‘Femtech addresses critical unmet needs in the women’s health space’

Dr Pamela Walker tells FemTech World everything we need to know about the femtech market.

Can you tell our readers a little bit about yourself?

I am a healthcare strategic growth specialist and award winning MedTech angel investor. I have been passionate about the healthcare space my whole life, and this drive pushed me to complete a PhD in Neuroscience, followed more recently by an Executive MBA (both from Oxford).

I have devoted my career to helping get treatments and medical devices to the patients that need them, and optimising the support patients, caregivers and healthcare professionals need to improve outcomes.

To make this impact, I work with Pharma and MedTech corporates as well as Private Equity and VC funds, advising on acquisitions and optimising commercialisations in the UK, US and worldwide.  I am a Partner at Gate One, heading up the Life Sciences sector, Gate One Incubator and investment channel. I am also an avid investor with THENA Capital and Angel Academe, and board advisor to a number of our portfolio investments.

Why is it important to invest in femtech?

Femtech is an important sector, addressing critical unmet needs in the women’s health space. It leverages tech innovations that we have at our fingertips and applies them to critical gaps in healthcare for over 50 per cent of the world’s population.

In 2021, the gender healthcare gap gained visibility in the UK with the publication of the House of Lords Library report. This report highlights that the UK has the largest female health gap in the G20 and the 12th largest globally. This past summer, NHS England published its strategy on how the gap should be addressed.

Independent reports and inquiries have highlighted where this gap is most visible:

• Mental health, heart conditions, and pain treatment are some of the areas for which women are not offered the same level of care as men.
• Women’s health is under researched and is given a lower priority when it comes to health services: less is known about conditions that only affect women including common gynaecological conditions that can have severe impacts on health and wellbeing. For example, it takes seven to eight years for women to receive a diagnosis of endometriosis, with 40% of women needing 10 or more GP appointments before being referred to a specialist.
• Clinical research in women is dramatically lower than in men, and gender biases in clinical trials are contributing to worse health outcomes for women vs men.

This evidence has highlighted the need for greater focus on women’s health. The market must consider women as a sizeable consumer group. This is an underserved group that is increasingly educated, employed, and receiving attention from diversity and inclusion benchmarks at a global level.

Women represent an important consumer group to be marketed to and a discerning group that will prefer products relevant for them. Companies that consider them will win.

What do you think is missing in the femtech industry?

There are a number of novelty products and me-too solutions in this space, at the moment. Although there are products targeting key points in the female lifecycle, most, however, are still finding their feet. Some are missing a business model for longevity, others are very niche and will struggle to gain uptake, others have unclear value propositions. Overall, evidence of impact hasn’t quite yet pulled through, but there is a lot of excellent innovation kicking off.

From a product development standpoint, design and execution support is needed. There is a medium-term gap to address the gender healthcare gap imbalance through the drug and medical product development process. Innovations that optimise the development process with a gender balanced lens will be in demand.

What do you see in the future of femtech?

Meaningful, purposeful, and effective solutions. Holistic solutions that streamline and simplify tools/support/tech to the issues that matter most to women. These might include:

• Enablers to improve clinical research by gathering data and partnering with research centres. There is a need to accelerate understanding and research in women’s health whether it leads to better supporting female athletes or better understanding risk factors and treatment outcomes for women.
• Solutions that optimise pre-post natal and menopause (beyond education and community support) are key. Women have an important role to play in the global economy. At present, we aren’t achieving our full potential. Femtech is pivotal in this space to ensure that those who want, can fully participate and perform in the workforce, whatever stage of life they are at.
• Remote tech: Health systems are under pressure, solutions that empower women to engage with maintenance/ prevention of their health outside of hospitals (e.g. at home annual testing) are transformational.
• Innovations for earlier disease (eg cancer) detection: these can help to reduce the need for traumatic and expensive surgeries and treatments.

How can digital tools impact the femtech market?

FemTech by its very name is reliant heavily on tech innovation. Real impact will be:

• significant builds on current solutions that improve health outcomes and / or the female experience, OR
• carving out new solutions to unmet need spaces.

Leveraging nascent digital tools and optimising them for the female market (keeping this customer group at the heart of design, production and experience) will be critical to maximise impact.

Dr. Pamela Walker