Every Monday we share a quick “best of” from the week that was with our Inner Circle members. What’s trending in the Femtech Insider community and beyond? We’ve got you covered! In this week's brief we talk about Product Innovation in Period Care, plus...
- Spotlight: Vaginismus
- The Digital Health Tech Stack
- Inner Circle Fireside Chats 2022
Innovation in Period Care
Although lots of innovation in the period care space in recent years has focused on access, education and positioning, some companies have set out to reinvent the experience through product innovation. Today, inspired by Marlow's recent launch, we'd like to introduce you to some of them:
Marlow has developed a new kind of lubricated tampon for menstruators who experience discomfort when inserting tampons due to anxiety, light flow, vaginal dryness, or medical conditions such as vaginismus.
Flex is known for its signature menstrual disc, which launched around 5 years ago. It's only been a few weeks now since the company launched its newest product, a patented reusable disc after more than two years of development.
Sunny started out as Menstrual Mates with a strong focus on education. The company is currently preparing to launch its first product a tampon-menstrual cup-hybrid in early 2022.
Sequel, also scheduled to launch early next year, has created a new kind of tampon designed by former collegiate athlete with leakage in mind.
Inner Circle Fireside Chats 2022
This past year we kicked off our series of virtual fireside chats to bring you insights and inspiration from those leading in our field. We've talked about destigmatization in women's health, psychedelics, trends at the intersection of beauty and women's health and our last guest shared some insights from her experience raising and running a women's health fund.
We're currently working on programming for early next year. A couple of topics we had in mind:
➡️ Femtech Trends 2022
➡️ VR-enabled Digital Therapeutics x Women 's Health
➡️ Innovation in Abortion Access & Care
But that's just us... What we really want is to hear from you! What topics are your interested in? What would you like to learn about? ⬇️
Spotlight: Vaginismus
Period care brand Marlow, who launched last week, was created to better serve women experiencing vaginismus during their periods. Similarly Aquafit Intimate, an Israeli sexual health company launched their patented gel stick in the EU just a few weeks ago to support women experiencing painful sex due to vaginismus (or other conditions), another story we got to share last week. As you can tell: Lots of talk about vaginismus on Femtech Insider these days!
Although quite common, vaginismus is actually one of the lesser known and addressed conditions in women's health and also by women's health innovators. You too might wonder: What is vaginismus anyways and what solutions are out there for those experiencing it? Today we set out to answer that question! ⬇️
According to the NHS "Vaginismus is the body's automatic reaction to the fear of some or all types of vaginal penetration. Whenever penetration is attempted, your vaginal muscles tighten up on their own. You have no control over it. Occasionally, you can get vaginismus even if you have previously enjoyed painless penetrative sex. Vaginismus does not necessarily affect your ability to get aroused and enjoy other types of sexual contact."
There are various ways to treat vaginismus:
➡️ Psychosexual therapy
➡️ Relaxation techniques
➡️ Pelvic floor exercises
➡️ Vaginal trainers
And of course there are a few femtech startups who are, just like Aquafit and Marlow, addressing the needs of women experiencing vaginismus. Here are a few more examples:
Materna Medical's Milli, is a vaginal trainer with adjustable, incremental sizing for women who are trying to achieve intimate health.
VuVatech is known for its dilator-based, nonprescription program that is clinically proven to relieve pelvic pain.
Mental health companyHelloBetter recently launched a program to specifically address the needs of women struggling with vaginismus.
Hybrid care company Origin is offering treatment for vaginismus as part of its "painful sex" track.
The Digital Health Tech Stack
At the beginning of this year an article on "The New Tech Stack for Virtual-First Care" on the a16z blog got some traction in our community. In it a16z Partner Julie Yoo talks about the "explosion of stand-alone, full-stack digital health startups that take the form of a virtual clinic and compete directly with traditional providers for patients" and how many of these companies require similar backend infrastructure. Over the past months we have seen a number of infrastructure companies capitalize on this opportunity and lots of new Saas companies have emerged who exist to serve the needs of digital health companies and healthcare systems / professionals looking to 'go digital'.
As a follow-up to its initial post a16z has now released a new database of digital health SaaS, that is updated on a regular basis. It's a great overveiw and definitely one to bookmark for anyone building (or investing *hinthint* in our space!
