💌 Issue 61: New IVF pill | Seven Starling's $10.9m for mental health | "like magic" - the period pads that solidify blood
+ lots more in your weekly round-up of women's health and FemTech news
Hello and welcome to issue #61 of FutureFemHealth, here to bring you your weekly news about women’s health innovation and FemTech (w/c 15 July 2024).
🌟 Coming up today we’ve got:
💊 Oxolife’s drug shows promise for IVF birth rates
❤️ Women’s mental health boost as Seven Starling closes $10.9m raise
🌎 Kindred’s $5.5m to transform women’s health in The Philippines
🪄 ”Like magic” - period pads which solidify blood to prevent leaks
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💊 The new drug with great promise for IVF success rates
There’s been a flurry of fertility news recently to coincide with a major reproductive health conference in Amsterdam last week: the 40th Annual Meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE).
Amongst a little doom and gloom (which we’ll cover later in the newsletter), some very exciting news about a new drug showing real promise for IVF success rates.
OXO-001 by biotech Oxolife, is a non-hormonal, oral drug that helps the endometrium become more conducive for implantation.
That’s important because IVF commonly fails when embryos don’t implant.
The results a proof-of-concept Phase 2 double-blinded, randomised control trial are quite staggering so far:
Over three-quarters of the women who received the drug got a biochemically confirmed pregnancy, compared to half on the placebo.
More importantly, ongoing pregnancy rates to ten weeks also increased by 10.6 percentage points.
And best of all: live birth rates rose by 6.9 percentage points - from 35.7% on the placebo to 46.3% with the drug.
Purposefully for this trial, the scientists only included women who used donor eggs so that it could single out the true effect of OXO-011 on the endometrium.
And while trial was small (just 96 women) the results are enough to push on to a phase 3 trial.
As Dr Karen Sermon, Chair of ESHRE, highlighted:
"Despite continuous developments in ovarian stimulation, embryo manipulation and culture, improving live birth rates in medically assisted reproduction has been incremental at best.
“A jump of nearly seven percentage points is very good news for our patients, and hopefully, this can be confirmed in larger patient groups."
Continue reading full story: FutureFemHealth
💰 Funding, deals and investment news
📌 US: Seven Starling closes $10.9m Series A for women’s mental health. A shocking 75% of women who need mental health treatment as part of their motherhood journey do not receive it. Seven Starling’s virtual care model works with over 1,000 OBGYNs and major health plans to change that - with 90% of its patients seeing a clinically significant improvement in symptoms. This oversubscribed round was led by RH Capital and will fuel continued national expansion. (Continue reading: FutureFemHealth)
📌 PHILIPPINES: Kindred Health raises $5.5m to transform women’s health in the Philippines. Beginning with a virtual clinic during the pandemic, Kindred has quickly established partnerships with 70 doctors and a client list of more than 20,000 women. Now offering hybrid care via a single clinic plus an app, Kindred will use this pre-Series A funding round to scale to 10 clinics and invest in tech and services. Funding was led by Integra Partners. (Continue reading: FutureFemHealth)
📌 INDIA: Pharma company Lupin divests its US women’s health specialty business to EvoFem Biosciences. Evofem picks up Lupin’s Solosec, an FDA-approved antibiotic for two common sexual health infections with CEO Saundra Pelletier saying they will now “relaunch an asset with tremendous growth potential”. The deal is said to be worth up to $84m. (Continue reading: Business-Standard)
🌟 More news from this week
📌 US & INDIA: “Like magic” - the period pads turning menstrual blood solid to prevent leaks. Researchers at Virginia Tech have developed a biomaterial that turns menstrual blood into a gel-like substance to prevent leaks and prevent infection. In our feature story, we also chat to period care start-up Papaya which has already begun to include coagulation technology in its products for sale in India. (Continue reading: FutureFemHealth)
📌 US: Proov launches at-home perimenopause test. There may be no single test to determine menopause or perimenopause status, but at-home hormone tests are proving popular. Following Clearblue’s somewhat criticised launch last year, Proov follows with ‘Proov Empower’ which measures four key hormones over multiple days and then provides insights and recommendations. Further support is on-hand with referrals to the team at Midi Health too. (Continue reading: FutureFemHealth)
