💌 $275m osteoporosis bet | FemTech & the NHS | New menopause drug data | Fertility reimbursement
+ lots more in the weekly briefing on the global women's health market
Welcome to issue #159 of FutureFemHealth, (w/c August 17 2026) - your weekly briefing on the global women’s health market.
A varied week this week, with a $275 million bet on an oral osteoporosis treatment, promising data for a new non-hormonal menopause drug, new routes to reimbursed fertility care, and questions over what’s really holding FemTech back from the NHS.
🌟 In this week’s briefing:
💊 $275m backs a potential oral alternative to injectable osteoporosis drugs
🔥 AbCellera’s menopause drug impresses in Phase II - with analysts modelling $2.3bn peak sales
💰 The Pentagon opens a new route to reimbursed fertility preservation
🏥 Is getting FemTech into the NHS solely an NHS problem?
Share your news: anna@futurefemhealth.com
💰 Capital flows
📌 ISRAEL: Entera Bio secures US$275 million to advance oral osteoporosis drug for postmenopausal women. Most bone-building osteoporosis drugs are given by injection, but Entera Bio is developing what it hopes will become the first once-daily oral alternative. Its lead candidate, EB613, is heading into Phase III trials in around 750 postmenopausal women, with this new financing expected to fund the programme through a potential FDA application. The oversubscribed private placement was led by existing investor BVF Partners, with participation from RA Capital, Venrock, Perceptive Advisors, Catalio and others. (Continue reading: Entera Bio)
📌 US: ChronicleBio reveals it has raised US$15 million to tackle POTS and other chronic diseases with AI. POTS is a condition that disproportionately affects women and co-founder Fidji Simo, a former OpenAI exec, has herself lived with it for seven years. ChronicleBio is betting that AI could help uncover different biological forms of POTS hidden behind the same diagnosis — and find drugs that work for each. It has already collected more than 3,500 tubes of patient blood and says it has identified five biologically distinct subgroups, with plans to start testing potential existing drugs in patients this year. (Continue reading: Fortune)
📌 US: Coyote Ventures backs Kiara Health to move fertility care upstream of IVF. Most fertility care still starts when someone is already trying to conceive or heading towards treatment. Kiara Health wants to intervene earlier, using AI to combine health history, lifestyle, biomarkers and lab results to help people understand and potentially improve their fertility before reaching expensive treatments such as IVF. Its platform then connects users with diagnostics, coaching, providers and products, with partnerships already including Mira, Levels and Natera. Investor Coyote Ventures sees an opportunity to build a much longer fertility journey spanning pre-IVF through to treatment and, eventually, pregnancy and menopause. No funding amounts disclosed for this pre-seed round. (Continue reading: Coyote Ventures)
ICYMI: I recently explored why the growing opportunity in fertility may be before IVF - exactly the part of the journey Kiara is targeting. (Read: What happens before IVF?)
🌟 Industry moves and strategic shifts
📌 CANADA: AbCellera reports promising Phase 2 results for non-hormonal menopause treatment. The hot flash treatment market is getting, well, hot, with a new challenger to Astellas and Bayer on the horizon. Even AbCellera’s execs seem surprised by how well its antibody treatment performed in Phase 2, with CEO Carl Hansen now calling ABCL635 a “potential best-in-class non-hormonal therapy”. AbCellera’s share price jumped 32% on the results, while analysts have modelled US$2.3 billion in peak sales if successfully developed. (Continue reading: Fierce Biotech)
📌 UK: Is getting FemTech into the NHS solely an NHS problem? We hear a lot about how difficult it is for women’s health innovators to get products adopted by the NHS. But a new UK Parliament briefing puts the spotlight on the other side of the equation, arguing that few FemTech products currently have enough evidence for national evaluation, funding or rollout. There’s an obvious chicken-and-egg problem though when generating that evidence is expensive, particularly for early-stage companies. (Continue reading: FutureFemHealth)
📌 US: Midi Health begins expansion beyond midlife into broader women’s healthcare. Midi has previously signalled plans to grow beyond menopause care, and that strategy is now taking shape. After treating more than 450,000 patients, it is expanding into initial areas including PMOS and metabolic health, with more services planned. There’s a fresh new brand too! (Continue reading: Midi Health)
📌 CANADA: GreenShield backs national menopause study as employers rethink hormonal health benefits. Canadian health insurer and benefits provider GreenShield has been building out its hormonal health offering for employers recently, including menopause care. Now it’s helping fund the evidence that could shape what employers cover next. This national Can-RISE study will examine how perimenopause and menopause affect women’s health, finances and working lives, including barriers to accessing care. It comes as menopause is estimated to cost the Canadian economy C$3.5 billion a year, while just 13% of employers are estimated to provide adequate hormonal health support. (Continue reading: Insurance Business Magazine)
