Issue 44: Flo Health faces class action | The Lowdown plugs data gap | Oura ring adds pregnancy

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

Mar 13, 2024

Welcome to issue #44 of FutureFemHealth - the newsletter bringing you the latest updates on women’s health innovation and FemTech (w/c 11 March 2024).

🌟 Coming up today we’ve got:

🩸 Flo Health to face class-action over data privacy
🔥 The Lowdown’s vision for women’s health research
❤️ Oura ring adds pregnancy insights
💊 Is menopause ‘over medicalised’?

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

🩸 Period app Flo Health to face Canadian class-action over data privacy

person holding black phone — Photo by ROBIN WORRALL on Unsplash

The world’s most popular female health app, Flo Health, is facing a class action lawsuit in Canada - which if won could see more than one million people eligible to claim damages.

Flo Health is accused of sharing users’ intimate health information to third parties like Facebook without their knowledge between June 2016 and February 2019. (This piece is a great summary of what’s alleged to have happened.)

In recent years Flo has worked hard to emphasise its commitment to privacy - it open sourced its anonymous mode in June 2023 and later secured two ‘gold standard’ ISO certifications.

In a statement, Flo also said it: "has never sold user information or shared user information with third parties for the purposes of advertising."
"Flo will vigorously defend against allegations stipulated in the case."

Nevertheless, high-profile cases like this (whether upheld or not) sadly create mistrust in FemTech as a whole, against an ongoing backdrop of fear about health information being shared.

Elsewhere this week, more calls for greater regulations in FemTech too. A new study by University experts has concluded that a lack of proper data regulations for FemTech risks sensitive and intimate information about users ending up with third parties.

The team will now pass their findings onto the Information Commissioner’s Office - which announced last year it would be taking a closer look at FemTech.

🔥 “We are in a position to do something about this - and relatively quickly” - How The Lowdown is tackling the data gap in women’s health

A growing number of FemTech startups are filling the gaps in women’s health data, research and understanding - by doing it themselves.

The Lowdown, set up in 2019 as the ‘trip advisor’ for contraceptive reviews, has recently expanded to invite experiences of endometriosis, PCOS, fertility (and shortly perimenopause too).

It now holds a rich source of data points with more than 6,500 reviews and two million+ annual website visitors.

“Our wider vision now is to be the research platform for women's health. We want to ensure that women’s voices will be represented in research, leading to better health outcomes for women” said founder Alice Pelton.

➡️ Continue reading our interview to find out how The Lowdown is tackling the data gap in women’s health

💰 Funding, deals and investment news

📌 UK: Ada Ventures closes £63m fund to back impact startups and diverse founders. Ada invests across healthy ageing as well as climate equity and economic empowerment. The fund already counts FemTech start-ups Juno Bio and Planera among its portfolio. (Source: UK Tech)

🌟 More news from this week

📌 Oura ring launches pregnancy insights feature. The wearable Oura is making more moves in the reproductive health space. In the last two years Oura has launched period and cycle insights as well as partnerships with Natural Cycles, Clue and others. Now users of Oura can now track their pregnancy progress too. The new feature includes updates on how pregnancy might impact sleep, heart rate and more. (Source: Oura)

📌 Start-up founders are ‘overworked’ ‘exhausted’ and ‘broken’. A new survey has revealed 85% of founders suffered from high stress last year, with 49% considering quitting their start-up this year. “The challenging fundraising environment, coming so shortly after the pandemic, coupled with investors’ focus on reaching profitability, is the number one reason founders are “broken” said the Sifted report. (Source: Sifted)

📌 ‘We are not allowed to talk about our bodies’ - why we need to address social media censorship. Creators, brands and charities are using written symbols and numbers to disguise words about the human body and women’s health in a bid to get around censorship. We teamed up with Clio Wood to write this article as part of the CensHERship campaign. (Source: FemTech World)

🩸 Research and women’s health news

📌 ’Time for a balanced conversation about menopause.’ 5-10 years ago there was silence around menopause. But right now that narrative feels like it’s in its own messy middle. A new set of papers in The Lancet argues that celebrities have contributed to an ‘over-medicalisation’ of the menopause and that it’s something to fear. That’s been labelled as patronising and gaslighting behaviour by some campaigners, women’s health doctors and creators (this in The Poke is worth a read). (Source: The Lancet)

📌 US: What is the state of feeding in 2024? 60% of US mothers are combination-feeding breast milk and formula to help them extend their breastfeeding goals. But we wouldn’t have known that without a brilliant research collaboration between a breast pump company, a lactation and feeding support company, and a formula company. Together, Bobbie, Willow Innovations and SimpliFed have joined forces to compile data from across their customer bases representing 2,000 women. The big insight? “A much richer and more varied [picture] than could be summarised in a simple “breastfed or not” binary.” and “Formula can be a supporting character in that [feeding] journey and not the villain!” (Source (and full report): State of Feeding)

📌 Philippines: Tackling breast cancer in the Philippines. Did you know the Philippines has the highest incidence rate of breast cancer in the APAC region? Or that breast cancer mortality rates in the Philippines are expected to increase by 40.5% from 2020 to 2030? Pharma company Roche is working on initiatives around education, screening, diagnosis and more for women’s centered cancer care. (Source: Emma Ricci-de Lucca on LinkedIn)

📌 US: Scientists move step closer to making IVF eggs from skin cells. Disease, cancer or age can damage female eggs causing fertility issues. But a procedure using skin cells might be the answer for people who want children that share their DNA. Scientists say the technology is likely to take a decade to perfect and approve - although currently many countries outlaw the use of artificial eggs or sperm for fertility. (Source: The Guardian)

📌 UK: University of Exeter awarded £7m for women’s health research. Areas that will be studied include menopausal symptoms, hormonal imbalances and reproductive ageing. (Source: BBC)

📄 Govt & policy news

📌 US: Biden’s $12b plan for women’s health. President Biden has asked Congress to fund women’s health research - with menopause, Alzheimer’s disease and endometriosis in scope. His State of the Union speech also touched on abortion and protecting IVF. It was an incredible moment of acknowledgement and focus for women’s health, although this piece on LinkedIn brought me back down to earth. (Source: Fierce Biotech)

📌 UK: £35m investment to boost maternity safety. We’ve seen horrific stories about maternity experiences recently. Now the Govt has set aside £35m to fund specialist training for staff and additional midwives to improve maternity services. Importantly, the Govt also promises that women’s voices and experiences will be prioritised as part of this. (Source: Gov.UK)

📌 UK: ‘Shattering the silence around menopause’ - new report. The Government’s Menopause Employment Champion, Helen Tomlinson, has shared a 12-month update report on menopause in the workplace. While there is still much to do, evidence shows best practice is being shared, more support is in place and employers are taking strides to become ‘menopause-friendly’ (Source: Gov.UK)