reproductive health – TechCrunch

A number of promising health technology companies have emerged in recent years, from fertility applications to ovulation bracelets – even Apple has embarked on the subject with the addition of tracking the embedded period in the last edition of the watch. But there was not much in the way of innovation badual health of women for decades.

In vitro fertilization (IVF) is now a 40-year-old invention and even the largest pharmaceutical companies have spent a lot of time on research and development. Subjects such as polycystic ovarian syndrome, endometriosis and menopause have taken precedence over other more deadly concerns. Fertility is often itself a mysterious black box, although 10% of the female population in the United States has difficulty getting or staying pregnant.

All of this is starting to change, as startups are now bringing millions of dollars in venture capital to collect and treat women's health. Although in its infancy (not yet unicorns), interest in the subject has increased steadily each year.

In order to better understand the importance of technology's role in stimulating innovation in female fertility, we interviewed five space-pbadionate VCs for their investment strategies, including Sarah Cone (Social Impact Capital). ), Vanessa Larco (NEA), Anu Duggal (Female Founders Fund), Jess Lee (Sequoia) and Nancy Brown (Oak HC / FT).

Sarah Cone, Social Impact Capital

We are interested in companies that are creating large sets of data on women's health and fertility, enabling personalized medicine, virtualization of clinical trials, better outcomes for patients and the application of modern AI techniques. ML to generate hypotheses to discover new targets and molecules.

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Historically, women's health is a huge but underserved market. The main reason is the lack of investment in R & D. Of the 25 largest pharmaceutical companies, only 7 have pipelines for women's health, and of these 7, the average number of drugs on hold is less than 2. In addition, federal research spending is ridiculously low (for example, in 2015, 0.023% of NIH grants went to women's health research.)

However, we are convinced that women's health is the next big market opportunity in the health care sector for a variety of reasons. Many women want children later. There is growing recognition that women's pain is important and different from that of men. Finally, nothing encourages investment in healthcare as a star drug: Elagolix, AbbVie's treatment of endometriosis and uterine fibroids was approved by the FDA last year.

In the longer term, women's health is of particular interest: a new understanding of women's reproductive health will generate new opportunities in other areas, including longevity.

Vanessa Larco, NEA

I think the most interesting opportunities are those that completely change the landscape. If you are only optimizing the current system, I do not think it results in a similar result to a company. There will be interesting data from many startups in this space and, although based on my research, they must be extremely comprehensive, with a large population, which, in my opinion, will not create business value.

I have been a bit biased since investing in Cleo, the parenting platform, but I think postpartum support is one of the most exciting areas. I have collected a lot of research on the funds that have been spent. 4^th Trimester products and services are the most popular venture capital category, the one that receives the most dollars, with fertility and pregnancy in second place and women's overall well-being in third. I thought fertility and pregnancy would be a winner in terms of the amount of venture capital invested, but by taking a step back, 4^th quarter has a bigger market and a seemingly high willingness to pay.

It may seem hyperbolic to say that most of the companies in the category who have raised a Series A are very promising, but that's true. The real challenge was to gain momentum, as I found that only three femtech startups (excluding biopharmacy) had raised a C series (Hims, Roman and Progyny), two of which were men's health startups having launched a SKU for women's health. It has not been easy for these startups to raise funds, but those who have shown great attractiveness.

I think one of the most interesting aspects of this sector is that the fastest growth came from B2B channels. Although these products and services benefit consumers, their cost of acquisition is higher because these companies must inform the consumer of why there is a solution needed or better for them. This higher cost of user acquisition can make the rapid growth of these D2C health startups difficult. So we've seen a shift in which many femtech startups are now targeting employers to see these products / services as a benefit.

I am curious to know how many of these "femtech" startups have been funded by VC women. Has the increase in the number of women hired in the private sector led to an increase in investment in the category?

Historically, why did women have to pay for all these products and services themselves? Although unfair and unfortunate, are we now seeing that the next generation of founders are using this fact to disrupt an industry that has cost consumers a lot and has been broken for seemingly forever?

If insurance starts to pay for these products / services, will it help or hurt industry and consumers? These are the questions I'm fighting myself so I thought I'd share

Anu Duggal, Founders' Fund

We believe that women's health offers tremendous opportunities. As consumers, women control more than $ 3,000 in expenses related to both their own health and that of their family and take 80% of the household's health care decisions. At the same time, American women continue to have the highest infant and caesarean section rates.

As the first investors in Maven (2014), we have seen a demand for products and services that address the life cycle of women's health needs – from fertility / infertility to pregnancy and post-pregnancy recovery . Kate has been a visionary in identifying this opportunity and has since created a company that has attracted the best consumers and health investors as partners.

After spending time in space, we believe that there is a strong need for differentiated care solutions, based on an understanding of the physiological needs of women, different from men's. From an investment perspective, we focus on chronic diseases, emotional health, depression, fertility, nutrition, offline health care experiences, and elder care – all specific Women's.

Jess Lee, Sequoia Capital

I am really pbadionate about space. After reviewing tons of companies in the sector for 18 months, Sequoia has invested in Maven.

Maven covers maternity, fertility, adoption, surrogacy, loss and return to work (including shipping of bad milk). It is an all-in-one program for families and women for modern businesses wishing to help new parents. You have access through their application to a caretaker and a network of thousands of practitioners, from reproductive endocrinologists to badfeeding / sleep consultants to mental health specialists. Also good content and community.

Fertility is a step of a much longer journey to parenting. We love that Maven has the ability to cover all end-to-end experience. We also fell in love with Kate Ryder, CEO and founder of Maven. She is the mother of two children, despite the direction of a company, has the mission to support working parents.

Nancy Brown, oak HC / FT

Women's health is of great interest at many levels:

1. Women control health care and spend for themselves and their families.
2. Women's health is an important but unmanaged expense category for employers, with significant variations in costs per birth despite a limited impact on the quality of care or experience of employees.
3. Personalized care is the key to successful population management and women have unique reproductive needs and other areas of health affected by gender – cardiology, nutrition, oncology, etc. (in other words, the fact that a person is a woman and the treatment may be different.
4. Giving care to patients where they are (virtual care at work or at home) is an important trend and we believe that Millennials with a specific demand are related to how they access maternity and fertility. Virtualization is also essential to help women balance work and family. With 50% of women who do not return to work after their first baby, we must support the ability to be a mother and work.