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Report: The role of technology in advancing endometriosis care
This report has been created from a webinar featuring Paulina Cecula, Co-founder, Dama Health, Lara Zibners, Co-founder, Calla Lily Clinical Care, Tara Harding, Clinician & Owner, Simply You Clinic, and Bianca Schor, Researcher, University of Cambridge, Amsterdam University Medical Center.
The discussion looked at the systemic challenges and necessary advancements in the diagnosis and treatment of endometriosis with a focus on provider education, patient empowerment, and clinical technology integration.
- Endometriosis affects roughly 10 per cent of reproductive age women and girls. That is around 190 million people globally.
- There is no known cure for endometriosis and so treatment is aimed at controlling symptoms.
- Current standard treatments for endometriosis are mainly hormonal contraceptives and surgery which are outdated, with 30–40 per cent of patients not responding well.
- Early diagnosis is a key factor in the treatment of endometriosis but is limited in many ways.
Challenges in advancing innovation and research in endometriosis
Funding:
- Funding is the core obstacle, especially for early-stage, data-intensive work.
- Grants often favor entities that already have data, creating a catch-22 for startups trying to build datasets from the ground up.
Data:
Lack of readily-available data
- Women’s health, especially endometriosis, lacks foundational data compared to fields like oncology, where partnerships with electronic medical records (EMR) and existing data are common.
- Startups must collect and build datasets from scratch, creating a high barrier to entry.
Quality and accessibility of data
- Existing EMR data often lacks the quality needed to identify or track endometriosis cases.
- The goal is multi-modal datasets (genetics, microbiome, symptom patterns), but this is currently being done only at small scales.
Education:
Outdated education and research barriers
- Persisting myths like retrograde menstruation being the cause of endometriosis continue to affect medical education.
- Funding often goes to legacy researchers, even if their data and methodology are outdated.
- Empowered patients are a huge asset, but they must be supported by informed, open-minded, and up-to-date clinicians.
Expertise gap
- Many patients are misdiagnosed or delayed in care due to providers falsely claiming expertise.
- Standardised credentials (e.g., ACOG-assessed qualifications) are urgently needed to help patients access true specialists.
- There’s a need for clinical expertise to interpret medical data, especially for those from non-medical backgrounds (e.g., computer scientists).
- Effective research requires interdisciplinary collaboration.
Need for collaboration
- Recent progress has come from private companies joining forces, e.g., the 700,000-patient genetic study by
23andMe and Semantics. - Collaborative efforts are key to pooling data and expertise.
Patient-led advocacy & the risks of misinformation
- Patients are increasingly using technology to self-educate and self-advocate.
- There’s a double-edged sword: patients may fall victim to misinformation or unqualified influencers (e.g.,vaginal steaming).
- Providers must be equipped to interpret patient-driven data and respond with clinical expertise.
Diagnosis:
Early screening and intervention
- Childhood endometriosis remains vastly under-researched and poorly supported.
- Legal and structural barriers even prevent access to care in some countries.
- Screening should begin in adolescence and include school nurses, pediatricians, and underserved clinics.
- Tools should reflect the full-body nature of endometriosis, not just “painful periods.”
- A key challenge remains that there’s no current way to predict which treatments will work for which patients, leading to a long and painful trial-and-error process that can worsen disease progression.
Societal normalisation of menstrual pain
- Adolescents often feel too ashamed to speak about symptoms, leading to missed diagnoses.
- Cultural messaging continues to reinforce the idea that extreme period pain is “normal.”
Technology:
Systemic Inefficiencies
- There’s fragmentation and competition in the space, with limited data sharing.
- A lack of alignment between innovation, reimbursement, and regulatory approval leads to inertia in adoption.
Clinical workflow integration
- Tools must integrate into existing EMR systems and workflows to be adopted widely by clinicians.
- Patients presenting external test results often drive clinicians to stay current and adapt their care.
The future of endometriosis diagnosis and treatment
Although there are many challenges to overcome across all stakeholders involved in the care system, there is hope that we can improve the time it takes to diagnose endometriosis, and the treatments available through increasing personalisation and new and ongoing research.
New treatments are in development—including immunologic and antibody-based therapies—but rigorous clinical trials are needed before they can be implemented at scale and make a material difference to those with enbodmetriosis.
In the short term, personalising how current treatments are prescribed could bridge the gap.
For example, there are ongoing studies to identify hormone responders vs. non-responders which could assist in this.
Despite the pressing need for advancement, we must acknowledge that there is a danger to prioritising speed over scientific rigor given past examples of prematurely released medical solutions that proved unsafe or ineffective.
There is also a need to prevent reverse financial incentives where profit could overshadow patient well-being, particularly around unvalidated diagnostic tools.
Conclusion
It’s clear that we are long overdue for a systemic reset in how we diagnose and manage endometriosis.
