Women’s Health Reimagined - Talking Tech's Panel Discussion

With a potential market of 50% of the world’s population, the #femtech industry has huge potential. Women’s health, which for so long has been a Cinderella subject in the broader medical field, has in recent years come in to the spotlight. It makes sense that tech would follow suit.

Tonight’s panel discussion hosted by #SODA Socials drew interesting insights from figures in leading women’s health companies like Flo and Elvie. Tackling big questions like data security and challenges in securing funding, the panelists shared their experience in this important field.

Panel discussion:

Femtech is taking off and developments in the area are long overdue. Pablo Solano, Product Designer Manager from Flo, explains how the period tracking app has branched out from a simple cycle calendar app to an emotional communication tool, allowing women to communicate how they feel to their partner via the app.

The latter development was an example of user-driven feedback, which the team took to heart in the app’s development and is now a successful and profitable feature. Whilst I’m not sure whether digital notifications should be the default method of communication in a relationship, if it leads to an open discussion, I suppose that’s a good thing.

Smriti Garga, Senior Product Manager at Elvie, led questions about the particular challenges femtech products face. Using the examples from Elvie’s early days, where founder Tania Boler faced VC pushback about a ‘niche’ product (that pertains to almost 4 billion people), Garga explained how even today the word ‘vagina’ can put investors off. But their products, including their lauded breast pump and digitised pelvic floor trainer, help women manage important features of their health and as the taboo lifts, the industry is likely to go from strength to strength.

The last panelist, Rachel O’Donnell, raised an optimistic vision of the future, championing coding and open discussion of women’s health. Giving useful suggestions like how to make a successful product (look at competitors and work out a niche) and survive a hackathon, O’Donnell spoke to the more tech-literate members of the audience.

The future:

As ever, AI seems to generate a lot of the buzz for the future, with belief that symptom-checking, cycle-analysing chatbots are likely to be key in the field. Yet again tech experts feel the future lies in having an AI intermediary between patient and physician. They may well be right.

Personally, I am looking forward to smart tech that can actually help in diagnosis or better yet, symptom control for many women’s health issues. I think products that have potentially huge impact include self-sampling for cervical cancer (for example Teal) and menopausal symptom control e.g. Grace’s hot flush-combatting bracelet.

For too long women’s health has been a neglected and shamed field. I’m glad I live in an era that sees it given the attention, technological and otherwise, that is deserves.