💌 Issue 74: Teal Health $1.68m grant | Oura's perimenopause report | Midwifery care supported by WHO
+ lots more in your weekly round-up of women's health innovation and FemTech news
Hi! Welcome to issue #74 of FutureFemHealth, here to bring you your weekly news about women’s health innovation and FemTech (w/c 21 October 2024).
🌟 Coming up today we’ve got:
🏆 Teal Health awarded $1.68m grant for at-home cervical cancer screening
📈 Smart ring maker ŌURA releases its first-ever Perimenopause Report
🛑 White women most likely to get HRT prescriptions in England, study finds.
🌎 WHO urges expansion of lifesaving midwifery care for women and babies
Got news to share from the world of FemTech and women’s health innovation? Let me know at anna@futurefemhealth.com
With thanks to this week’s sponsor, MediSearch…..
Looking for trustworthy answers to your women's health questions? While ChatGPT might get "creative" with answers, MediSearch offers reliable, accurate medical information with references. Trust MediSearch for dependable health insights —visit medisearch.
👩🏽💻 CensHERship is coming to Europe
The CensHERship campaign continues to push forward the issue of the censorship of women’s health content on social media.
This is a campaign that FutureFemHealth co-founded with Clio Wood of &BreatheWellbeing earlier this year.
Our initial research in February 2024 was featured in national media and led to meetings with two social media platforms.
Our new research is now open! We want to hear from start-ups who operate in Europe to share your experiences of sharing health content on social media.
This time, we want to hear from both women’s health / FemTech and men’s health start-ups.
Here’s the link to our new survey - please do share with your networks!
Together, our collective voice can bring about change!
💰 Funding, deals and investment news
📌 US: Teal Health awarded $1.68m grant for at-home cervical cancer screening. Teal Health's Teal Wand is a purpose-built device that allows a woman to collect her own vaginal sample for human papillomavirus (HPV) testing, a critical piece in cervical cancer prevention - all from the comfort, convenience, and privacy of her home. The start-up has been awarded a prestigious Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Direct to Phase II Grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Funds will support further development and clinical validation. (Continue reading: FutureFemHealth)
🌟 More news from this week
📌 Smart ring maker ŌURA releases its first-ever Perimenopause Report. Continuing its advance into women’s health, this new report draws upon de-identified data from more than 100,000 female Oura members. It sheds light on the impact this stage has on sleep, mood, energy levels and more. Oura has also introduced 17 new dedicated tags specific to perimenopause and menopause to help track symptoms. And, new partnerships announced this week include Hertility and sanoLiving. (Continue reading: FutureFemHealth)
📌 Mira launches ‘Menopause Transitions Kit’ to help women spot early signs. While symptoms of perimenopause can begin in our mid-thirties, a Mira study found that over 80% of women do not have a basic understanding of menopause. The Mira transitions kit tracks four key reproductive hormones to help women define their current reproductive stage and anticipate menopause. An app and personalised insights help to facilitate informed discussions with healthcare professionals. (Continue reading: FutureFemHealth)
📌 US: Berry Fertility partners with Pinnacle Fertility to expand reach across 40 US clinics. Fertility clinics are under strain as demand has increased over the last decade, but the number of providers has not. More than half of fertility patients in the US now switch clinics typically for non-medical reasons. Berry is a fertility management app that gives patients the resources they need for a better experience and also reduces the admin burden for clinic staff too. (Continue reading: FutureFemHealth)
📌 US: Hims & Hers appoints first women’s health Chief Medical Officer. The ‘Hers’ side of the Hims & Hers business continues to rapidly expand (the platform has previously said it may eclipse the men’s health side). Dr Jessica Shepherd joins as the company invests in personalised healthcare for women and in areas such as sexual health, dermatology, weight loss and mental health. (Continue reading: FT)
📌 UK: Fundraising for women’s health start-up ‘painful as giving birth’. Dr Helen O’Neill, co-founder of Hertility reflects on the challenges of running a business in the women’s health space, where just 1.6% of total capital in Europe that’s venture-backed goes to women-founded companies. Still, Hertility has now raised $15.7m (and is seeking $20m more in a round due to close before Christmas) and grown a brand that now reaches 99,000 followers on instagram alone and has sold 72,000 Hertility kits. Dr O’Neill also reveals that a sub-brand for Hertility, ‘Fempire’ is in the works to expand outside of fertility testing, as well as expansion to the US. (Continue reading: The Times [paywall])
🩸 Research and women’s health news
📌 UK: White women most likely to get HRT prescriptions in England, study finds. A 10-year study finds that menopausal women of Chinese and black African backgrounds are around 80% less likely to get HRT than their white counterparts. Academics at the University of Oxford believe this is the first study to quantify the likelihood of receiving HRT, having adjusted for age, deprivation and ethnicity. (Continue reading: The Guardian)
📌 HRT prescriptions in England up 22% in a year. Overall HRT items prescribed now stand at 13 million, prescribed to an estimated 2.6million patients - up from 2.3m in 2022/23. The increase comes following the introduction of an HRT prepayment certificate in April 2023, covering 12 months’ worth of menopause prescription items for the cost of just two single prescription charges. A fifth of all HRT prescriptions now use this certificate. However, the least deprived areas in England had more than twice as many identified patients receiving HRT prescribing compared to the most deprived areas. (Continue reading: BBC)
📌 Early puberty may contribute to increase in breast cancer among younger women. The age of puberty for girls has been falling for decades, especially among Black and Asian Americans. Now researchers are exploring possible links between earlier menstruation and an increase in breast cancer among younger women. Sedentary lifestyles, obesity, environmental toxins and having children later in life are some of the many other factors that under scrutiny. (Continue reading: NBC)
📌 Men and women process pain differently, new study finds. Previous research has found that men and women experience pain differently and process pain sginals differently. This new study, analysing data from two clinical trials involving 98 people, found that women tend to rely on non-opoid mechanisms to reduce pain. Men meanwhile seem to rely on the body’s opoid production to reduce pain. The study indicates that men and women may respond to pain medication differently. (Continue reading: Women’s Health)
📄 Govt & policy news
📌 GLOBAL: WHO urges expansion of lifesaving midwifery care for women and babies. There is currently a shortage of 900,000 midwives globally. Yet, recent modelling shows that universal access to midwifery care could avert more than 60% of all maternal and newborn deaths and stillbirths - amounting to 4.3m lives saved annually by 2035. Investing in midwifery models of care is also likely to provide the most impact in poor countries as well as humanitarian and crisis settings. The World Health Organisation has released a position paper on midwifery models of care and next year will develop detailed guidance documents for implementation. (Continue reading: World Health Organisation)
📌 UK: Mariella Frostrup appointed as government menopause employment ambassador. An estimated one in ten women leave the UK workforce due to menopause. Campaigner and broadcaster Mariella Frostrup takes over from Helen Tomlinson to engage with businesses large and small to find soluttuion. The appointment comes amid a proposed Employment Rights Bill which would see large employers produce menopause action plans. (Continue reading: Employee Benefits)
Thanks for reading and see you next time! If you’ve missed any previous newsletter issues catch them all at futurefemhealth.com
Before you go: Would you like to support FutureFemHealth through sponsorship and get your brand in front of thousands of professionals, founders and investors in women’s health? I’m taking bookings from November onwards. For more info and a copy of our media pack drop me a line: anna@futurefemhealth.com