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...
- Highlights: Ecosystem & Employer Strategies
- Web3 & Healthcare
- Osteoporosis 101
- Startup Spotlight: Aila Health, Bodily & Butterfly Biosciences
- And more!
Highlights
➡️ Ecosystem: Accelerators & Co
It's been a somewhat quiet week in women's health when it comes to funding rounds, but lots has been happening in the broader ecosystem that we thought was worth mentioning today:
- Women's health VC fund Goddess Gaia Ventures is teaming up with P4 Precision Health Accelerator with plans to launch a new accelerator program focused on women's health (Link)
- The Digital Therapeutics Alliance is partnering with Europe-based Healthware Group form a new coalition convening thought leaders, policymakers, professional and trade associations in the region and scale access to Digital Therapeutics (Link)
- Korian and Kamet Ventures announced a new partnership with the goal to co-create and accelerate digital health solutions for better chronic disease management (Link)
➡️ The Employer Play
Noteworthy as of late is also the shift to B2B business models by a number of companies in our space. Anecdotal evidence of larger trend? That is yet to be seen... A few examples for this shift are Syrona, who pivoted their business model during their stint at Y-Cominator, Flo Health, who launched their women's health focused employee benefit, as well as FOLX Health, who added a B2B offering targeting employers as well.
Web3 meets Health
Since the article we shared last week on DAOs in healthcare led to quite a bit of discussion we thought we'd follow up this week with one of our favorite pieces on the opportunities at the intersection of Web3 and Health.
In her article Web3 and Health - Could It Be?, What the Health's Emily Casey outlines some practical applications she envisions blockchain technology could have in the world of healthcare. Among them:
- NFTs, fractionalization and Tokens for IP
- Decentralised Scientific Journals
- Gamification - On Chain
- Incentivisation at its finest
- Pay-To-Move
- Communities and Brands
- The Classic - Health Data
- New Ways of Funding, Forming & Owning Research & Companies
Spotlight: Osteoporosis
Last week we spent quite a bit of time thinking about osteoporosis. Why you may ask... 👇
- We learned about Solarea Bio, who are currently running a menopause/osteoporosis clinical trial in Australia (see last week's Inner Circle brief).
- Women's health pharma company Organon signed a licensing deal with Henlius, a Chinese biotech company, for biosimilars targeting osteoporosis and breast cancer
But what even is osteoporosis? And why are we discussing it in the context of women's health. Read on for a quick Osteoporosis 101!
🤔 What is osteoporosis?
Bone is living tissue. This means that in order to keep bones strong, the body breaks down old bone and replaces it with new bone tissue. Sometime around age 30, bone mass stops increasing, and the goal for bone health is to keep as much bone as possible for as long as you can. Osteoporosis causes bones to become weak and brittle, which increases the risk of fracture. Osteoporosis-related fractures most commonly occur in the hip, wrist or spine.
Osteoporosis affects men and women of all races. But white and Asian women, especially older women who are past menopause, are at highest risk. According to research "women start losing bone at an earlier age and at a faster rate than men. Women ≥ 50 years of age have a four times higher rate of osteoporosis and a two times higher rate of osteopenia, and they tend to have fractures 5 - 10 years earlier compared with men."
Medications, healthy diet and weight-bearing exercise are recommended for prevention. Treatment for already established osteoporosis "may include exercise, vitamin and mineral supplements, and medications."
🚀 Who's innovating?
Bone Health Technologies' OsteoBoost is the first vibration belt specifically designed for the prevention of osteoporosis.
Juvent Health delivers clinically validated solutions to improve musculoskeletal health. Their patented Micro-Impact Platform has clinically demonstrated the ability to help users manage their osteoporosis and improve bone health non-invasively.
Solarea is a biotech company pioneering a “medical food” platform that's based on harnessing the microbiome. One of their first products focuses on osteoporosis.
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 companies we've seen that make us go "Oh. Well that's interesting!" 👀
Aila Health: "Aila Health is a virtual-first specialty care company for people living with autoimmune conditions"
Bodily: "Through evidence-based research and design-led products, we make solutions for living confidently in our bodies starting with pregancy"
Butterfly Biosciences: "Minimally invasive capture of human eggs & embryos from the uterus for treatment of infertility & fertility preservation"