📌 IRELAND: University College Cork spins out women’s microbiome company FemmeBiome. After more than two decades of research into the microbiome-gut-brain axis, UCC professor Siobhain O’Mahony is taking that work commercial with a new women’s health company. FemmeBiome is developing microbiome products around hormonal transitions, starting with MoreMe, a synbiotic supplement for perimenopause and menopause that will open for pre-sales in October. The company has received more than €700,000 in Enterprise Ireland grant funding and is now raising a seed round, expected to close by the end of the year. (Continue reading: UCC)
📌 US: OBstat takes temporary OB/GYN staffing model nationwide as maternity care gaps grow. Temporary staffing won’t solve the US maternity care shortage, but it is becoming one way hospitals are adapting to it. After providing more than 150,000 hours of temporary OB/GYN cover through Ob Hospitalist Group over the past two years, OBstat is now opening its service to hospitals nationwide. With more than a third of US counties already lacking a birthing facility or obstetric clinician, the expansion is another sign of how hospitals are adapting to a workforce problem that isn’t going away. (Obstat)
🔒 FutureFemHealth Pro
FutureFemHealth Pro offers a growing library of proprietary women’s health market intelligence, including quarterly funding analyses, M&A research, market maps and in-depth sector reports.
Recent reports include:
Where is the market for women aged 65+?
What women’s health should be watching on peptides
Q2 2026 Women’s Health Funding Analysis
H1 2026 Women’s Health M&A Analysis
The GLP-1 Support Economy
Urinary health
🩸 Research and women’s health news
📌 UK: Largest study to date maps how women’s testosterone levels change with age. Analysis of more than 5,000 women by Hertility found testosterone declines gradually throughout adult life, rather than dropping specifically at menopause, adding to previous research showing the same pattern. What’s new is the scale of the reference group and a year-by-year model of expected testosterone levels, which Hertility says could give clinicians more useful context when interpreting women’s hormone tests than broad age ranges. (Continue reading: FutureFemHealth)
📌 CANADA: New C$5 million research network will focus on how women recover after heart attacks and strokes. I always like seeing women’s heart and stroke research come across my desk because there still isn’t enough of it — and this one looks at a particularly overlooked part of the journey: recovery. Women are less likely than men to be referred to and take part in rehabilitation after major cardiovascular events, while recovery programmes often don’t account for factors such as menopause. The new five-year RENEW Network will look at how menopause, hormone changes and hormone therapy affect recovery, alongside mental health and barriers to accessing rehabilitation. (Continue reading: Heart & Stroke Foundation of Canada)
📄 Policy watch
📌 US: New maternity payment changes highlight a wider women’s health reimbursement gap. Remember the new maternity billing codes coming in 2027 that will separate prenatal, delivery and postpartum care rather than bundle them together? Medicare has now proposed how it will pay for them, including increasing the value placed on labour and delivery after evidence showed the original assumptions were wrong. But the wider analysis is frustrating: menopause still has no dedicated billing code, meaning complex menopause care is generally paid for like a standard doctor’s visit. It’s another reminder that how women’s healthcare is coded can affect what care gets offered - and whether companies developing new solutions have a clear route to getting paid and building a sustainable business. That matters for investment too. As VC Mark Gannott puts it: “Payment visibility, not disease burden alone, governs investability.” (Continue reading: Forbes)
📌 US: Pentagon to reimburse fertility preservation for some service members. Military personnel facing hazardous deployments or more than six months away from their partners will soon be able to have some of the cost of freezing their eggs or sperm reimbursed by the Department of Defense. The three-year pilot will cover up to $10,000 a year for egg preservation and $500 for sperm, including through civilian fertility clinics. After years of military families largely paying for preservation themselves, it’s another example of fertility preservation moving from an out-of-pocket service towards reimbursed care. (Continue reading: Military Times)
📆 Save the date
Grounded: A meditation for the femtech community. Virtual, TODAY August 19.
The work of improving women’s health is meaningful - but it can also be demanding. Join this hour of guided meditation to pour a little back into yourself. Led by Lisbeth Garassino and Dr Brittany Barreto. No meditation experience needed.
✅ Hiring now
📌 US: Vice President, Commercial Marketing, Midi Health
That’s all for this week! If you’ve missed any previous newsletter issues catch them all at futurefemhealth.com and do make sure to follow us on LinkedIn and you can connect with me directly on LinkedIn.
Anna
