Insight
‘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
Nighttime temperatures during pregnancy may be linked to a higher chance of an autism diagnosis in children, a recent study suggests.
The research tracked nearly 295,000 mother-child pairs in Southern California from 2001 to 2014 and linked warmer overnight temperatures with higher risk in early and late pregnancy.
Children of mothers exposed to higher than typical nighttime temperatures during weeks one to 10 of pregnancy had a 15 per cent higher risk of an autism diagnosis.
Exposure during weeks 30 to 37 was linked to a 13 per cent higher risk.
Lead author David Luglio, a post-doctoral fellow at Tulane University, said: “A key takeaway is that we identified specific windows when a mother and her developing child can be most affected by exposures to higher nighttime temperatures.
“This is critical and hopefully can help mothers prepare accordingly.”
The study is described as the first to examine how temperature may affect fetal neurodevelopment, the process by which a baby’s brain and nervous system form during pregnancy.
Extreme temperatures linked to increased risk were classified as above the 90th percentile, meaning 3.6°F hotter than average, and the 99th percentile, 5.6°F above average.
The association held even after researchers accounted for factors such as neighbourhood conditions, vegetation and fine-particle air pollution.
The study could not account for other factors such as access to air conditioning. Researchers did not find the same association with daytime temperatures, potentially because people spend more time away from home during the day.
“Heat waves are becoming more frequent, and people may only think of the dangers of daytime heat exposure,” said Mostafijur Rahman, assistant professor of environmental health sciences at Tulane University.
“These results indicate a strong association between high nighttime temperatures during pregnancy and autism risk in children and show that we need to think about exposure to heat around the clock.”
The study did not examine how higher temperatures at night might affect prenatal development, though Luglio said it is possible that warmer nights disrupt sleep for pregnant mothers.
Previous research has suggested insufficient sleep during pregnancy may be linked to a higher risk of neurocognitive delays in children.
“Extreme heat exposure during pregnancy has been linked to a range of adverse health outcomes, including prenatal neurodevelopment delays and complications with an embryo’s development of a central nervous system,” Luglio said.
“The goal of our study was to specifically explore the link between prenatal heat exposure and autism diagnoses for the first time.”
The World Health Organization (WHO) welcomed a delegation of parliamentarians to its Geneva headquarters for a high-level dialogue on women’s health and sexual and reproductive health and rights.
The meeting on 20 January 2026 focused on women’s health, sexual and reproductive health and rights, noncommunicable diseases (long-term conditions such as cancer and diabetes) and global health cooperation.
The exchange was convened by the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung and the UNITE Parliamentarians Network for Global Health, bringing together parliamentarians from Albania, Germany, Georgia, Mexico, Slovakia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Sweden and Zimbabwe.
A central theme was the need to move beyond fragmented approaches to women’s health.
Dr Alia El-Yassir, WHO director for gender, equity and diversity, highlighted that outcomes are shaped by gender inequalities, social norms and structural barriers across the life course, requiring coordinated action across health systems.
Thirty years after the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, a landmark framework adopted in 1995 to advance gender equality and women’s rights, Dr Anna Coates, WHO gender equality technical lead, noted that progress on women’s health remains uneven.
She called for health systems that are more gender-responsive and able to address women’s health holistically across the life course.
Parliamentarians stressed that health is inseparable from wider social and economic policies, and called for stronger links between evidence, legislation and measurable impact at country level.
The meeting also focused on sexual and reproductive health and rights, where parliamentarians expressed interest in engaging on issues that directly affect their constituents.
Dr Pascale Allotey, director of WHO’s Department of Sexual, Reproductive, Maternal, Child, Adolescent Health and Ageing, outlined WHO’s life-course approach to sexual and reproductive health and rights.
She highlighted how needs evolve from birth to older age and how these are shaped by social determinants, humanitarian crises and demographic trends.
Dr Allotey underscored the role of parliamentarians in advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights and the importance of continued engagement with WHO to support evidence-based policy-making.
The agenda highlighted cancer as a growing priority for women’s health and for health system sustainability. Dr Prebo Barango, lead for the Cervical Cancer Elimination Initiative, Dr Meghan Doherty, consultant for palliative care, and Santiago Milan, lead for the WHO Global Platform for Access to Childhood Cancer Medicine, presented WHO’s integrated approach to cancer control.
Palliative care is treatment and support that aims to improve quality of life for people with serious illness by managing pain and other symptoms.
The discussion underlined the need for sustained political commitment and domestic investment to address noncommunicable diseases.
Parliamentarians shared national experiences showing the social and economic impacts of cancer on families and caregivers, reinforcing the importance of improving health literacy, reducing stigma and delivering people-centred care.
The meeting also addressed the state of global multilateralism.
Dr Jeremy Farrar, assistant director-general for health promotion, disease prevention and care, outlined how WHO has restructured to enhance efficiency, impact and capacity to support countries.
He reaffirmed WHO’s commitment to more systematic engagement with parliaments, recognising their role in shaping health policy, legislation and budgets.
The exchange concluded with a call for continued collaboration, including through partnerships with the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung and the UNITE Parliamentarians Network for Global Health, ahead of the UNITE Global Summit 2026 on 6–7 March in Manila, the Philippines.
Agilent has FDA approval for a test to identify ovarian cancer patients who may be eligible for immunotherapy.
Agilent’s PD-L1 IHC 22C3 pharmDx is the only FDA-approved companion diagnostic to help identify patients with epithelial ovarian, fallopian tube or primary peritoneal carcinoma whose tumours express PD-L1 and who may be eligible for treatment with KEYTRUDA, Merck’s anti-PD-1 therapy.
A companion diagnostic is a test used alongside a specific treatment to show whether a patient is suitable for that therapy. PD-L1 is a protein on some cancer cells that helps tumours evade the immune system.
These cancers affect the reproductive system and the lining of the abdominal cavity.
The test enables pathologists to assess PD-L1 expression at diagnosis to support treatment decisions in a disease where options remain limited for many.
This is the seventh FDA-approved companion diagnostic indication for PD-L1 IHC 22C3 pharmDx for use with KEYTRUDA.
Nina Green, vice president and general manager of Agilent’s clinical diagnostics division, said: “Delivering effective precision oncology requires close collaboration between diagnostics and therapeutics, and this FDA approval reflects Agilent’s long-standing industry partnership in companion diagnostics.
“We are proud to enable pathologists to identify patients with EOC who may benefit from immunotherapy.
“As the first immuno-oncology approval for this disease, this milestone underscores our commitment to advancing precision medicine and expanding access to innovative cancer treatments worldwide.”
PD-L1 expression with this test was evaluated in the KEYNOTE-B96 clinical trial supporting its use to identify patients who may benefit from KEYTRUDA.
In the US, ovarian cancer caused approximately 12,730 deaths in 2025 and the five-year survival rate was 51.6 per cent between 2015 and 2021.
In addition to these cancer types, the test is indicated in the US to help identify patients with non-small cell lung cancer, oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma, cervical cancer, head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, triple-negative breast cancer and gastric or gastro-oesophageal junction adenocarcinoma who may benefit from treatment with KEYTRUDA.
The test was developed by Agilent with Merck as a companion diagnostic for KEYTRUDA.
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