Issue 11: Fertility support in the workplace gets a boost with £5m for Fertifa
Issue 11: Fertility support in the workplace gets a boost with £5m for Fertifa
Plus: HRT headlines about dementia, Flo Health anonymous goes open source. A new campaign about postpartum incontinence.
Hi! How are you?
Welcome to issue 11 of FutureFemHealth, bringing you your weekly dose of news and inspiration about innovation in women’s health and FemTech.
I’m Anna and whether you’re a founder, an investor, someone who works in women’s health / FemTech or are simply a fan, I’m glad you’re here to join me.
➡️ ➡️ Coming up in today’s newsletter we’ve got:
£5m of new funding for workplace fertility benefit company Fertifa.
The frenzy around the latest HRT ‘research’ about links with dementia.
Period tracker Flo Health’s move to open source the tech behind its ‘anonymous mode’.
A new campaign that addresses one of the most taboo women’s health issues there is - anal incontinence after childbirth.
And lots more too…
But let’s kick off with that Fertifa story…
As mum of two IVF babies I couldn’t be more pleased to see the growth in the category of workplace support for fertility.
I’ve personally been through the process of making excuses in the office to go to appointments, explaining away random days booked off for my egg collection and the anxiety of failed cycles while trying to be productive at work.
In the last week, one of these fertility benefit companies, Fertifa, has announced a £5m funding round to scale up its work with businesses.
Fertifa plans to step up its educational resources that are available to employees through an app, clinical services from an in-house team led by medical director Dr. Gidon Lieberman, admin support for reimbursements, prescription writing and fulfilment.
Its goal is to become the market leader in the UK within a year, and then the EMEA category leader by the end of 2024.
A growing trend of personalised employee experience
In the last ten years we’ve seen a pendulum shift from employee engagement (aka, how do we get our people to work harder) towards employee experience (how do we create the best environment for our people to do their best work).
And then, post-Covid, we’ve entered a new era of personalised employee experience.
It’s a recognition that we all experience work differently, and all want, value and need support for these varied experiences.
Because while the Cycle to Work scheme and Friday after-work drinks are great for twenty-something Jim who houseshares in a Clapham rental so he’s near the office, your average menopausal mother of four who commutes in from Harpenden likely values something a bit different from her employer.
There’s now a growing demand for more varied and specific workplace health and wellness benefits that can help retain and engage all employees, create a differentiated employer brand and demonstrate values of diversity, equity & belonging.
Enter FemTech
Lots of FemTech start-ups are now fulfilling areas of need such as:
Peppy Health - arguably the UK’s market leader when it comes to workplace wellness, Peppy is a digital health app that supports menopause, fertility, men's health and women’s health.
Stella for Work - providing access to an online menopause clinic and an app with coaching, education and support. Secured £9.2m in funding last year.
The Postpartum Plan - an holistic online membership of mindset, movement, nutrition and more for new parents to help them adjust to life with child. A recent graduate of the FemTech Lab Accelerator too.
And as mentioned, Fertifa and its fertility support.
The need for these solutions is already well-evidenced. For example, one in 7 individuals are now estimated to experience fertility challenges and 10% of women leave the workforce due to perimenopause and menopause).
Yet it’s still incredibly early days (even for one of the leaders Peppy, a client base of fully onboarded companies sits at c. 250 according to its website).
It's going to take some time, especially here in the UK where NHS healthcare is free, for companies to appreciate that they do have a role to play in supporting employees when it comes to health and wellness.
And as Fertifa CEO Eileen Burbidge explained in their funding announcement:
“one of Fertifa’s main “competitors” is inaction on the part of employers. Fertifa combats that by demonstrating the business case for providing reproductive health and wellbeing support. It is also often requested by employees through their networks or executive sponsors. “Another influence is when corporates see their competitors acting and investing in the space—and they realize they compete for talent with those companies, so need to meet the bar,” she added.”
So, for the FemTech companies operating and growing in this space all of this is a huge opportunity to make a real impact.
And, as employees catch-on to these new offerings and vote with their feet when it comes to choosing a new employer we’ll see more and more workplaces wanting to get involved.
I do worry though that many of the employees who might need these sorts of solutions the most will work for companies who don’t have the interest, resources or budget to introduce these sorts of benefits. (Look at the divide that’s happening in the US in large/small organisations for example). I’d love to hear about start-ups with a plan to tackle this particular point.
Finally too, as we look much further into the future of this category we’ll also need to see if this individual-based need support (i.e separate solutions procured for fertility, menopause etc) is appealing to workplaces or if they will want an all-in-one type support, a point echoed by Devon Sanford from SJF Ventures who says:
"It remains to be seen whether employers will be more interested in specialty services with high-quality care or bundled packages that reduce point-solution fatigue," she wrote.
What do you think about workplace benefits for fertility and menopause and what do you think of the FemTech start-ups fulfilling that demand? Let me know in the comments!
Now, onto the rest of this week’s newsletter:
🌟 FemTech news
Period tracker Flo Health makes its ‘anonymous mode’ open source for anyone to use - but will everyone use it?
The world’s most popular period tracker, Flo Health, has announced it’s to open source the tech behind its industry-leading ‘anonymous mode.’
I’ve written before about why data privacy is one of the biggest challenges facing FemTech right now - because of how it impacts trust and reputation.
And post-Roe, women have wanted to protect their personal information more than ever.
