Innovation within the female health sector has been largely overlooked for decades. To this day, women’s health remains a niche industry and a taboo topic around the world.
The big question: why?
The answer points mainly to a need for more female-specific studies and data in healthcare. Historically, most clinical trials were based on male physiology. Female health was understudied for many years, leaving it to fall by the wayside.
However, in recent years there has been growing awareness of the gender gap in healthcare and the need for healthcare tailored to women’s health. Digital healthcare has a massive role to play by providing more adaptive information and care to women.
What is FemTech exactly?
The term ‘FemTech’ was first used in 2016 by Ida Tin, co-founder of Clue (the most trusted female health app worldwide.) Since then, FemTech has grown to encompass an entire industry dedicated to improving specific healthcare offerings for women through the power of technology.
FemTech offers a variety of solutions to enhance healthcare for women across a number of female-specific conditions, including fertility, menopause, contraception, and maternal, menstrual, pelvic, and sexual health.
FemTech also addresses a number of general health conditions that disproportionately or differently affect women such as osteoporosis or cardiovascular disease. Despite the fact that it’s still early, studies show that the processes underpinning FemTech are speeding up: Public understanding, business creation, and finance are all rising.
How is FemTech disrupting women’s health?
FemTech is a fast-growing industry filled with companies that are disrupting healthcare. So far, there have been major breakthroughs across multiple areas.
These include:
- Promoting self-care: FemTech solutions assist women in better control of their health and health-related data, including trackers and wearables supplied by businesses like Bloomlife and at-home tests like those given by Modern Fertility.
- Better healthcare delivery: Innovative clinics like Kindbody, online clinics like Tia, and direct-to-consumer prescription delivery businesses like The Pill Club all make it easier for women to obtain treatment in a way that prioritises the needs of the consumer.
- Providing care that is culturally sensitive and individualised: Subpopulation-specific solutions are developing for Black women (Health in Her HUE), LGBTQ+ groups (FOLX Health), and women in low- and middle-income nations (Kasha).
- Engaging stigmatised topics: Businesses are actively tackling what was formerly seen as taboo subjects, such as menstruation health (Thinx), sexual health (Rosy Wellness), pelvic care (Elvie), and menopause (Elektra Health).
- Enhanced diagnoses: To better diagnose conditions like endometriosis (DotLab) and premature delivery, clinical diagnostics firms are pushing the boundaries of science (Sera Prognostics).
What does the FemTech market look like?
Although female health remains a subset of the healthcare industry, FemTech’s market growth speaks volumes about its potential and inevitable change into one of the biggest markets in healthcare.
With a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15.2%, the worldwide FemTech market size increased from $32.44 billion in 2022 to $37.39 billion in 2023. It is projected to grow to $68.90 billion by 2027 at a CAGR of 16.5%.
Seeing the growth of the FemTech market, even during difficult global economic times, shows that digital innovations are having a large impact on the future of healthcare.
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Leverage Experts regularly investigates how technology is changing the healthcare industry. We provide services to our customers that will help them join the healthcare market or help them adapt to technological change while already operating in the sector. Contact one of our experts today.
Nancy is a Senior Researcher and data analyst within the LE research team. Her research interest is focused on the interlink between disruptive technologies and the transformation of business models in various industries. This includes the digitisation of the healthcare sector, the evolving crypto eco-system, and the application of AI technologies. She contributes to the client’s success by identifying specific trends and opportunities for private equity investors, delivering diligent analysis on competitors and marketplaces, key stakeholders in evolving markets, and global investment trends in various industries.
Nancy builds on a comprehensive and diverse hands-on experience for change and transformation from managerial roles in the East African and GCC Healthcare systems. In addition, she has an MBA from Quantic School of Business and Technology, Washington D.C., and a qualification on AI in the Healthcare System from Stanford University.