Wellness
Verdane invest in Clue to accelerate the future of women’s health
Clue, the women-led period and cycle tracker health and wellness app, has announced a significant and strategic investment from Verdane – the European specialist growth equity firm focused on technology-enabled businesses.
The investment – which is a substantial contribution from Verdane’s €2 billion growth fund – is the single largest investment in Clue to date and marks a noteworthy milestone for the business.
The funding, which will result in Verdane being the largest investor in the women’s health and wellness app, follows an exceptional 2025 that strengthened Clue’s growth foundations and created a clear path to long-term and sustainable profitability.
With Verdane’s partnership, Clue will accelerate its next phase of growth including:
- Deepening product innovation, user experience and feature development
- Expanding global reach by scaling new and existing markets
- Investing in healthcare partnerships to expand access to more personalised care
- Investing in clinical and world-class research to inform our product excellence and continue to close the women’s health gap
- Strengthening market leading privacy-first and security measures
- Investing in technology that aids in delivering more personalised care
Clue and Verdane are united by a shared belief that women’s health remains one of the most underserved, and most impactful, categories in global health and wellness.
Both organisations recognise the opportunity to build category-defining companies that combine scientific rigor, ethical data practices, and long-term thinking to deliver meaningful outcomes for users and society.
Clue has long differentiated itself through its commitment to medical research, and scientific-based insights, leading data privacy standards, and an inclusive approach to women’s health that goes beyond fertility tracking alone.
Verdane brings deep experience partnering with mission-driven, digital-first companies, helping them scale responsibly while staying true to their values and ethical positioning.
Rhiannon White, CEO at Clue, said: “Women are the world’s largest health and wellness consumers, controlling the majority of household spending in every market, yet they remain strikingly underserved relative to their economic power.
“This gap creates three systemic pain points: a profound lack of accessible female health knowledge that forces women to self-diagnose, a confusing marketplace filled with unproven products and little evidence-based guidance, and persistent barriers to accessing care.
“For businesses, this represents not just a social issue but a significant market failure and a compelling opportunity to build trusted, data driven solutions that meet the needs of the most influential spenders in global health and wellness.
“Partnering with Verdane enables us to accelerate the creation of this powerful ecosystem and tackle these issues for women.
“Verdane’s deep expertise in growing sustainable businesses, combined with their extensive operating experience in the health and wellness space means they bring unparalleled support to the opportunity in front of us.”
Verdane’s investment philosophy, which is centered on sustainable growth, operational excellence and building enduring market leaders, aligns closely with Clue’s ambition to set the global standard for digital women’s health and wellness.
Together, the companies aim to advance the category by investing in research, partnerships, and privacy-first technology.
Christina Stoll, principal at Verdane, said: “We are highly impressed by the Clue management team and the strong momentum the business is demonstrating.
“Clue has earned exceptional user trust by combining the highest data protection standards with rigorous, science-based insights in a category where credibility truly matters.
“Consumer demand and awareness for trusted women’s health solutions continues to accelerate, and Clue is uniquely positioned to lead this space.
“With Verdane’s sector expertise in scaling digital health and wellbeing platforms, we are confident that we can be a strong long-term partner to the team, supporting continued growth, product innovation and an outstanding user experience, while deepening valuable partnerships across the health and wellbeing ecosystem.
“Clue’s women-led, mission-driven approach and focus on meaningful impact strongly align with what Verdane stands for.”
The World Health Organization (WHO) has launched an AI tool in beta to help policymakers, experts and healthcare professionals access sexual and reproductive health information faster.
Called ChatHRP, the tool was created by WHO’s Human Reproduction Programme and draws only on verified research and guidance collected by HRP and WHO.
It uses natural language processing and retrieval-augmented generation to produce referenced content and cut the time spent searching through documents across different platforms and databases.
WHO said ChatHRP also has multilingual capabilities and low-bandwidth functionality to support use in a wide range of settings.
The beta-testing phase is aimed at a broad professional audience, including policymakers, healthcare workers, researchers and civil society groups.
WHO said the tool can help users quickly access up-to-date evidence, find sources for academic work and verify information on sexual and reproductive health and rights.
Examples of questions it can answer include the latest violence against women data in Oceania for women aged 15 to 49, recommendations on managing diabetes during pregnancy, and whether PrEP and contraception can be used at the same time. PrEP is medicine used to reduce the risk of getting HIV.
WHO added that the system will be updated regularly as new HRP materials are published and includes a feedback loop so users can flag gaps in the information provided.
The launch comes amid wider concern about misinformation in sexual and reproductive health.
A 2025 scoping review found that misinformation in digital spaces is a systemic issue that can undermine human rights, reinforce discriminatory social norms and exclude marginalised voices.
The review also said misinformation can affect health systems by shaping provider knowledge and practice, disrupting service delivery and creating barriers to equitable care.
WHO said ChatHRP is intended to give users streamlined access to reliable information as a counter to “algorithms, opinions, or misinformation”.
Wellness
Women’s HealthX unveils Northwell Health, Corewell Health, Biogen & more to headline Chronic Disease stage
Women’s HealthX has announced its lineup of healthcare trailblazers speaking on Chronic Disease Management, alongside other specialisations including Fertility, Sexual Health, Maternity, Menopause and Cognitive Health, taking a holistic approach to women’s health.
It will bring together 750+ leaders across pharma, health systems, and innovation to address one of the most urgent and underexamined challenges in healthcare; the sex difference gap in data and evidence.