Flo’s open source move is on the one hand a positive signal of collaboration over competition in the period tracker category, and on the other hand a smart way to call-out apps that don’t take up Flo’s offer of the anonymous mode tech.
As Flo Health’s Sue Khan said:
“If you’re using a period tracker, check whether you have a way of using the app anonymous. If you don’t, either insist they adopt anonymous mode or choose another provider.”
That said, not everyone sees it that way.
A few days after Flo's announcement, European-based period tracker Clue made it very clear they won't be using anonmyous mode.
Clue leaned heavily into the trust it has established with its users by launching a new campaign focusing on the EU data laws it is bound by.
As Clue explains: "The billboards act as bold reminders that even if you use Clue in America, your period tracking privacy is protected by EU data protection laws, and Clue's absolute commitment to ensuring your health data serves you and is never used against you."
Back in the US, another period tracker that doesn't plan to embrace Flo's anonymous mode is Embody.
Embody - which is due to launch later this year - will be private-by-default, meaning you don't have to opt-in to your safety and your data stays only on your device.
“Why does an app need an anonymous mode? Our most sensitive health data should already be anonymous,” founder Anna Hall told me, via email.
Embody “can't share your data, because we won't have it to begin with. It never leaves your device without your explicit permission.”
Anna’s view on anonymous mode is that:
”While you can use the app without entering your name or email address, anonymous mode doesn't account for simple IP address tracking or identifying info stored on your SIM card."
"Your data in anonymous mode is still vulnerable to mass surveillance.”
"It's really important that companies build security into their business model from day one."
My view? Whether its anonymous mode, tightly governed by data laws or privacy-by-default, the positive to take from this is that we’re seeing FemTech apps taking privacy seriously - and prioritising good practices as a competitive differentiation. Ultimately it gives consumers more choice and will help to protect trust and reputation in FemTech as a whole.
What if the future of the speculum is no speculum at all?
That’s the bold and exciting claim from Stiliyana Minkovska, founder of the FemTech company Matrix, as told to Stylist (£ paywall)
Matrix is building an alternative to the speculum - it’s going to be a small, wireless camera device that can see 30% better than the human eye.
With Matrix, you’ll be able to insert the device yourself and then doctors can assess you on a screen remotely through AI-supported software.
It can check for any abnormal cells, growths or discolouration just as your cervical exam normally would.
Then you’ll also be able to take a swab that can be sent off for analysis and you can get your results to your phone a few days later.
But there’s more! The device will also be able to sense for pelvic prolapse (something up to 50% of women experience in their life) to help with early detection and treatment.
Plus the camera device could potentially be used to assess cervix dilation for women in labour - what a game changer!
Matrix hopes to pilot in a UK private clinic in 2025 before reaching the NHS in 5 years.
Best of the rest
💰Funding: ‘Roe reversal continues to fuel women’s health, despite tight market’. The total funding for women's health tech has dropped just 10% from 2021's peak, even as the digital health sector overall plunged nearly 50% during the same time period. (Axios)
📈 Menopause market an opportunity for investors. A decent new analysis of the potential within the menopause care sector from SJF Venture. (SJF Ventures)
🔥 Menopause care market remains largely untapped. A case for why founders and investors should dive in. (Fierce Healthcare)
👩🏽💻 FemTech company Oova launches new fertility membership model. Support includes at-home hormone testing, access to experienced healthcare providers, and a community & events, all for $99/month (Hit Consultant)
🏠 ‘Think twice before testing your hormones at home’. “At-home test kits promise clarity about users’ health and fertility. Experts say they could just lead to more confusion.” (The Atlantic).
🩸 Research and women’s health news
That HRT and dementia study
I’d argue that bad research is worse than no research when it comes to women’s health.
That was certainly the case last week when a new dementia study published in the British Medical Journal reportedly found an association between taking HRT and a higher risk of dementia.
The tabloid headlines screamed out that HRT causes dementia and women on HRT understandably were worried.
But here’s the thing. As so many doctors and campaigners hurriedly took to social media to point out - these headlines were wrong.
This was an observational study only that doesn’t prove a real causation and it didn’t differentiate properly between the types of HRT and the links with dementia.
In other words, the study doesn’t really prove anything - except that we desperately need more reliable research to avoid confusing and scaremongering women.
📌 Govt & policy news
Government rejects changes to maternity budget
Having had a baby in 2020 and again in 2022 I visibly noticed the extra stress and strain my local maternity services were under during that most recent pregnancy and labour compared to my first.
So it was disappointing to read last week that the Government will not be increasing the budget for maternity services, nor will it set a target or strategy to end racial disparities in maternal deaths.
As the Women and Equalities Committee previously reported, maternal deaths are four times higher in black women compared to their white counterparts and disparities are also apparent for women of Asian and mixed ethnicity.
✅ Campaign of the week
Women’s health taboos don’t come much greater than anal incontinence after childbirth. Yet over one in five women experience this and we’re not talking to our doctors about it unless they specifically ask.
It’s a taboo that needs to be discussed and that’s why I loved last week’s campaign from The University of Warwick Medical School and The Masic Foundation (the charity that supports women injured through childbirth).
The campaign brought together a new research study and real-life case study from Anna Clements, a brave woman who told her story for the campaign which was covered in HuffPost and featured on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour.
That’s all for now. Until next time,
Anna