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...
- The Stigmatization of Women's Health, An Inclusive Approach to Fertility & The Rise of Hybrid Care
- A Typology of Innovations in Primary Care
- ✨ Startup Spotlight: Pregnancy loss, biomarkers in menstrual blood & health literacy for young women going through college
- And more!
🔥 Headlines: What got our community talking last week
➡️ Emjoy: And the Stigmatization of Women's Health Continues...
Last Friday it happened again. A women's health company got censored by big tech. And this time it wasn't "just" about ads. Emjoy an audio erotica app got banned from Google Play in the same week the app was featured as app of the week in Apple's App Store... Read more
➡️ Fertility: Not just a women's issue
Two weeks ago male fertility startup LEGACY announced a partnership with RESOLVE, the National Infertility Association (U.S.) to "rebalance the responsibility of family planning and change the outdated view that fertility is a “women’s issue." Also last week WeNatal launched a new line of prenatal supplements deliberately designed for both him and her. Are these news an indication that the conversation around fertility is slowly changing to a more inclusive one? 🤔 #wesurehopeso
➡️ Hybrid Care Is (Still) on the Rise
We talk about digital health *a lot* here on Femtech Insider but it is without a doubt that hybrid care models are on the rise. Last week saw a new partnership with UCSF Health for Tia aka expansion in the Bay Area, the opening of Kindbody's first clinic in Washington D.C. and Kiira, the digital health startup focused on serving young women of color, that got its start on U.S. college campuses, opened its first in-person clinic in Los Angeles. The transition from virtual care to virtual-first care, it is happening, my friends... 🚀 For those looking for more background on this: Joe Connolly's post "The Future of Healthcare: Virtual First" from a little more than a year ago, it still our go-to read on this.
A Typology of Innovations in Primary Care
As concerns about the sustainability of the U.S. primary care system grow, an era of innovation is emerging in response to both the challenges and the opportunities in the field. Numerous new models of primary care financing and delivery are rapidly arising throughout the country, and some see this as a possible savior for primary care.
But, in many ways, these changes could either fail to meet the hype around them, or in some cases even hasten the end of the independent primary care practices that once dominated the physician landscape. How do we evaluate these myriad developments and their implications from a policy, practice, and patient perspective?
A recent report in NEJM titled "Making Sense of New Approaches to Primary Care Delivery: A Typology of Innovations in Primary Care" attempted to answer this question and to provide a framework for further analysis and evaluation.
Startup Spotlight
Wanna know which startups get us excited these days? Below are a few of our recent (femtech-healthtech-ish) discoveries. This week we want to share some *VERY* early stage-ish new companies we've seen that make us go "Oh. Well that's interesting!" 👀
Fortisana Health is on a mission to "democratize women's health". The startup's focus is on education for now: "Leaving for college and moving to a new environment is challenging on its own. On top of that, it is also a transitional period for the female body. Our goal is to help college-aged females understand their body better and take control of their own health."
Seek is working on building "a new era in aftercare". The startup offers at-home digital care plans for recovery from all forms of pregnancy loss including miscarriage and abortion. The offering covers mental health, hormones, trauma, sex, relationships. Plans are created by experts in integrative medicine,
Woost is aiming to track biomarkers in menstrual blood to help women with the diagnosis of gynaecological conditions.
The Week Ahead
- Monday: Attend EIT Health Germany: Community and Education in Action by EIT Health!
- Tuesday: Attend Femtech Untapped: Holistic Approach to Menstrual Health by Women of Wearables!
- Wednesday: Attend Pathways in Machine Learning and AI by DeepLearning.AI!
- Thursday: Attend Femtech Untapped: Sexual Health and Wellness Redefined by Women of Wearables!
- Friday: Attend Hackathon Pitch Day!by Vision Health Pioneers!
