💌 Issue 58: Charity and VC firm unite for women's health | Menopause reshapes our brains | $46m for maternal health crisis

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

Jun 26, 2024

Hello again, it’s issue #58 of FutureFemHealth, here to bring you your weekly news about women’s health innovation and FemTech (w/c 24 June 2024).

There was almost too much to squeeze into this week’s newsletter - two start-up acquisitions, nearly $60m of funding, more smart collaborations, and a landmark piece of research into menopause and the brain. The women’s health space shows no signs of slowing down!

🌟 Coming up today we’ve got:

🏆 The charity and the VC firm uniting to scale women’s health start-ups in the UK and US
📌 $46 million for Pomelo Care to address the maternal health crisis in the US
💊 So…you want to work in women’s health?
🔥 New research shows menopause reshapes our brain

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

🙌🏼 The charity and the VC firm uniting to scale women’s health start-ups in the UK and US

For 60 years, the UK charity Wellbeing of Women has been at the forefront of championing women’s health.

It’s contributed £68m towards vital research; once counted Diana Princess of Wales as a patron, and has worked with a raft of medical professionals and celebrities to significantly raise the profile of reproductive and gynaecological health.

This week, Wellbeing of Women has announced a new initiative, ‘AstraWell’ - a strategic partnership with Maroon Venture Fund to advance women’s health in both the UK and the US.

As Janet Lindsey, Chief Exec of Wellbeing of Women explains:

“This is the first time we are offering our unrivalled expertise in women’s health to companies working to innovate in this space, and we hope that doing so will help drive forward initiatives to help all women.”

The first initiative from AstraWell will be AstraWell Venture Studio - which will help commercial scaling of early-stage ventures addressing chronic health and climate conditions disproportionately impacting women’s health. (More info on applying for the first cohort is here).

It’s an exciting and unique partnership with bold ambitions (the press release talks about wanting to “accelerate deployment of catalytic capital to fund women’s health innovation.”)

And it’s part of a wave of FemTech-focused venture studios emerging this year - last week we covered Sweden’s Daya venture studio and in today’s newsletter you’ll see news of the launch of US-based Fierce Foundry too.

All this reminds me of a saying that many of you will know - that ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ and I think the same holds true for advancing women’s health.

As Maroon Venture Fund’s Managing Partner Lisa Lambie explains:

“The most effective health advances do not occur in silos, but are fostered from collaboration across geographies and by “best-in-class” partnerships reflecting deep expertise.”

(Continue reading: FutureFemHealth)

💰 Funding, deals and investment news

Image: Pomelo Care founder Marta Bralic Kerns

📌 UNITED STATES: Pomelo Care raises $46 million in Series B funding to enhance its virtual maternal and newborn healthcare services. Against stark data on the maternal health crisis in the United States, Pomelo Care brings optimism. It’s a virtual medical practice that identifies risk factors in individuals and then provides targeted, evidence-based care. It’s already presented peer-reviewed evidence that it works AND that it’s capable of doing that at scale too with 3 million lives now covered (up from 2 million at the start of the year). The round was led by existing investors First Round Capital and Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) Bio + Health and brings total funding to $79 million since being founded by Marta Bralic Kerns in 2021. (Continue reading: FutureFemHealth)

📌 UNITED STATES: OCON Therapeutics raises $10m to pioneer uterine health treatments. OCON has a range of innovative and proprietary 3D drug delivery systems that tackle the most prevalent pathologies in women’s health. Initially focused on uterine bleeding, this funding round will allow for further clinical studies, FDA submission and a future Series A round to expand to endometriosis treatment and uterine fibroids. Investment was led by RH Capital. (Continue reading: FutureFemHealth)

📌 US/ GERMANY: Progyny acquires Berlin-based fertility benefits platform Apryl. Progyny is a leading fertility, family building and women’s health benefits solution in the US and already supports multinational employers and employee populations in over 100 countries. This acquisition of Apryl will bolster its global offering, particularly in Europe. Deal terms undisclosed. (Continue reading: FutureFemHealth)

📌 ICELAND/ GERMANY: Digital care platform Sidekick acquires women’s health company PINK! Sidekick wants to broaden the range of digital therapeutics it can offer to patients in the US and EU. Its products are currently prescribed by over 13,000 physicians. Germany’s PINK! is a perfect addition - it specialises in cancer support and women’s health and includes PINK! Coach which is the only permanently listed prescription digital therapeutic for breast cancer approved nationwide under German regulation. Deal terms were undisclosed. (Continue reading: Tech.eu)

