Can Femtech Transform Women’s Healthcare?

March 13, 2023

The unique health-related challenges women face throughout their lives are diverse and profound, including conditions associated with menstruation, pregnancy, the post-partum period, peri-menopause and menopause. Many needs specific to women’s health remain under- or unmet today. Lingering taboos around menstruation, pregnancy and menopause have left these areas severely under-researched or neglected. However, things finally seem to be changing. In 2021, the New York Times asked whether “Femtech,” -- technology-based diagnostic tools, products, services, wearables and software that address women's reproductive health issues, -- was the “Next Big Thing in Health Care.”

Women’s health: a history of neglect with deadly consequences

For a long time, medical trials did not include women. A New York Times article from April 2021, talks about this, citing Michelle Tempest, a partner at the London-based health care consultancy Candesic:

[O]ne 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 U.S. Food and Drug Administration excluded women of childbearing age from taking part in drug trials. Since then, women have been underrepresented in drug trials, Dr. 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.

This means that many of the drugs and treatments we use today were created to suit the biology of men and could affect women’s bodies differently. Being part of a medical trial is not only about developing a new drug and making sure it works with minimal harm, it’s also about understanding how it affects the body more generally. If women are not included in medical trials, the effects of any new drug on the body are not fully tested.

Cardiovascular disease is a good example of what can happen when the needs of men and women are not taken into consideration. Commonly viewed as a problem that mainly affects men, research into cardiovascular disease and corresponding drug development has traditionally focused on men.

When women develop cardiovascular disease they often have different symptoms from men and may not even know they are suffering a cardiac event. Indeed, the treatment of a woman who suffers a heart attack is further complicated by the fact that available treatments, which have been developed mainly with men in mind, may not be well-targeted to a woman’s biology. As a consequence, when a woman suffers a heart attack she is more likely to die than a man.

Women’s health, women’s wisdom

Medical research and product developers finally seem to be paying more attention to women and their needs. This new “health revolution” is called Femtech, a term coined in 2016 by the co-founder of Clue, a menstrual health app. Femtech refers to technology-based solutions that cater to women’s health. It is a large and diverse market with solutions targeting menstruation, fertility, pregnancy, maternity, sexual health, menopause, and women’s health in general.

Femtech is often developed by women, for women. Some examples include devices that use smartphones and artificial intelligence to screen for cervical cancer, technologies to support people in the aftermath of breast cancer, and smart bracelets that inform wearers when they’re ovulating.

The emergence of these technologies is encouraging, but challenges remain to ensure that these products are suited to women around the globe. The Femtech industry currently caters largely to the needs of western consumers. The aim therefore, is to extend the industry’s reach to the many women and girls in rural parts of the developing world to offer them the same opportunities to safeguard their reproductive health. Fortunately, we are seeing a number of tailored solutions coming to the local market in a variety of settings. These include, for example, Aurat Raaj-- an online tool created in Pakistan that provides information about menstrual hygiene and reproductive health via a local language chat bot.

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The untapped potential is huge, and big events, such as the Femtechnology Summit are taking place, and re-defining the future of health innovation for women.

Weak links in the growth of Femtech

Femtech could very well play a lead role in defining the future of health innovation for women. After all, half of the world is its target market. But with decades, even centuries, of pent-up demand, is it moving fast enough?

The Femtech sector has seen massive growth in recent years. This is proof that women have eagerly awaited the many solutions it offers. While this is good news, the industry continues to face barriers and challenges – including deep-rooted attitudes towards women’s health, which put a brake on progress.

These taboos affect funding. The Femtech industry is expected to grow to USD 1.07 trillion by 2026. Although this sounds impressive, it only accounted for 3% of health technology funding for women-led companies in 2020 – and only 0.64% was allocated to businesses led by women of color. The lack of funding for women-led businesses is a major challenge to the further development of Femtech, a “by women, for women” movement.

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Femtech also has a long way to go to cover the full range of women’s health-related issues. Funding is often focused on contraception, fertility, pregnancy and maternity, with less investment in technologies that address menstruation, menopause, mental health and sexual wellbeing. An article by Swissquote suggests this is because where women typically develop Femtech, men generally fund these initiatives.

Marwan Elfitesse, head of the startup programs at Station F says: “Since most investors are men, they struggle to see the business opportunity of femtechs that are active in sectors other than fertility (as this also concerns men).”

Clearly, there is still work to be done to educate investors in this sector about the benefits of addressing women’s reproductive health more broadly, and the business opportunities that lie therein.

Femtech in 2023 and beyond

Where is Femtech going? According to Cybernews, thanks to the recent drive to raise awareness about women’s healthcare issues, in 2023 as the industry moves into the mainstream, we will start to see research, funding and investment in developing technologies and products that address menstrual pain and women’s overall health.

Longer term, how do we ensure that the trend to innovate in the area of women’s health continues to grow? Ensuring that Femtech innovators have solid intellectual property (IP) strategies in place is a good place to start. According to the podcast Femtech: Innovating for women’s health, Femtech is one of the fastest growing areas in IP.

WIPO and Women in IP

This year’s World Intellectual Property Day campaign is dedicated to Women and IP. Our aim is to encourage more women to use the IP system to support their goals and help accelerate innovation and creativity, including in the Femtech space. Find out how you can engage in this year’s campaign and what you can to support women’s use of the IP system.

World IP Day Gallery

As part of the 2023 World Intellectual Property Day campaign, WIPO is featuring World IP Day Gallery, celebrating innovative, creative and enterprising women around the world.

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