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Period of Change: Femtech’s Role in Bridging the Gender Healthcare Gap

Authors: Khyaati Saraogi
Published on: January 20, 2025
“Women’s bodies and experiences are treated as abnormalities, niche use cases, or, at best, afterthoughts” 

– Criado Perez, author of ‘Invisible Women’

Imagine a pair of gloves. The gloves are misfitting – loose and long from the fingers. But you keep wearing them for years because there’s only one size that’s offered – the ‘standard’ size which is deemed ‘normal’ for everyone. 

 

Medicine’s Blind-Spot: The Male-Centric Medical Model

Despite women and men having very different health outcomes, modern medicine was developed with the male physiology as the default. Historically, women have been acutely underrepresented in medical research; it wasn’t even until 1986 that women were allowed to participate in clinical research. This has resulted in misdiagnosis and a biased understanding of the male physiology as the human physiology. Research reveals that although 70% of those affected by chronic pain conditions are actually women, 80% of pain research is conducted on males. 

This issue might seem trivial at first, tempting you to question if the two genders are even all that different. Hold on, because the results are nothing short of astounding.

Women are 47% more likely to sustain severe injuries in car crashes, even when using seat belts. This is because car safety testing is done with 50th-percentile male test dummies, optimizing safety for the muscle mass distribution and body shape of men.

In fact, it’s often said that “Every cell has a sex” as there are vast molecular and cellular differences in the male and female bodies. 

Consider Zolpidem, a drug used for short-term treatment of insomnia. It’s only decades after Zolpidem’s approval and widespread use that its adverse effects on the female body were discovered. The drug caused slower metabolism and years later, the recommended dose was halved for women. Shockingly, medical support devices have also been governed by the ‘Default Male’. Research reveals that physiologic differences in load bearing, can result in up to double the failure rate of implants in women, particularly in the case of certain hip implants.

Women are also among the most vulnerable to underdiagnosis and misdiagnosis. Their mental health and pain symptoms are more likely to be passed off as ‘hysteric’ or ‘psychosomatic’.

There is an urgent need for healthcare institutions to acknowledge that women are not just ‘small men’ and systematically excluding an entire gender from availing the benefits of accurate medical intervention can have disastrous consequences for the human race.

From Womb to World: The Birth of Femtech

The term ‘Femtech’ was coined by Ida Tin, founder of one of the first period tracking apps called ‘Clue’. When asked how she had the clue to start Clue, she responded by saying she was amazed by the fact that humans walked the moon but there wasn’t a single app to track menstrual cycles and fertility windows. Ever since the launch of Clue, which marked the beginning of a revolution in female healthcare, femtech startups have finally started garnering the much-deserved global attention.

As femtech emerges as one of the most promising sectors of tomorrow, it is important to understand what femtech is and the massive opportunity it presents to investors and customers alike.

Femtech encompasses a wide range of tech-enabled products and services, exclusively designed to cater to the health of women as well as those with a uterus. Let us simplify this by breaking it down. 

Women’s health conditions can be bifurcated as follows:

  1. Female-specific conditions: These include all those conditions which are exclusively faced by women (and those with a uterus) such as menstruation, fertility, contraception, motherhood, gynecology (and gynecological infections) and women’s oncology. 
  2. General conditions: Contrary to popular belief, women’s health extends far beyond reproductive health. There are a multitude of conditions which affect women both differently as well as disproportionately:
    • Affect women differently: These conditions, although seen in both men and women, either have more serious effects on women or affect women in a manner different from men. For example, many think of chest pain as a typical symptom of heart attack. While both men and women can experience chest pain, women are more likely to experience atypical symptoms such as nausea or vomiting, dizziness, or no symptoms at all. In fact, 64% of women who die suddenly of coronary heart disease have no previous symptoms!
    • Affect women disproportionately: These conditions, although seen in both men and women, are more prevalent among women. For example, conditions like hypertension, migraine and asthma occur more frequently in women than men.

Broadly, femtech products can be subdivided into four categories: 

  • Mobile Applications: Various mobile applications like Clue, Flo, Spot On etc. offer period, pregnancy and fertility tracking features. These apps, more often than not, also have digital communities for women to share their concerns, queries and educational resources. Such apps are called care-enablers as they don’t directly provide professional help but encourage self-tracking and responsibilization along with peer-support.

There are also platforms which offer telehealth consultation services by connecting patients with doctors online. For example, OoWomaniya provides phone consultations and expert advice with free follow-ups and ‘private, safe’ chats. Such platforms are termed as care-connectors as they leverage technology to bridge the gap between patients and medical experts. 

  • Trackers and Wearables: These include rings, bracelets, smartwatches etc. which track biomarkers to provide real-time data for precise reproductive health management. For example, Noise’s new Luna Ring claims to measure basal temperature, hydration, sleep patterns, stress levels, period flow intensity, cycle length etc. to provide smart predictions for fertility windows and conditions like PCOS. The aim is to give women greater access to accurate, expert-verified information and unrestricted control over their own bodies.

https://www.digit.in/news/wearable-devices/heres-how-noise-luna-ring-can-help-you-track-your-menstrual-cycle-and-more.html

