Issue 45: Personalised pessaries | FemTech investment | Midi Health & the 'sandwich generation'
Issue 45: Personalised pessaries | FemTech investment | Midi Health & the 'sandwich generation'
It's your weekly round-up of FemTech & women's health innovation news
Hello! You’re reading issue #45 of FutureFemHealth - your weekly news about women’s health innovation and FemTech (w/c 18 March 2024).
🌟 Coming up today we’ve got:
🏆 Personalised pessaries printed on-demand
📈 FemTech investment ‘resilient and poised to grow’ - new report
📌 How Midi Health is supporting the ‘sandwich generation’
💊 Gynica starts endometriosis treatment clinical trials
Got news to share from the world of FemTech and women’s health innovation? Let me know at anna@futurefemhealth.com
❤️ This start-up will 3D print you a pessary on-demand
Inspired by his own grandmother’s poor health experiences, founder Derek Sham is on a mission to reimagine a better standard of gynaecological healthcare.
Right now, half of all women will experience a pelvic floor disorder such as prolapse and incontinence in their lifetime.
Yet this is a severely underserved area of health.
While pessaries are a common option for pelvic issues, often getting a good fit is an issue. Typically manual finger measurements are taken and then fit is by trial-and-error. That’s an incredibly poor experience for patients.
But Derek Sham’s start-up Cosm Medical has just won FDA clearance for its product Gynethotics™ Pessaries.
Cosm has produced the first ‘personalised pessary’ for patients.
Derek and team use a novel diagnostic system and AI to measure, design and then 3D print a patient-specific pessary in silicone. Almost 10 million shapes are possible - compared to about 100 configurations by other commercially available pessaries.
Now Canadian-based Cosm Medical has a big ambitions. Derek said:
“Our vision is to become the world leader in precision gynaecological devices for unique bodies and needs.
“With our first FDA clearance, we are one step closer to realising this vision and making a meaningful impact on the lives of over a million patients by 2030.
“This will set a new standard of care in gynaecology like the established billion-dollar markets of custom orthotics, dental and hearing.”
>> Continue reading on FutureFemHealth
💰 Funding, deals and investment news
📌 FemTech investment ‘resilient and poised to grow’ - new report. Dealmaking in FemTech is holding up fairly well, yet is still undersized and not getting the attention it deserves, says a new report from Deloitte. There are optimistic signs though, and Deloitte predicts that interest in FemTech will likely continue to grow. “There remains ripe opportunity for the evolution of an integrated approach for women’s health,” says Angela VanScoy, Audit & Assurance partner, Deloitte & Touche LLP. (Source: Deloitte)
🌟 More news from this week
📌 US: Midi Health partners with Cleo. For many midlife women menopause arrives in the midst of being in the ‘sandwich generation’ - an apt description for the pressure pot of responsibilities including children, ageing parents and busy careers. That’s why I love this new partnership between virtual menopause clinic Midi Health and the caregiver support platform Cleo to provide all-round support. (Source: PR Newswire)
📌 ISRAEL: Gynica starts clinical trial for endometriosis treatment. There is no known cure for endometriosis, which can cause significant pain. Biotech Gynica’s first-of-its-kind clinical study is evaluating its non-hormonal, cannabinoid-based, intra-vaginal drug candidates for pain relief. (Source: PR Newswire)
📌 UK: Morrisons latest retailer to go menopause-friendly. Interest from retailers in menopause products continues to grow. Supermarket chain Morrisons is the latest to partner with awareness platform Gen-M and will rollout the ‘MTick’ identifier into its stores as well as more products. (Source: The Grocer)
📌 Digital health tech does improve women’s health outcomes - new report. Gender equality can be positively impacted thanks to digital health tech says a new report from the World Health Organisation. It found that digital health tech can improve access to health services and information, promote more self-care and encourage health-related interventions. (Source: WHO)
📌 How AI could help make the IVF process easier. Can AI help more patients get pregnant faster at a lower cost? AI fertility start-up Alife is featured in Fortune, explaining how it helps clinicians and patients make decisions based on what has worked best for similar patients. Its algorithm is trained on 40,000 de-identified cycles and takes into account age, ancestry, weight and existing diagnoses. Importantly too, Alife has a diverse database to reduce bias and yield more meaningful recommendations. (Source: Fortune)
🩸 Research and women’s health news
📌 UK: The women’s health cost gap in the UK - new report. Women now spend 1.5 times as much on ‘out of pocket’ healthcare than men do - and for UK working women this adds up to over £1.5 billion annually. Interestingly, some of this extra spend was on medical diagnostics and wearables, perhaps indicating that women are prioritising health tracking and are more aware of the importance of preventative health? The report from Deloitte also found that 60% of women said they are more attracted to join companies who invest in women’s health benefits. (Source: Deloitte)
📌 UK: Endometriosis diagnosis now takes nearly nine years. A new report from charity Endometriosis UK has found diagnosis times have increased to an average of 8 years and 10 months in England and Scotland - up by 10 months since 2020. The report now calls for a target of 1 year or less by 2030. (Source: Endometriosis UK)
📌 Menopause - the $350 billion market opportunity. “Menopause is inevitable, like death and taxes” reports CNBC. Yet right now, few publicly-listed companies are in the space (Pfizer, Dare Bioscience, Bayer are some), with more innovation happening in private companies instead. An optimistic look at the potential for more innovation in menopause support. (Source: CNBC)
📄 Govt & policy news
📌 US: Biden expands women’s health research. ”I’m going to make sure women’s health is prioritised across the government”. Just ten days after Biden’s State of the Union address, the President has signed a momentous new executive order calling on agencies to improve research on women’s health and pledged $200m next year to better understand issues including sexual and reproductive conditions. Altogether, Biden has asked Congress for $12billion in new funding for women’s health research - although new financial commitments may be hard to pass in an election year. (Source: Reuters)
📌 INDIA: Rollout begins for homegrown HPV vaccine. 70,000 women a year die of cervical cancer in India. Now, the country has produced an affordable HPV vaccine to tackle its second-biggest cause of cancer deaths among women. Existing doses sold by international pharma companies such as Merck and GSK have been too expensive. (Source: The Guardian)
✅ Jobs
📌 UK: Digital Marketing Manager, Essity
📌 Germany (hybrid): Growth Marketer - FemTech, Essity
📌 Germany (hybrid): Social Media Manager - FemTech, Essity
📌 UK: Brand Marketing Lead, Flo Health
📌 UK: Legal Director, Flo Health
🚀 Are you coming to Decoding this year?
I’m excited to announce that FutureFemHealth is an official media partner for the futuristic, mind-bending Women's Health Tech Conference of the year: Decoding the Future of Women, brought to you by FemTech Lab.
This time it’s even bigger: two days of inspiration, 700+ attendees, three amazing cutting edge streams, multimedia experience rooms, biohacking lounge and of course a lot of networking, futuristic art and a party.
A brilliant line-up of speakers includes the mother of the word FemTech Ida Tin, founder of Hertility Dr. Helen O'Neil, Jennifer Garrison from Buck institute on research for ageing, Daye’s Valentina Milanova, Elvie’s Tania Boler, Cercle.ai’s Irene Cuevas, Organon’s Marcel Van Duin and many more!
That’s all for this week. See you next time,
Anna