🌟 More news from this week

person using smartphone — Photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 on Unsplash

📌 SWITZERLAND: Mika Health’s digital therapeutic app joins AstraZeneca and Daiichi Sankyo’s breast cancer support program. A second story this week about cancer digital therapeutics (see Sidekick/PINK! above). And there’s evidence they work: in clinical trials for Mika’s app depressive mood decreased by 42% and chronic fatigue by 23%. Now, Mika Health’s coaching courses, AI-enabled personalised recommendations and daily symptom monitoring will become part of a collaboration called the ‘UNITE program’ that also incorporates pharmaceutical therapy to further improve the experience for women receiving breast cancer treatments. (Continue reading: FutureFemHealth)

📌 US: Fierce Foundry launches new FemTech studio. With a mission to solve the inequality in VC funding for female founders and the gap in women’s healthcare, this new Venture Studio will co-found FemTech companies from idea to exit. It follows hot on the heels of our announcement last week about another FemTech venture studio - Sweden’s Daya Ventures and the news we share today about Wellbeing of Women and Maroon Venture Fund. (Continue reading: FutureFemHealth)

📌 South Africa: First intellectual property patent for start-up Zero Candida tackling fungal infections in women. An estimated 75% of women will suffer during their lifetime from Candida disease - a fungal infection that attacks large parts of the reproductive system and can impact quality of life. Common treatments are drugs which only alleviate symptoms. Zero Candida’s tampon-like light-based device eradicates fungus without side effects. It’s just been granted an IP patent in South Africa and is now aiming for FDA approval too so that it can begin sales. (Continue reading: Women’s tabloid)

📌 MigraineSmart uses wearables data to help migraine sufferers. Migraine disproportionately impacts women. Health research and rewards company Evidation has launched a new service that uses wearable data to help migraine sufferers to track their symptoms. A monthly report then helps users spot triggers from the relationship between their migraines and daily activities. (Continue reading: Wareable)

📌 UK: So…you want to work in women’s health? “Your passion for women’s health will not make you stand out - your skills will.” My recommended read of the week is for anyone exploring a career in women’s health. Brilliantly honest, practical and important advice from The Lowdown’s Annie Coleridge. (Continue reading: Annie Coleridge on Substack)

🩸 Research and women’s health news

📌 What exactly happens inside a woman’s brain after menopause? Dr Lisa Mosconi has spent her career working tirelessly to help us understand the way that menopause impacts our brains. Now in her new groundbreaking study, she shows that oestrogen literally does change the brain. As a result, Lisa is helping redefine menopause as not solely a reproductive organ change but a much more holistic phase of change. Maria Shriver’s Sunday Papers includes an interview with Lisa and is a fascinating read. (Continue reading: Maria Shriver)

📌 Flo Health menopause study ‘largest of its kind’. Flo’s new study is one of the very few menstrual cycle studies to include women over 45 years old and it analyses data from 19 million(!) women from its own user base. These insights build a comprehensive picture of how menopause significantly lengthens and disrupts menstrual cycles. (Continue reading: FutureFemHealth)

📌 New Zealand: Virtual reality headsets help pain management when giving birth. The University of Wellington found 94% of a small study of 19 women who used VR as pain relief in labour would do it again. The women ‘relaxed’ to tropical beach scenes, underwater dolphin scenes and animals on safari, with one patient stating that in early labour she was able to ‘totally forget about the contractions.’ (Continue reading: Future Care Capital)

📌 Older women are different to older men. Their health is woefully understudied. When the Alzheimer’s drug Leqembi was approved by the FDA last year, the manufacturers reported a 27% slower rate of cognitive decline. Yet it was then revealed that sex differences were substantial - just a 12% slowdown for women, compared to 43% slowdown for men. So how effective are drugs for women? And when will research priorities take these sex differences more into account? This excellent piece explores this. (Continue reading: KFF Health News)

✅ Jobs

📌 UK: Medical Copywriter, The Lowdown

📌 US: Head of Engineering, Diem

📌 US: Senior Product Manager, Enterprise Products, Oura

📌 Portugal: Founding full stack engineer (senior), Mohana *

*PS - the founder of Mohana Dora Jambor has actually received 220+ applications for this role - yet all from men! Let’s find her a female engineer, ok?!)

That’s all for this week! What a great week for women’s health.

See you next time,

Anna