The femtech sector is currently one of the fastest growing consumer health segments, offering huge opportunities to target the traditionally underserved needs of women. Having grown significantly over recent years, with companies looking to focus on the use of technology to improve many aspects of women’s health, the sector still faces challenges particular from a lack of investors willing to fund innovations.
The market potential of Femtech is huge!
While the industry was valued at US $1.1 billion in 2017, recent research suggests that it has the potential to reach US $9.4 billion by 2024. This is an extremely conservative valuation given that estimates suggest that US $200 billion is currently spent on femtech products annually.
At the same time, data from the wider economy suggests that women globally control about $20 trillion in annual consumer spending, a figure set to rise to $28 trillion over the next five years. With figures like these health & wellbeing investors and startups need to take note of the massive opportunity. This means both ensuring that products are designed and developed to offer equitable access to the best innovations in healthcare and wellbeing and providing a level playing field in the venture investment community.
The challenges facing the femtech industry and the wider role of female founders, board members, and investors was the topic at a recent event for our HealthTech Networking Club. The panel bought together leading femtech founders for a truly insightful discussion around some of these key issues.
Following the event we spoke to panellist Lindsey Williams, Co-Founder of MyUTI, Inc. a femtech company designed to directly take on the gaps and fractured models that exist in clinical diagnostics for women suffering from chronic and stubborn urinary tract infections. MyUTI combines an educational platform to bring awareness to the advanced molecular diagnostics available for chronic and recurrent UTI with a solution designed to facilitate the way women access care and treatment.
Here, Lindsay outlines several key points raised during the panel session alongside the personal experiences she has faced as a female founder looking to bring a femtech innovation to market:
What do you see as the biggest opportunities for femtech innovations?
We believe that chronic conditions are an untapped opportunity for innovation. Only 1% of the existing femtech companies address women’s chronic health conditions even though it represents a $218B market share. MyUTI is a great example of this, as 80% of women suffer from UTIs but the innovation in the to address the issues has been minimal, at best.
What are some of the main challenges currently facing the industry?
Funding is always an issue. There are many women with ideas on how to address significant issues in the female health space but the opportunities to fund those innovations face significant obstacles compared to other HealthTech sectors.
To what extent do you think femtech solutions can help improve the landscape for equitable healthcare?
We look at femtech as a “4th wave” of feminism… which is really about equality in healthcare. I think women fighting for better access, better research and solutions that match their expectations for convenience will shift the market strategies for the industry that relies on their consumer power. The women we talk to at MyUTI are frustrated with the current system where they don’t feel heard or lack ability to gain easy access to the solutions for their problems. This results in an extended patient journey, and likely contributes to poor outcomes. Solving for those issues can have a major impact on the patient experience while reducing costs to the healthcare system.
How do you see femtech evolving over the next couple of years?
I do think femtech is going to move well beyond the traditional buckets of menstration, maternity and menopause and start to dive deeper into market segments that are adjacent to those huge life shifts for women. Urinary Tract Infections are more common in menopausal women, but it’s often not discussed in the context of being a “menopause issue”.
What advice would you give to someone looking to innovate in this sector?
Listen to women. Women as patients, customers, consumers, and as founders, leaders, and innovators. Listen to women.
Work with experts
Femtech innovators can benefit from working with experts who understand the health technology market and can advise and assist in bringing a product to market and achieving success with customers.
In bene : studio’s non-equity, design, and technology-focused accelerator you can have your product set in line for strategic growth by experienced professionals.