TaraCares: London and York based start-up to address stigma, silence and suffering of the menopause transition experience

Some examples include – *Kupperman Index (1952), Green Climacteric Scale (GCS, 1976), Menopause specific Quality of Life (MENQOL, 1996), and Menopause Rating Scale (early 1990s), all developed decades ago. 

As noted in literature, these scales come with several limitations, such as inadequate coverage of all the relevant menopause transition symptoms, lack of thresholds for initiating treatment, lengthy and unsuitable tools for use in primary care – the Menopause Quality of Life (MENQOL) has 30 items while the GCS has 20 items – failure to acknowledge the use of visual scales and the use of clinical language vs colloquial language.

In the absence of breakthrough, patient-centric innovation translated in an evidence-led language that is easy to understand and respond to, the “menopause gold rush economy” will become yet another “blind guiding the blind” and exactly that – a rush!

A UK based start-up is confronting this challenge with new-age research wisdom, clinical excellence and computational science unified into the TaraCares Trifecta.

I founded TaraCares to eradicate misinformation, misdiagnosis, and mismanagement of menopause for females from 18 – 80.

After 22 years of a successful international technology, innovation, and management consulting career, I decided to resign from Ernst & Young, a Big 4 consulting firm based in London, where I worked as a hyper growth technology executive leader.

I used to run the People Experience business for over 100 countries across their EMEIA area (Europe, Middle East, India and Africa) working with software enterprises such as SAP, SAP SuccessFactors, Microsoft, and Qualtrics, but during the pandemic, I made a decisive shift.

I resigned from a fantastic firm and team for my mission and priority to address the global public health challenge of menopause with science and research.

To be close to England’s capital of excellent health sciences research, I moved up from London to York, in North Yorkshire where TaraCares, the mission-led venture was founded with divine grace.

After spending over 3,000 hours interviewing women with lived experience of menopause, I realised no woman wants to be called menopausal.

Therefore, the neuroscience of language in how we understand, research, and inform menopause healthcare has become central to TaraCares.

As I previously mentioned in FemTech World’s recent roundtable debate, the TaraCares team are leading a safe and inclusive future for equitable menopause health and wellbeing by creating it with science in action for every person assigned female at birth.

Jyoti Sharma at the FemTech World X HealthTech World Roundtable in November 

Through an AI-driven platform that uses Explainable AI to deliver trust, transparency and increased precision in how clinicians, especially in primary care, diagnose and treat menopause, we aim to improve adherence to menopause clinical practice guidelines outlined by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence in the UK (NICE), including how women receive individualised and integrated knowledge.

We realised that to take ownership of your health day to day you need to be adequately and scientifically aware – through solutions that are accessible and affordable, else it is not a solution.

TaraCares mission is 100 per cent aligned with the 2022-2025 strategic delivery plan of UKRI, Innovate UK and Women’s Health strategy. Our inclusive and affordable solutions are being designed to tackle the stigma, suffering and silence of the menopause transition experience with tailored knowledge, timely diagnosis, and total management through preventive and self-driven healthcare.

In a short period of time since incorporation in May 2022, we have gained immense support from the public and respected leaders across the globe, such as Professor Vikram Talaulikar, a celebrated specialist in post reproductive medicine at University College London, Hospital (UCLH).

Tom Velema, entrepreneur and senior EMEIA partner at EY and with whom I worked on EY’s global strategic COVID response initiative continues to be one of my mentors.

TaraCares has started the new year with a sparkle publishing our brand new website over Christmas which has seen a significant reception, especially the section on Menopause Science. We are proud to formally collaborate with many incredible experts – some of whom are featured on our website.

As an experienced, driven, ambitious for impact and patient-centric, healthtech startup, we have already forged alliances working with the Department of International Trade in the UK to enter underserved countries with our solutions.

Our team is also running research studies, collaborating with leading universities in England such as the University of Huddersfield.

But our work doesn’t stop here. In early 2023, we are launching our scientific community to tackle misinformation on menopause with clinicians, scientists, and technologists because we believe that together, we can help every woman take ownership of their menopause.

If you would like to join the TaraCares community or take part in our research, email [email protected]. 

For a conversation with thoughtful, responsible, and impact-oriented members of the public, clinicians, data scientists, engineers, and investor communities, I can be reached at [email protected].