Entrepreneur
How finding the right partner can move a solution forward to be accessible
By Gloria Kolb, Co-Founder & CEO – Elitone
Just a couple of months after launching Elitone in the UK, we were delighted to become an approved supplier to the NHS in March this year, to provide Trusts throughout the UK with Elitone as a new solution for pelvic health and incontinence.
The NHS is the UK’s publicly funded healthcare system that provides care to all its residents, with the majority of services, including doctor and hospital appointments, treatments and stays, free at point of use for most people. It’s the NHS that would help women with pelvic floor and bladder incontinence issues, were they to seek medical help.
Privately paid solutions are also an option, but usually too expensive for most to access.
We recognise that it’s a great achievement to be an approved NHS supplier, especially because it’s well-known that getting new products into the NHS is very complicated; procurement often takes months or years and there are many complexities due to its vast size (the NHS is the biggest employer in Europe), numerous stakeholders, the need to adhere to strict regulations and the necessity to balance cost-effectiveness with patient needs.
To help us achieve our goal, we met a proactive procurement company, through an industry trade show, that believed in our product, and now Elitone is available with NHS through HealthTrust Europe, a British public sector procurement company contracted by Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust.
From 1 March 2025, Elitone was available across every one of the 217 individual National Health Trusts in the UK, offering a home delivery service of the products to help women who suffer with stress urinary incontinence, alongside a prescription service.
In the competitive selection process, there were, rightly, many criteria to fulfil to be considered as a supplier, with effectiveness, regulatory approvals, ease of access and cost-effectiveness making up part of the necessary criteria.
Elitone’s decade of providing a revolutionary incontinence tech solution in the US, backed by years of research and clinical trials, as well as nine patents, positively contributed to HealthTrust choosing Elitone as a new solution.
HealthTrust also recognised that adding more support in the UK for incontinence into their framework would enable the company to offer women greater access to innovative, effective, non-invasive care options.
It took the insistence of women within the framework to ensure this new category was created.
In the UK, it can be difficult to enter the NHS as a supplier, so it is wonderful that procurement companies like HealthTrust exist to provide another avenue for access, as well as ease the navigation of the competitive process.
The success of their Trust is in part due to bringing in new and innovative products, so they are motivated to ensure successful applications.
Elitone is now available for all UK healthcare professionals to access through the HealthTrust Europe Continence Goods and Services 2024 framework, Framespan.
It’s exciting to know that the 12 million women in the UK that suffer can now access this first-of-its-kind support through the NHS, signalling major progress for women’s health.
What’s more, with urinary incontinence currently costing the NHS almost £2 billion every year, it will help contribute to cost savings for the healthcare sector.
Elitone launched in the UK in January this year, available through various British online suppliers, such as Pharmacy2U and Currys, but the real success story for us is making the solution available through the NHS, offering a new and effective solution, for which those who suffer won’t need to pay, as they can now access it via their doctor or consultant.
It’s reported that the average woman spends £600 every year on incontinence solutions in the UK if they don’t seek medical help, so with this new availability, those individuals can save too.
We are delighted that this new opportunity will bring the benefits of Elitone to women in the UK.
Likewise, in the US, we have participated in an equally rigorous process with the help of partners to be an approved Medicare supplier of incontinence treatments.
Medicare, also a government programme, understands the cost of incontinence and supports preventative and at-home treatments.
As we look to the future, we sincerely hope we will be able to take Elitone to even more countries worldwide with the right partners, to offer an effective treatment solution for healthcare settings to help individuals overcome an issue that negatively affects them on a daily basis.
Gloria Kolb is the CEO and co-founder of Elitone, the first non-invasive, FDA-cleared, wearable treatment for women with urinary incontinence.
Elitone’s accolades include winning Best New Product by My Face My Body, Sling Shot, CES’ Innovation Award among many others. As an inventor with 30+ patents and advocate for women’s health, Gloria has been featured in Forbes as a Top Scientist Driving Innovation in Women’s Health, TechRound’s Top Women in Tech, Boston’s “40 Under 40” and MIT Review’s “World’s Top Innovators under 35.”
She has engineering degrees from MIT and Stanford, and an Entrepreneurship MBA from Babson College.
You have until Friday to nominate your femtech company of the year.
The award is one of 10 featuring at Femtech World’s third annual awards event, which attracts entries from across the UK, EU and Europe.
The Company of the Year Award is for companies that have demonstrated exceptional leadership in tackling women’s health needs through groundbreaking products, services or platforms that are shaping the future of global femtech.
If your company is driving innovation, impact and growth in this space, this award was made for you.
About the sponsor: Femovate
The category is backed by Femovate, the global femtech incubator using design to fuel innovation across every stage of a woman’s health journey, from proactive prevention through to personalised treatment.
Femovate has invested over US$2 million in design capital, working side-by-side with founding teams to bring market-ready solutions to life.
The startups it supports have collectively raised US$120 million, launched 30 products, and secured seven FDA clearances.
Why enter?
The Femtech World Awards are free to enter.
Winners and shortlisted companies receive extensive coverage across all Femtech World platforms.
Winners will also receive a trophy and the opportunity to be featured in an interview for the publication.
Find out more about the Femtech World Award and enter here by 4pm BST on Friday 17.
By Chaitra Vedullapalli, founder and president, Women in Cloud
Today’s leaders are carrying more than responsibilities.
