Santa Clara, Calif. – October 18, 2019 – Today we celebrate the World Menopause Day, designated by the International Menopause Society in collaboration with the World Health Organization, to raise awareness of midlife women’s health. By 2025, there will be over 1 billion women experiencing menopause in the world, which will be 12% of the entire world population of 8 billion, according to the United Nations, World Population Prospects 2019. These women deserve specialized treatment and better gynecology services.
“The femtech (female technology) industry can find strong applications in menopause management,” said Chandni Mathur, Transformational Health Industry Analyst with Frost & Sullivan. “Certain digital health start-ups have been quick to identify this opportunity and offer B2C digital health tools such as mobile apps to guide menopausal women through this phase with lifestyle intervention tips and, more recently, online telehealth consultations.”
A select few femtech companies are pioneering a revolution in women’s health:
- Genneve offers an online menopause assessment and launched an online telehealth clinic early this year. Women can take telehealth appointments via video chat with healthcare practitioners in their state; most of the practitioners are certified by the North American Menopause Society (NAMS). Video consultations are out-of-pocket expenses and priced at $65 for a physician and $45 for a nurse. The company also provides curated content and nutrition and lifestyle recommendations for each woman’s unique situation based on their assessment. The company began as an online original content publisher and now sells feminine care products.
- Rory starts the consumer’s journey with a telehealth consultation that costs $15. Board-certified, US-licensed physicians review the information and make a personalized treatment recommendation. They also prescribe medication for hot flashes, vaginal dryness, sleep and loss of eyelashes—both prescription and OTC—which are also available on the portal and start as low as $13. The medication is delivered to the woman’s address, quickly and discreetly.
- Lisa Health is another start-up that is working to support women approaching menopause with accurate information. It starts with the users taking an online assessment of their current health and mood status. The company aims to specialize in providing information on lifestyle interventions as a safe and assured way to manage symptoms.
- AI (acquired by supplement start-up Seed Health) is a platform to better understand menopause and offers personalized OTC solutions for menopausal women.
Most women from Generation X, who are now in their late 40s and approaching menopause, are technologically proficient and digitally literate. They manage their lives, relationships and finances using social media as well as new technologies. These women are comfortable with their smartphones, well aligned to the concept of “digitization of health,” and provide a strong addressable market for femtech companies. Femtech saw funding worth $241 million in the first quarter of 2019 and we have seen strong activity in the areas of menstrual health and pregnancy. In addition, Frost & Sullivan predicts a femtech market potential of $50 billion by 2025.
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