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Earlier this year, Eli Lilly Lily Directis an online pharmacy and telemedicine platform that helps diabetes, obesity and migraine patients find doctors, book appointments and get their medications delivered directly to them.
For those in the Femtech industry, this model will be familiar. Last 5 yearsThe market is flooded with telemedicine startups with similar structures. From Alloy Women’s HealthSpecializing in menopausal disorders, infertility treatment and neonatal treatmentIntensive Maven Clinic.
Some companies Celebrity endorsements Flashy seed funding has made it seem like the market is exploding, but by some standards, femtech is indeed growing: A slew of women-focused telemedicine and digital health companies have grown rapidly, making it a $28 billion market last year. Estimated to reach It is expected to be worth $103 billion by the end of 2030. This fast-growing sector has also given birth to several unicorn companies, such as Maven Clinic. $1 billion milestone in 2021.
However, femtech is far from reaching its full potential, with the market only accounting for a small portion of overall digital health investment.
“Even in the best of times, investment in women’s technology represents around 6% to 7% of total digital health funding[globally],” says Rinita Das, partner and senior vice president of healthcare and life sciences at market research firm Frost & Sullivan. In some years, that figure has fallen to just 4%.
“Very few venture capitalists are actually supporting this,” Das said.
Meanwhile, the pharmaceutical industry’s interest in women’s medicines has changed dramatically in recent years. Last year, Astellas Pharma won approval for the first time for a drug targeted at women. Non-hormonal menopausal medicationsrepresents a major shift in innovation in women’s health. Bayer’s transition from women’s health Last year’s research and development also revealed that pharmaceutical companies are investing more of their research funds into oncology, immunology, cardiovascular problems and advanced treatments for several diseases.
While the launch of LillyDirect highlights the pharmaceutical industry’s increasing interest in direct-to-consumer models, the focus on diabetes shows how the industry continues to overlook the potential of women’s health, Das said.
Das pointed out that compared with menopause, “diabetes is not a big disease in terms of the population.” Approximately 422 million people 1.1 billion people worldwide have diabetes Will reach menopause by 2025.
Moreover, menopause “lasts for 20 years,” Das said, and the average woman spends 40 percent of her life in and after menopause, experiencing a range of health conditions that are attributable to menopause, such as hot flashes and night sweats. Cardiovascular Problems and Autoimmune disorders.
“There is no other product that can support a woman’s entire life from start to finish.”
Rinita Das
Partner and Senior Vice President, Healthcare & Life Sciences, Frost & Sullivan
“So many illnesses are emerging from this one disease. On top of that, we also have mental health issues,” Das said.
Valentina Sartori, a partner at McKinsey & Company, echoed similar sentiments, comparing diabetes to endometriosis, another disease that only affects women.
“Although the prevalence of diabetes is the same, there are probably only 10 to 20 assets in the endometriosis drug pipeline,” Sartori said, adding that there are hundreds of assets in the diabetes drug pipeline.
As femtech companies face a tough investment market and the pharmaceutical industry juggles other R&D priorities, there are several untapped opportunities in the women’s health space. Here are three strategies Das and Sartori suggest for successful women’s health investments in the pharmaceutical and femtech industries.
Rethinking the term “women’s health”
Sartori says that when analyzing the women’s health market, she is often told to “talk to companies that focus on contraception or menopause,” when in reality, women’s health is much more than just reproductive and sexual health.
a McKinsey Health Institute Report A study published earlier this year and co-authored by Sartori showed that sexual and reproductive health, along with maternal, newborn and child health, accounted for just 5% of women’s health burden, and 56% of that burden was due to diseases that are more prevalent or manifest differently in women, such as headache disorders, autoimmune diseases, atrial fibrillation and colorectal cancer.
“If you look at the immunology portfolio, the oncology portfolio, the cardiovascular portfolio, you’re there,” she said of pharmaceutical companies that she believes don’t operate in the women’s health space.
In fact, when strategizing their approach to women’s health, pharma and femtech companies often focus on menopause, family planning, or other individual aspects of a woman’s life, missing out on the opportunity to offer an end-to-end solution.
“There’s no product that supports a woman’s entire life from start to finish,” Das said. “Right now, that doesn’t exist. All these companies are isolated.”
Femtech’s hybrid model is the best
Many femtech companies connect women with doctors through telemedicine, including video calls and asynchronous, chat-based care. From there, doctors may prescribe medications like birth control or estrogen cream. Some platforms also have digital tools to help users find local doctors.
But Das believes the best femtech models will take a hybrid approach, offering telemedicine and online medical services as well as in-person care through their own brick-and-mortar clinics.
“Is the virtual care model, by itself, very effective? No,” she says. “Because at the end of the day, consumers want convenience, but hybrid models that still have some face-to-face interaction and get into the care setting are most effective.”
Without face-to-face interaction, telemedicine physicians only know patients as numbers in their charts, which can limit the care they can provide and the prescriptions they can recommend.
“The problem with[telehealth only]is that it’s too general. How does the doctor understand me holistically? Maybe I have a blood pressure problem, maybe I’m having trouble sleeping, maybe I have a hormone imbalance,” Das said. “The level of detail can be very basic.”
According to Das, successful femtech companies that have adopted this hybrid approach include Maven Clinic and Tia.
Don’t forget women over 40
While some femtech companies are focusing on care for women over 40, Das says there still aren’t enough to meet the demand, and that’s true across the board: Most investments in women’s health are focused on serving younger women.
“When you look at the female economy today from the perspective of women’s health, unfortunately 80% of the funding is focused on everything that’s happening to women under 40, and there’s very little happening in terms of digital solutions for women after 40,” Das says. “There’s a mismatch between products, funding and services that are only targeted to a very large group.”
Menopause and related disorders also represent a huge untapped market.
“This is a disease that affects 100 percent of the population, yet it has been understudied for many years,” Sartori said.
There’s also an opportunity for pharmaceutical and femtech companies to educate women about what happens to their bodies at this stage in life. Research suggests Women often don’t understand or recognize the symptoms of menopause.
These factors have limited market penetration and awareness of Femtech companies.
“It’s still very small… (and) for the sake of women’s health, we need to educate the general public even more,” Das said.