📌 Samsung enters the smart ring race. Described as its “smallest and most discrete product yet” Samsung’s Galaxy ring will surely be hoping it can compete with established devices such as the Oura ring. The Galaxy ring features tracking for heart rate, sleep and your menstrual cycle. (Continue reading: BBC)
📌 US: Aunt Flow launches direct-to-consumer business. Known for its free period products distributed in schools and universities across America, Aunt Flow is now making its products available to consumers to buy. Having already made its brand familiar with two million students across the country, Aunt Flow tampons and pads will be sold online and on Amazon. (Continue reading: Non-wovens industry)
📌 OpenAI and Arianna Huffington are working together on an ‘AI health coach’. A spate of ‘health coach’-type announcements recently from Oura among others as the shift continues from more data to more actionable insights and support. Now OpenAI and Arianna Huffington team up for a bot that will be trained on ‘the best peer-reviewed science’. Which does raise questions then about just how useful this coach may be for females given the research gap? (Continue reading: The Verge)
🩸 Research and women’s health news
📌 US: 72m American women could be missing important screenings. The majority of American women know the importance of screening for various cancers and other life-threatening health conditions. Yet more than 40% in a recent survey admit to postponing or skipping tests. That’s been dubbed the ‘Screening Action Gap’ by diagnostic test maker Hologic, highlighting a need for better awareness, education and provider support to allay anxieties and close the gap. (Continue reading: Fierce Pharma)
📌 EUROPE: IVF cycles increase - pregnancy rates remain stable. Since 1997, fertility clinics and national registries have collaborated to provide Europe’s largest single view of medically assisted reproduction. The latest data now shows IVF, IUI and other assisted reproductive technology treatment cycles topped 1.1 million annually across 37 European countries. Pregnancy rates remained similar indicating no significant shift in IVF success rates. (Continue reading: FutureFemHealth)
📌 AUSTRALIA: Air pollution linked to 38% decrease in IVF birth rate success. Conducted over an eight-year period in Australia, this research analysed 3,659 frozen embryo transfers from 1,836 women. The findings indicate that even at low levels of pollution, exposure to particles damages the eggs themselves, not just early pregnancy. Scientists now call for ongoing attention to the environmental factors in reproductive health. (Continue reading: FutureFemHealth)
📄 Govt & policy news
📌 US: First ever federal rules for maternal care standards meet mixed response. Hospitals will need to have basic emergency equipment and protocols for emergency deliveries, as part of a new initiative to reduce maternal mortality rates and improve health outcomes in hospitals. Adapting to the changes is likely to cost close to $4.5 billion over 10 years. The American Hospital Association has since cautioned that these changes may not address the root causes of the maternal crisis and could lead to hospital closures due to the costs to implement. (Continue reading: Nebraska Examiner)
📌 UK: NHS needs to treat endometriosis as chronic condition. Endometriosis affects around 1 in 10 women and those assigned female at birth in the UK and typically takes up to nine years to diagnose. A new report now calls for better training, specialist referral pathways and follow-up plans so that it can be treated with the same seriousness as chronic illnesses such as diabetes and bowel disease. (Continue reading: The Guardian)
✅ Jobs
Want to feature a role here? Let me know at anna@futurefemhealth.com (it’s currently free!)
📌 UK: Community Manager, Dear Bump
📌 UK: Operations Executive FMCG, Here We Flo
📌 UK: Senior Delivery Manager, Elvie
📌 US: Trade Marketing Manager - US, Elvie
📌 US: Operations Coordinator, Dame Products
📌 Denmark: Systems Engineer for medical device, Uvisa
And finally….
It’s time to lift the lid on discrimination facing FemTech…
We’re working with The Guardian on a major investigation into the barriers that FemTech, women’s health and sexual wellness companies face, and we need your help! Have you experienced issues or discrimination with banking, insurance, payment providers or e-commerce? Please take 2 minutes to complete our survey (can be anonymously) so that we can raise awareness of the extent of this issue. If you operate in the UK, please take part here.
See you next time,
Anna