Women of Wearables First Virtual Global FemTech Forum
This week Women of Wearables hosted its first virtual conference about FemTech. The forum included only panels, with female founders, investors and journalists discussing a variety of different topics. I enjoyed the panel format as it fostered conversations and less of lectures plugging certain companies or services. The virtual format was nice because it allowed women across the board to connect, chat, provide additional resources and easily ask questions during the panels. It was exciting to see more and more companies/resources/women involved in the FemTech spaces and I personally find it inspiring that I am constantly discovering new names and organizations. I think it would have been great to highlight some of the more emerging areas in the FemTech space that are not fertility/pregnancy/period related and have a bit more diverse panels, but there’s always room in upcoming conferences. I also think it would have been nice to start each panel with a very short 5-minute educational lecture giving some background about each topic, but I did enjoy the fact that the forum was conversation-oriented.
A few key highlights from the day:
The complexity and importance of balancing data privacy, digital health technology and promoting research in women’s health.
The importance of being mission driven, having a guiding intended use of data, receiving clinical guidance and bringing leading OB-GYNs into this space
Much progress has been made in the past few years in terms of openness of VCs, research policy and education, but there still remains a long way to go
Diversity and accessibility are still big obstacles to overcome in the FemTech space
The power of supporting female founders and initiatives financially in order to see change; companies can bring to the front education and change the conversation but they need funding to start and scale.
There were 8 panels throughout the day, but I have highlighted three of them below:
The Gender Gap in Medical Research
Speakers: Jill Angelo, Founder and CEO of Gennev; Ilka Schellschmidt, Head of Women’s Health Clinical Development and trained OB/GYN at Bayer; Helene Guillaume, founder and CEO of WILD.AI; Dr. Brittany Barreto, co-founder and Executive Director of Femtech Focus; The panel was moderated by Laura Lovett, Managing Editor of MobiHealthNews
A few key takeaways:
History of gender gap in the US:
In 1977 the FDA limited all women from being in clinical drug trials because researchers realized drugs could negatively affect embryos
In 1994 the NIH mandated the inclusion of women in clinical trials
In 2014 the NIH required grant applicants to include a plan to balance male and female animal studies or cells (80% of research is done on male mice, male animal models & male cells)
Only in 2016 did the NIH mandate that biological sex be considered as a factor in research (a lot of previous research does not take gender into consideration)
Dr. Barreto discussed that genetic sequencing has only been done on white males and the implications for women and minorities: personalized medicine is currently for white males
Underrepresentation of non-white females in women’s health research, FemTech companies, & VCs and the importance of changing this
Jill Angelo said that 50,000 women have completed the Gennev menopause assessment so far, although less than 15% of respondents have been women of color. Companies need to be intentional and seek out these communities.
Dr. Barreto highlighted the distrust within minority communities and the healthcare system/providers that has historically not served them well and how we have a long way to go to bring about change
The only way to really see major changes is by making sure that senior representation of academy/companies/VCs include females and minorities
Ilka Schellschmidt highlighted that academia does not have the same funding as pharma companies. If someone wants to highlight diabetes or kidney disease they have limited funding and want to get the most out of their clinical trial. Society needs to force the inclusion of women so that it will be possible to give advice on health outcomes for women.
Is Sexual Wellness Still a Taboo in Business and Venture Capital?
Speakers: Lora Haddock DiCarlo, Founder and CEO at Lora DiCarlo; Dr. Jane van Dis, Medical Director at Maven Clinic; Trish Costello, Founder and CEO of Portfolia; Billie Quinlan, Founder and CEO of Ferly; The panel was moderated by Bérénice Magistretti, FemTech Journalist and Angel Investor
A few key takeaways:
Importance of sex education and how it’s not a big part of school curriculums, or, as Dr. Jane van Dis mentioned, not a big part of medical education
Lora DiCarlo highlighted how companies in this space actually have the unique opportunity to bring to the front sex education because they are becoming the go to resources for women across different age groups
Interesting debate about Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop series – is it positive to get the conversation about sexual health in mainstream media even though a fair amount of the facts might be wrong or misleading?
There are funds helping founders get initial seed money, but still a big gap for larger funds down the road. Trish Costello repeatedly highlighted the importance of more women putting money into small business or we won’t see any progress in the field.
Angel Capital Association: way more women as angels than VCs and they are way more likely to put an investment in and coach founders
Importance of starting to use the correct female anatomical names to normalize the use of the words and educate females about their bodies
How many women actually know the difference between vulva and vagina?
Given the topic, I thought it would have been a great opportunity to have highlight the female anatomy and start the session with a short review/graphic with definitions.
Some resources highlighted: Angel Capital Association, Women of Sex Tech
Balancing Trust, Privacy and Innovation in FemTech
Speakers: Nicole Leeds, New Business & Go-to-Market Strategy Lead at Clue; Dr Stephanie Kuku, MD, Senior consultant at Hardian Health; Clinical Entrepreneur at NHS and Senior Advisor at World Health Organization; Natasha Singh, Principal Consultant - Privacy & Data Protection at Gemserv; Thérèse Mannheimer, Founder and CEO of Grace Health; The panel discussion was moderated by Marina Gerner, a journalist writing for the Guardian, the Times’ Raconteur special reports, the Wall Street Journal and more.
A few key takeaways:
Interesting debate about the separation between data that’s collected because of intended use and data that might be relevant in the future.
Dr. Kuku: Bar should be different between what technology is collecting and what a gynecologist is collecting.
Nicole Leeds: Not so simple. Clue wasn’t collecting age and then after GDPR needed to figure out which users were under the age of 13. If companies need to be able to segment their users and are expected to provide a personalized experience, it’s not like a doctor’s office that can call you, it needs to be built into the initial app experience.
Thérèse Mannheimer: Intended use can change but need to make sure that companies are implementing privacy by design and protecting the privacy of their user base
Data is important for innovation. If don’t have data then can’t run research.
Nicole Leeds brought up the need for trusted institutions who do objective reviews of the privacy foundation of FemTech/HealthTech solutions. There is a need for a trusted website for consumers to look up companies and find out about their data privacy rankings.
Dr. Kuku believes that many companies in the FemTech space are not bringing in clinicians, are not asking the right questions and are not mission-driven. There is a lot of opportunities for responsible data sharing (endometriosis, cervical cancer, etc.) but we are not currently maximizing the potential of the market (and partnering with organization such as the NHS on research).
Money-oriented egg freezing companies are taking advantage of consumers.
Apple announced last week at WWDC20 that they will be implementing a privacy dashboard. It will be interesting to see how they do it and the implications for 3rd party apps.