Women represent
half of the planet’s population. Yet tech companies catering to their specific
health needs represent a minute share of the global technology market.
اضافة اعلان
In 2019, the
“
femtech” industry — software and technology companies addressing women’s
biological needs — generated $820.6 million in global revenue and received $592
million in venture capital investment, according to PitchBook, a financial data
and research company. That same year, the ride-sharing app Uber alone raised
$8.1 billion in an initial public offering. The difference in scale is
staggering, especially when women spend an estimated $500 billion a year on
medical expenses, according to
PitchBook.
Tapping into
that spending power, a multitude of apps and tech companies have sprung up in
the last decade to address women’s needs, including tracking menstruation and
fertility, and offering solutions for pregnancy, breastfeeding and menopause.
Medical startups also have stepped in to prevent or manage serious conditions
such as cancer.
“The market
potential is huge,” said Michelle Tempest, a partner at the London-based health
care consultancy Candesic and a psychiatrist by training. “There’s definitely
an increasing appetite for anything in the world which is technology, and a
realization that female consumer power has arrived — and that it’s arrived in
health care.”
She said one
reason women-related needs had not been focused on in the field of technology
was that life sciences research was overwhelmingly “tailored to the male body.”
In 1977, the US Food and Drug Administration excluded women of childbearing age
from taking part in drug trials. Since then, women have been underrepresented
in drug trials, Tempest said, because of a belief that fluctuations caused by
menstrual cycles could affect trial results and also because if a woman got
pregnant after taking a trial drug, the drug could affect the fetus. As a
result, she noted, “we do lag behind men.”
The term
“femtech” was coined by Ida Tin, the Danish-born founder of Clue, a period and
ovulation tracking app established in Germany in 2013. In an article on the
company’s website, Tin recalled how she first had the idea for the app. In
2009, she found herself holding a cellphone in one hand and a small
temperature-taking device in the other and wishing she could merge the two to
track her fertility days, rather than manually having to note her temperature on
a spreadsheet.
Clue allows
women to do exactly that with a few taps on their smartphone. Today, the
company has a lot of competition in the period- and fertility-tracking area.
And plenty of other women-specific tools have come onto the market. Elvie, a London-based
company, has marketed a wearable breast pump and a pelvic exercise trainer and
app, both using smart technology. Another strand of femtech known as “menotech”
aims to improve women’s lifestyles as they go through menopause, providing
access to telemedicine, and information and data that women can tap into.
Finally, there
are medical technology companies focused on cancer that affects women, such as
cervical cancer and breast cancer.
According to
the World Health Organization, cervical cancer is the fourth most common cause
of cancer among women around the world. In 2018, about 570,000 women had it,
and as many as 311,000 died. The WHO in November announced a program to
eradicate the disease completely by the year 2030.
MobileODT, a
startup based in Tel Aviv, Israel, uses smartphones and artificial intelligence
to screen for cervical cancer. A smart colposcope — a portable imaging device
that is 1 1/2 times the size of a smartphone — is used to take a photograph of
a woman’s cervix from a distance of about 1 meter. The image is then
transmitted to the cloud via a smartphone, where artificial intelligence is
used to identify normal or abnormal cervical findings.
A diagnosis is
delivered in about 60 seconds — compared to the weeks it takes to receive the
results of a standard smear test (which, in developing countries, extends to
months.) In addition to this screening, doctors still use smear tests.
The technology
was recently used to screen 9,000 women during a three-month period in the
Dominican Republic as part of a government-led campaign, the company announced
last month. Another 50,000 women are expected to be screened in the next six
months.
Leon Boston,
the South African-born chief executive of MobileODT, said the privately owned
company was selling into about 20 different countries including the United
States, India, South Korea and Brazil, and is going into a fundraising round to
build on its initial seed money of $24 million.
But the leading
cause of cancer among women all over the world is breast cancer. One French
startup is focused on dealing with its aftermath. Lattice Medical has developed
a 3D-printed hollow breast implant that allows for the regeneration of tissue
and is absorbed by the body over time.
How it works:
Post-mastectomy, the surgeon harvests a small flap of fat from the area
immediately around the woman’s breast and places it inside the 3D-printed
bioprosthesis. That piece of tissue grows inside the implant and eventually
fills it out. In the meantime, the 3D-printed shell disappears completely 18
months later.
So far, tests
on animals have been encouraging, said Julien Payen, the company’s co-founder
and chief executive. Clinical trials on women are expected to start in 2022,
with the aim of getting the product into the market in 2025, he added.
Asked why the
global femtech market was so small for technology companies, Boston said it was
partly because of the “high level of regulation” involved in medical
technology.
“If your
technology is incorrect and comes up with the wrong result, a woman who thinks
she’s not positive for cervical cancer is actually positive,” he said. As a
result, “the world of medical technology is slow to move.”
Still,
prospects are favorable, according to Boston. “It’s very rare to have a totally
barren market open for full potential as we have today in medical technology,”
he said.
The data
forecasts appear to back that up. According to a March 2020 report by Frost
& Sullivan, a research and strategy consultancy, revenue from femtech is
expected to reach $1.1 billion by 2024.
Payen explained
that for the femtech market to expand and develop, there have to be many more
tech companies offering genuine health benefits to women, not just well-being
apps crowding the market and adding little in terms of health or medical value.
He cited the example of Endodiag, a French medical technology company that
allows early diagnosis of endometriosis and a better management of the
condition.
Either way,
said Payen, the industry showed promise.
“Over the last
10 years, thanks to #MeToo and other movements, women are being listened to and
heard more than ever before,” Payen said. And “more and more women are running
companies and investment funds,” he added.
“In 10 or 15
years from now, as a new generation takes over, things will have changed even
more radically,” he said. “Femtech is clearly poised to grow.”
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