An endometriosis musical by two US writers will debut at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August.

“Endometriosis: The Musical” follows Jane, a woman trying to discover why she is living with chronic pain.

Maria Bartholdi and Kristin Stowell first developed the production for the 2022 Minnesota Fringe Festival.

The full show premiered at Theater in the Round in Minneapolis in 2025.

Stowell said the play drew on personal experience, although neither writer realised it at the time.

“So it’s like my goal to let women see themselves in this who are dealing with this and have a question they can bring back to their doctor,” she said.

“Like, could it be endometriosis?”

Bartholdi said she did not realise she might have the condition herself until after the play premiered.

“This show helped diagnose me, which I think is just one of the miraculous things that we hope this the show does for other people as well,” Bartholdi said.

Dr Wendy VanBuren, a radiologist at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, said she was a fan of the musical and its role in raising awareness of a common but underdiagnosed disease.

“Cells that are similar to but not identical to the cells that comprise the lining of the uterus, the inside of the uterus, are located outside the uterus,” said VanBuren.

“When they’re outside the uterus, there isn’t the right environment to deal with that. So basically, what you get is bleeding, and then you get inflammation.”

Roughly one in seven women live with the disease, and receiving a diagnosis can take nearly a decade.

Hosted by Amanda Ducach, CEO, and Morgan Rose, chief science officer, EmaEQ

Healthcare companies have spent the last two years hearing the same advice: get AI into your product. Few have been told what that actually takes.

Most default to the fastest option. Plug in a general-purpose model, wrap it in a chat window, and call the box checked. It looks like progress on a roadmap slide. It rarely holds up once a real patient is on the other end of it.

We’ve spent years building AI specifically for healthcare, and the lesson that keeps repeating itself is simple: accuracy is not the same thing as trust, and trust isn’t something you bolt on after launch. It has to be part of how the system is built from the first line of code, not a feature added once regulators or users start asking questions.

That distinction is the whole reason clinical accuracy gets treated as a checkbox instead of a discipline. A model can sound confident and still be wrong in ways that matter enormously in a health context.

Knowing the difference, and building for it deliberately, is what separates AI that’s genuinely safe for care from AI that’s simply fast to ship.

On July 20th, we’re hosting a live conversation about exactly this: what companies should be paying attention to before they choose an AI to build with, what clinical accuracy really requires, and the pillars we hold every AI system to before it gets anywhere near a patient’s care.

The Healthcare AI Playbook Webinar: July 20th, 1:30-2pm EST, live on LinkedIn.

Register here: https://www.linkedin.com/events/7482643171823509504?viewAsMember=true

If your team is building anywhere near healthcare, or evaluating what’s already in your product, this is the conversation we think the industry needs right now.

From AI embryo analysis in India to couples fertility care launching in the US, Korea’s women’s health startups are going global, and US investors are taking notice.

Vespexx, the femtech company behind couples preconception health platform Soonr, hosted Korea Femtech Summit 2026 on June 30 in Seoul, convening founders, clinicians, and investors from Korea, Singapore, Canada, and Japan to map the global expansion of women’s health technology.

A panel moderated by Kakao Ventures’ Jade Chung, an OB/GYN-turned-investor, captured the summit’s central theme: Korean startups taking on the world. On stage were three companies already building well beyond Korea. Vespexx, led by Co-CEO Scarlett Joowon Jung, is entering the US with Soonr; Kai Health, founded by CEO Hyejun Lee, has deployed its AI embryo-analysis software across more than 120 fertility clinics in India; and Endo Health, represented by the Head of Design Karlie Hyeonjeong Koo, has built Glow, an AI coaching app whose user base is 98% women and which is backed by US investors including a16z. Together they discussed what it takes for Korean startups to compete globally, where AI creates a real edge, and whether “K-femtech” can follow the path of K-beauty onto the world stage.

The program spanned the full arc of women’s health technology. Lindsay Davis, founder of FemTech Association Asia, opened with a look at where Asia’s femtech stands today. Dr. Juhye Lee of Ewha Womans University Mokdong Hospital offered a clinician’s view of how patient needs are shifting, arguing that women’s health is expanding beyond pregnancy and treatment toward care across the entire life course. Boram Bae, Head of Digital Health PM Part at Samsung Electronics spoke to how a consumer platform at global scale can connect women’s everyday health data with life-stage care. And Rimi Lee, head of the Femtech Center at KOSDAQ-listed diagnostics company Sugentech, traced the evolution of hormone testing from results read by eye to AI-assisted analysis, and pointed toward wearable continuous hormone monitoring as the next frontier.

Vespexx Co-CEO Scarlett Joowon Jung presented the company’s “dyadic health” approach on their ‘Soonr’ app, which brings both partners into fertility and preconception care rather than tracking a woman’s data alone, an approach validated by their legacy product, Signaling’s 800,000 users across Asia, as the company prepares for US launch.

The summit also featured Rachel Bartholomew, the Canadian founder of Hyivy Health and Femtech Across Borders, who built her pelvic-health company, and Megumi Kimura of the Japan Women’s Health Innovation Association, who outlined the investment and business models driving Japan’s fast-growing femtech market.

At the summit, Vespexx also announced the launch of Femtech Korea, an industry network intended to connect Korean femtech companies with global markets and partners, and to serve as a bridge for cross-border collaboration.

“Korea has world-class healthcare technology, but femtech has been one of its best-kept secrets,” said Scarlett Joowon Jung, Co-CEO of Vespexx. “The companies on this stage are proof that’s changing. We’re not just building for Korea anymore, we’re building for the world, and we want US partners and investors to be part of that.”

Korea Femtech Summit 2026 was hosted by Vespexx and co-hosted by FemTech Association Asia. The summit was sponsored by Sugentech, with additional support from Innerness and Octolabs.

About Vespexx
Vespexx is a Korean femtech startup and subsidiary of KOSDAQ-listed biotech Sugentech. The company operates Soonr Health, a couples-focused preconception health platform, and its earlier product Signaling has accumulated over 800,000 users. Vespexx is currently expanding into the North American market.

About Femtech Association Asia
FemTech Association Asia is the region’s first and largest specialist advisory and industry network for founders, investors, corporate partners, and ecosystem contributors, with a core focus on improving women’s health through technology solutions.