urinary incontinence is a debilitating medical condition affecting millions of women globally. But existing treatments focus on either urge incontinence or stress incontinence. Amber Therapeutics’ neuromodulation therapy will help sufferers with both. This funding - led by New Enterprise Associates - will be used to further US FDA approval. (Continue reading: FutureFemHealth)

Image: *Daya founding team: Jenny Lundkvost, Jennifer Grönqvist & Malin Frithiofsson.*

📌 SWEDEN: Daya Ventures closes pre-seed round. Daya Ventures is a global venture studio that helps develop user-centric women’s health and technology solutions in its innovation lab. Recent projects include an automated breastfeeding monitor and a tool for perineal massage. The round was led by Nextblue. (Continue reading: FutureFemHealth)

🌟 More news from this week

📌 US: Time for IPO? Kindbody’s founder returns as CEO. There have been rumours since 2022 that fertility start-up Kindbody was aiming to go public. Now the return of founder Gina Bartasi to the top job, coupled with revenue ambitions of $250m in 2024 and warmer market conditions all mean that this could be finally on the cards. One to watch for sure! (Continue reading: FutureFemHealth)

📌 GERMANY: Bayer taps Samsung wearables for menopause sleep study. Sleep disturbances are one of the most common and disruptive symptoms of menopause. But we don’t know enough about the causes - which means current sleep aids are often ineffective. Bayer and Samsung will carry out an observational study tapping into Samsung’s enormous pool of biomarker data collected through its wearable devices. (Continue reading: Pharmaphorum)

📌 UK: Unfabled launches consumer insights and research platform - and new range of own-brand supplements. Informed by over 7 million data points from its user base of over 400,000 women, Unfabled now allows third-party companies to partner and access its consumer insights. Using its own insight, Unfabled has also released six new products under a new own-label brand. (Continue reading: FutureFemHealth)

📌 US: Evernow launches free vaginal estrogen with multi-month memberships. An incredible 84% of women suffer from genitourinary symptoms of menopause (GSM) with wide-ranging symptoms such as vaginal dryness, painful sex, bladder issues and frequent UTIs. The cost to the US healthcare system is an estimated $1billion+ annually. Yet women suffer in silence as awareness is still so low that there is a simple, preventative and restorative treatment available in the form of vaginal estrogen (which is a low-dose formula safe for almost everyone). What a brilliant offering from Evernow that I hope kickstarts greater understanding of the benefits of vaginal estrogen. (Continue reading: FutureFemHealth)

📌 US: Reproductive telehealth company Wisp teams up with Proov for at-home fertility testing. There’s growing consumer demand (and need) for pre- or non-IVF fertility support. 70% of Wisp customers said they wanted more education on and access to products for fertility. Proov will now provide ovarian reserve and hormone testing, fertility kits and pregnancy tests. It’s also partnered with PherDal to offer its FDA-approved at-home insemination kit. (Continue reading: Fierce Healthcare)

📌 US: Christina Aguilera’s Playground takes on censorship. As the digital suppression of women’s health and sexual wellness content continues, Playground is donating revenue to the non-profit Center for Intimacy Justice to further its important work. (Continue reading: FutureFemHealth)

🩸 Research and women’s health news

📌 The state of women’s health in 2024 - new report. Under-funded, under-researched, misunderstood. A new report by Springboard Enterprises and Accenture explores the current landscape of women’s health. While there may be no surprises here if you are familiar with the sector, this is a welcome and really comprehensive summary of the issues (backed by a big name consultancy firm) with a clear call to action: invest in women-centric research, challenge the status quo for inclusivity, and match clinical research to disease prevalence. (Continue reading: Springboard Enterprises)

📌 Encouraging results for novel male birth control. After 15 weeks of applying a teaspoon amount of the gel on their shoulder blades once a day, 86% of participants had sperm counts low enough to prevent pregnancy. This research is still early stage though and the option won’t be available anytime soon. The bigger question of course is whether men be willing (or will they even remember) to use the gel every day? (Continue reading: The Guardian)

📌 UK: New national fertility charity launches. The Fertility Alliance will work to provide support and evidence-based information to anyone affected by fertility issues. Co-founder and CEO Gwenda Burns was previously Chief Executive at Fertility Network UK. (Continue reading: The Fertility Alliance)

📌 US: Egg freezing cycles surge 30% year-on-year. Greater demand for egg freezing is mirroring the changes in societal norms and priorities, says Cofertility’s ‘State of Egg Freezing 2024’ report. The insights are based on surveys of 75,000 women and data from SART. Sidenote for for UK readers - a report last year found a similar ‘dramatic rise’ in egg freezing here too. Both of course also indicate we’re likely to see future increases in IVF once those eggs need to be used. (Continue reading: Business Wire)

📄 Govt & policy news

📌 US: First-ever women’s Health PAC launches. Created by a group of women’s health leaders, this bipartisan political action committee aims to make women’s health a sustained national political priority. Candace McDonald, Jodi Neuhauser and Liz Powell co-founded the group. As Jodi wrote “Why a PAC? Because it is the fastest way to gain financial and political influence for women’s health [..] in order to ultimately improve women’s holistic health and therefore their lives.” (Continue reading: Forbes)

📌 IRELAND: Free contraception scheme extended to women up to age 35. Previously available for women or people assigned female at birth aged 17-32 years old, the scheme now covers to age 35. That’s thanks to another €4 million of funding through Ireland’s Women’s Health Fund. (Continue reading: Irish Times)