  • Diagnostics and Deep-Tech Devices: Various diagnostics tools and next-gen devices help in the detection of diseases such as breast cancer, cervical cancer etc. using AI and state-of-the-art technology. 
        • Using a computational pathology platform, CervAstra (developed by Indian company AINDRA) analyzes pap smear samples to identify abnormal cells and detect cervical cancer all in under a few hours.
        • Mind&Mom is an Indian B2B and B2C deep-tech company offering fertility services to both clinics and patients. They help clinics and hospitals leverage AI to automate tasks, optimize user experience and improve treatment outcomes. They also provide AI-powered workflow optimization for end-to-end management of a patient’s fertility journey. For patients, they have a pregnancy wellness app (to plan out their A to Z pregnancy journey) as well as ovulation gestational age calculators.
        • NIRAMAI (Non-Invasive Risk Assessment with Machine Intelligence) is a Bangalore-based deep-tech start-up that has developed a non-invasive, non-touch, non-traumatizing, radiation-free solution for detecting early-stage breast cancer using AI and ML. Their medical device can detect breast cancer much before self-examination or traditional methods. 
        • Annabella, an Israeli startup, is on a mission to empower the lives of mothers throughout all stages of their life with state-of-the-art femtech products. Annabella initially went to market with an FDA-cleared, patented breast pump that simulates a baby’s suckling and includes an adjustable breast shield, which prioritizes efficiency and comfort. 
  • Consumer products: Although menstrual products such as sanitary napkins, cups and tampons have been around for a few decades, they’re being actively reimagined to accommodate the ever-evolving needs and lifestyle of women. Fluus (flushable sanitary napkins), Saalt (reusable period underwear in different shapes, sizes and styles) and Flex (reusable and disposable menstrual discs) are examples of companies that have redefined existing products to level up comfort without compromising on the environment.

Categorisation of Femtech products into 4 major buckets

Opportunity Knocks: The Limitless Potential of Femtech

The concept of Femtech is steadily gaining momentum among both consumers and investors, primarily due to the fact that women account for 80% of consumer purchasing decisions in the healthcare industry. As awareness regarding various reproductive and sexual health conditions is rising, more and more women are on the lookout for tech-enabled solutions. For instance, the first period tracking apps were released in 2013, and by 2021 at least 50 million women worldwide were using a period tracking app. There exists a large untapped market, and the numbers strongly confirm this. 

 

The global femtech market size was USD 51.25 billion in 2023, accounted for USD 55.86 billion in 2024, and is expected to reach around USD 121.33 billion by 2033, expanding at a CAGR of 9% from 2024 to 2033.

On the Rise: Tailwinds Fueling Femtech’s Success

We’ve looked at ‘Why Femtech’, but it’s also important to ask ‘Why now?’ Women have always been on the planet, so why is it that Femtech is only suddenly enjoying global attention? 

The Femtech boom can be primarily attributed to the following three growth triggers:

  • Increased awareness: People worldwide are gradually beginning to realize how essential it is to acknowledge differences in male and female physiology, and how urgent it is to develop women-centric health solutions. Books like ‘Invisible Women’ by Criado Perez have been successful in highlighting the stark gender health gap and the massive data vacuum that exists when it comes to women. The world is slowly waking up to the fact that 50% of the globe is female. The idea that ‘we know very little about women’ is steadily catching on.
  • Large-scale digitization: COVID-19 catalyzed the mass-digitization of various services, from education and banking to entertainment and shopping. This has led to an exponential increase in digital literacy, internet penetration and supporting infrastructure. This presents a huge opportunity for the healthcare sector, which has been prompt in keeping pace.
  • Increase in the number of dual income households: As per GoI, the Women Labour Force Participation Rate (WLFPR) has consistently increased from 23.3% in 2017-18 to 37% in 2022-23. The growing number of financially empowered women, along with urbanization and improved literacy rates, is driving significant demand and unlocking new opportunities for femtech.

WEF and McKinsey Global Health Institute project that for every $1 invested in women’s health, there would be around $3 in economic growth.

Funding Femtech: A Sneak-Peek Into the Current Investment Landscape

Despite the fact that investments addressing the women’s health gap could potentially boost the global economy by $1 trillion annually by 2040, the femtech sector faces a serious dearth of funding. In the US, women’s health represented just 2% of the $41.2 billion in venture funding that went to health innovators (in all categories, including health care, medtech, pharmaceuticals & biotechnology) in 2023.

Raising funding is an uphill battle for femtech startups, especially those with female founders. In 2020, men were responsible for 90% of investment decisions in the US. Male investors often shy away from discussing women’s health, let alone investing in femtech ventures. Due to their limited and superficial understanding of women’s health, they often fail to distinguish different femtech solutions. Although majority of the innovations cater to different customer segments and deal with unique problems or conditions, male investors perceive femtech as an oversaturated market. Moreover, there are also preconceived notions that there haven’t been many exits in the women’s health space. 

Femtech and Ethics: Addressing the Complex Dilemmas

India currently lacks a strong data governance framework to safeguard users and their online privacy rights. This gap allows emerging femtech initiatives and applications to operate in a legal gray area, often exploiting weak privacy policies that compromise user privacy. 

The femtech industry encourages a culture of self-tracking and responsibilization and claims to give women full control over their bodies. However, reproductive self-tracking is already raising concerns regarding the commodification and misutilization of intimate data by private players and corporations.

Moreover, there are various assumptions integrated in the app design about ‘normal length of cycles’, ‘period flow intensity’ etc. These apps fail to acknowledge racial and regional differences and the ‘normal range’ is generally very limited, often based on basic global averages and a one-size-fits-all approach. 

The Future of Femtech: Opportunities and Challenges

As the femtech sector is growing to cater to the diverse and ever-evolving needs of women of all ages and colors, the need for a concrete legal framework ensuring responsible usage of health data has become more urgent than ever. Femtech needs to be fully inclusive of Black, Indigenous, People of Colour (BIPOC) women and efforts have to be made to minimize inherent algorithm bias.

Better health outcomes for women indirectly lead to better health outcomes for the society as a whole. This is because women are not just consumers but the primary healthcare decision-makers for themselves as well as for their families. Bridging the gender healthcare gap, therefore, not only has economic benefits in terms of improved productivity, but also leads to a more equitable society where everyone’s needs are equally accounted for and diversity is cherished instead of being labeled as ‘niche’. 

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