They are carrying caregiving roles, financial pressures, legal complexities, and the quiet emotional weight of sustaining performance in unpredictable times.
And yet, most leadership forums still focus on productivity, growth, and scale, rarely addressing the human systems that enable sustained leadership.
At Women in Cloud, we believe the next generation of leadership will not be defined by endurance alone, but by discipline, preparation, and self-respect.
That is why we are proud to announce the #WICxWellness Summit 2026: The Disciplined Advantage.
This is a wellness summit focused on leadership preparedness.
Why This Summit Matters Now
Across our global community, a clear pattern has emerged.
- More professionals and executives are quietly navigating:
- Life-threatening health crises, personally or within their families
- Financial stress caused by medical, caregiving, or business shocks
- Legal and healthcare decisions with long-term consequences
- Career interruptions due to caregiving responsibilities
- Chronic exhaustion, grief, and emotional isolation
These experiences are widespread, yet rarely discussed in executive settings.
#WICxWellness 2026 brings these realities into the open with compassion, clarity, and practical guidance, so leaders can prepare, adapt, and continue forward without breaking.
This is wellness as a leadership discipline.
What We Will Explore
This year’s summit is designed to provide grounded, immediately applicable insights for founders, executives, and senior leaders.
Executive Function Under Chronic Stress
Keynote with Jennifer Brown
Focus Areas:
- Understand how chronic stress alters judgment, focus, and emotional regulation
- Identify early warning signs of cognitive overload in leadership roles
- Adaptability as a Cognitive Anchor: Navigating rapid change without compromising decision-making.
- Resilience Through Connection: Building human-centric teams to mitigate the stress of uncertainty.
- Navigating Change with Emotional Intelligence: Regulating stress responses to maintain clarity and empathy.
- Systemic Agility in High-Pressure Environments: Creating foundations of psychological safety that protect organizational function
Labs That Matter (And What to Do With Them)
Fireside Chat with Chelsey Galipeau and Chaitra Vedullapalli
Focus Areas:
- Which health tests are worth the time and investment
- Interpreting results without panic
- Preventive strategies for executive longevity
- Avoiding unnecessary medical spending
Caretaking Without Collapse
Panel With Karen Fassio, Anca Platon Trifan, Scilla Andreen, Clara Schroeder, Sheena Yap Chan
Focus Areas:
- Managing family and professional demands without burnout
- Setting humane boundaries
- Building sustainable support systems
- Ending silent sacrifice in leadership
Food as a Stability System (Not a Diet)
Fireside Chat with Nancy Watt and Meagan T. Copelin
Focus Areas:
- Nutrition for sustained energy and clarity
- Blood sugar and decision-making
- Realistic eating during travel and stress
- Food as operational resilience
Autoimmunity, Hormones & Cardiac Risk in Real Life
Fireside Chat with Dr. Linda Bing
Focus Areas:
- Managing invisible health risks
- Hormonal transitions and stamina
- Flare prevention at work
- Energy mapping for leadership performance
A Different Kind of Leadership Conversation
At Women in Cloud, we have learned something fundamental:
Performance is visible. Discipline is invisible.
Yet discipline determines whether leaders can serve, build, and lead over decades, not just quarters.
The Disciplined Advantage is about building that resilience intentionally.
Through science, lived experience, and practical frameworks, this summit equips leaders to:
- Anticipate strain instead of reacting to a crisis Design sustainable work rhythms
- Protect cognitive and emotional capital
- Lead from grounded strength
This is leadership infrastructure for the next decade.
Join Us
If you are a founder, executive, technologist, or senior professional navigating complexity and determined to lead well without sacrificing your health, clarity, or longevity, this summit is for you.
The #WICxWellness Summit 2026 is where performance meets preservation. Where ambition meets sustainability. Where leadership becomes truly durable.
We look forward to welcoming you. The Disciplined Advantage begins here.
Secure your spot: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/wicxwellness-summit-2026-tickets-1981616382945?aff=oddtdtcreator
Femtech World is continuing the search for a company to be crowned Startup of the Year.
The award is one of 10 to feature at the third annual Femtech World Awards.
The Startup of the Year Award celebrates an early-stage company making a bold impact in women’s health through innovation, vision and execution.
The winning startup will have demonstrated strong potential to transform care, accessibility, or awareness in women’s health with a scalable solution.
Consideration will be given to innovation, market traction, inclusivity, impact and the ability to address unmet needs.
The award is sponsored by Future Fertility.
The company is transforming fertility care with AI-powered solutions that close critical information gaps along the IVF journey.
Its clinically validated, non-invasive tools analyse oocyte images to predict each egg’s reproductive potential, supporting decision-making across key pathways: VIOLET™ for egg freezing, MAGENTA™ for IVF-ICSI, and ROSE™ for donor programmes and egg banks.
These reports deliver personalised insights into egg quality and ploidy potential, empowering patients and clinicians to make more informed decisions regarding next steps.
Today, Future Fertility’s technology is used in more than 300 clinics across 35+ countries.
Developed with the world’s largest oocyte image dataset linked to reproductive outcomes, Future Fertility’s AI models generate quality scores that not only guide treatment planning and manage expectations, but also serve as objective, actionable KPIs for labs—driving improved outcomes and transparency in fertility care worldwide.
The awards are free to enter, with winners receiving a trophy and an interview with Femtech World.
Find out more about the awards and enter for free here.
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