Since cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of death among women globally, and autoimmune and neurological conditions affect women at significantly higher rates, Women’s HealthX will home in on chronic disease management with 17+ sessions spotlighting case studies and lessons learned.
The Chronic Disease Management Stage at Women’s HealthX responds directly to this gap, convening senior decision makers and innovators to explore how sex specific science, digital health, and new care models can reshape outcomes for women.
Attending pharma & healthcare organisations include:
- Tracy Sims, Executive Director, Cardiometabolic Health, Eli Lilly
- Adrian Kielhorn, Senior Director, Global Head HEOR Neurology, Alexion Pharmaceuticals
- Lauren Powell, Head of Health Equity and Clinical Innovation, Biogen
- Amy Kao, SVP, Head of Neuroscience and Immunology Research, EMD Serono
- Stella Vnook, Executive Chair and CEO, Kaida Biopharma
- Amanda Borsky, Director, Clinical Research, Northwell Health
- Lacey McIntosh, Division Chief, Oncologic and Molecular Imaging, UMass Memorial Medical Center
- Nicole Turck, Vice President Operations, Women’s Health, Corewell Health
- Mette Dyhrberg, CEO, Autoimmune Registry
- Lyn Agostinelli, Principal Consultant, Halloran Consulting Group
Sessions addressing the real gaps in women’s chronic care
The agenda features a series of high impact sessions tackling the structural and scientific gaps in women’s health:
- Improving outcomes in obesity through evidence based person centered care: Eli Lilly
- Tackling sex based health inequities by breaking down barriers and bias: Alexion Pharmaceuticals
- Close the health equity gap in women’s health by improving how autoimmune diseases are diagnosed, treated and managed: Autoimmune Registry
- How a GYN only care model is driving faster access to gynecological care: Corewell Health
- Transforming early detection in ovarian cancer: new pathways to accuracy, safety, and better outcomes: UMass Memorial Medical Center
Panel discussions include:
- Why chronic disease looks different in women and why health systems haven’t adapted: Biogen, Kaida Biopharma, EMD Serono
- How can we better engage with our customers: Northwell Health, Halloran Consulting Group
Health equity starts here. REGISTER YOUR PLACE
Why This Matters Now
Women’s HealthX positions chronic disease not just as a clinical challenge, but as a critical frontier for innovation, investment, and system redesign.
From AI powered monitoring and digital therapeutics to real world data and integrated care pathways, the stage highlights where meaningful progress is already being made and where the biggest opportunities lie.
For the FemTech ecosystem, this represents a pivotal moment: aligning technology, clinical insight, and commercial strategy to finally close the long standing data and care gaps in women’s health.
About Women’s HealthX
Women’s HealthX is where the transformation of women’s health begins at its true foundation: data, science, and evidence.
It’s the leading event dedicated to closing the sex difference data gap and accelerating breakthroughs through science driven, real world case studies.
Taking place on December 3 to 4, 2026 in Boston, USA, the exhibition will bring together more than 750 healthcare leaders, including clinicians, payers, employers, investors, and policymakers.
Seven different stages with 150+ expert speakers taking an holistic approach to women’s health. From fertility, maternity, sexual health, cognitive health, menopause and chronic disease, we address care at every stage of a woman’s life.
Cervical cancer elimination in the EU is becoming achievable as HPV vaccination coverage rises, a new report says.
As Europe marks European Immunisation Week 2026, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said progress in human papillomavirus vaccination is continuing across the EU and European Economic Area.
All EU and European Economic Area countries now recommend HPV vaccination for adolescent girls and boys as part of their immunisation programmes, marking a major step forward in Europe’s cancer prevention efforts.
Bruno Ciancio, head of unit, directly transmitted diseases and vaccine preventable diseases at the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, said: “The elimination of cervical cancer in the EU/EEA is becoming an achievable goal, thanks to the HPV vaccination programmes.
“The progress we are seeing across Europe demonstrates what can be accomplished when countries invest consistently in effective immunisation strategies.
“We are closely monitoring this progress and actively supporting countries to accelerate uptake and move faster towards cervical cancer elimination.”
According to the report, three EU and European Economic Area countries, Iceland, Portugal and Norway, have reached the 2024 EU Council Recommendation target of 90 per cent HPV vaccination coverage among girls by the age of 15.
Fifteen years after HPV vaccination programmes were introduced in Europe, a growing body of evidence confirms the vaccine is highly effective in preventing cervical cancer.
Large-scale studies from Sweden, the Netherlands and Denmark, as well as other parts of the world, have shown significant reductions in HPV infections and precancerous lesions, which are abnormal cell changes that can develop into cancer if left untreated, alongside falling cervical cancer rates among vaccinated women.
Since 2020, European countries have reported a decreased incidence of cervical cancer among vaccinated women.
Studies from Sweden, Denmark and the UK show that early administration of the vaccine increases its full protective potential.
A Swedish study suggested that vaccinating girls before their 17th birthday reduced the incidence of cervical cancer by 88 per cent.
An additional six-year follow-up found a sustained reduction in cervical cancer risk and a population-level decline in invasive cervical cancer incidence after HPV vaccination.
The report showed that vaccination programmes and health system design are critical factors in reaching high levels of HPV vaccination coverage.
Evidence from across Europe showed that school-based vaccination programmes are particularly effective and tend to reach higher levels of coverage among both girls and boys.
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