With earlier intervention, better provider education, empowered patients, and technology that actually fits the healthcare system, change is not only possible—it’s essential.
This year, WHIS is taking place on 5-6 November, bringing together the entire women’s health eco-system to spotlight the opportunities and challenges within the industry. Our curated programme and audience of change makers accelerate innovation, increase access and bridge healthcare gaps.
If you would like to watch the full webinar on-demand, you can view it here.
The Scottish government has launched a national review into whether NHS IVF access should be extended to single women.
The review will also consider whether wider access should be offered to couples who have children from previous relationships.
Health secretary Angela Constance said: “Access to NHS IVF treatment should be fair, timely and reflect the way people’s lives and families look today.”
Most single women are not currently eligible for NHS IVF treatment in Scotland.
Campaigners have welcomed the review.
Katie Rollings of Fertility Action said: “It’s an essential and long-awaited decision that will impact a huge number of people who are struggling to grow their families.
She said there is “no evidence” that having two parents rather than one determines whether a child will thrive.
She added: “What matters is whether a child is loved, safe, supported and has stable, positive relationships around them.”
Figures from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority show Scotland is the only UK nation where NHS-funded IVF cycles outnumber privately funded cycles.
In 2024, more than 6,000 cycles of fertility treatment were carried out among more than 4,000 patients in Scotland. Both figures were slightly lower than the record highs recorded in 2022.
The past 20 years have also seen a rise in the number of same-sex female couples and single women receiving fertility treatment.
In 2024, 625 IVF cycles were carried out for women in same-sex couples in Scotland, with more than one third funded by the NHS.
There were 330 cycles involving single women, of which 50 were NHS-funded.
In England, single women can access IVF through the NHS, although eligibility varies according to the local health trust’s policy.
Current Scottish rules state that couples are eligible if they have been living in a stable relationship for two years and neither partner has been sterilised.
Couples where one partner already has a child can be eligible, but those where both partners have children from previous relationships are not.
Eligibility rules also require a body mass index above 18.5 and below 30, and state that couples must not smoke, drink alcohol or take drugs during treatment. The mother must be under 42.
The Scottish government said the review would also examine consistency of access to fertility preservation, including during cancer treatment, as well as reducing waiting times for donor eggs and sperm.
Same-sex female couples already have access to NHS IVF, but they can face long waits for donor eggs or sperm, as can heterosexual couples who require donor treatment.
The National Fertility Group will lead the review and make “costed, demand-modelled recommendations”, which are due to be published by early summer 2027.
The group will include fertility experts from Scotland’s four NHS-assisted conception units in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee.
Prof Sarah Martins Da Silva, an NHS consultant and chair of fertility medicine at Dundee University, said there were questions to be answered in a resource-stretched NHS.
“As a fertility specialist I’m never going to be disappointed if the criteria is widened,” she said.
“But with single people, as an NHS clinician looking at the competing demands we have, I’d ask the question about whether being single is a health condition that needs to be funded.”
Da Silva said NHS waiting lists were full of couples who require donated eggs or sperm because of medical conditions including cancer and could face longer waits.
“It’s slightly a disservice to them,” she said.
“There would need to be a real investment and resource without making everybody wait an extraordinary long time.
“With the current financial environment we work in, if you’re talking about new money, where would that come from?”
She said she would welcome changes that encouraged more people to donate eggs or sperm and questioned whether arguments about children needing two parents were necessarily relevant to the debate.
“On the one hand bringing up a child is quite an expensive process, and if you don’t have that support, it can be very difficult.
“But on the other hand, many people start off as a couple and divorce.”
Da Silva also welcomed plans for the review to consider eligibility for couples who already have children, describing the move as “fantastic”.
The FDA has granted accelerated approval to AstraZeneca drug Etcamah for certain adults with advanced breast cancer carrying an ESR1 mutation.
Etcamah, also known as camizestrant, was approved in combination with a CDK4/6 inhibitor, either abemaciclib, palbociclib or ribociclib.
The treatment is for adults with hormone receptor-positive, HER2-negative, locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer when an estrogen receptor-1 (ESR1) mutation is detected during aromatase inhibitor and CDK4/6 inhibitor therapy using an FDA-authorised test.
ESR1 mutations are acquired resistance mutations that tumours may develop during treatment with aromatase inhibitors, a type of endocrine therapy commonly used as a front-line treatment for locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer.
Fewer than 5 per cent of patients have the mutation when HR-positive metastatic breast cancer is diagnosed, according to the FDA. After disease progression on an aromatase inhibitor, nearly 40 per cent have the mutation.
Acting FDA commissioner Kyle Diamantas said: “Women living with metastatic breast cancer face an uphill battle as their tumors continuously evolve to escape treatment.
“We owe them every weapon in our arsenal.
“Today’s approval delivers a win to these patients by granting them a targeted therapy designed specifically to overcome resistance, giving them more time before their disease progresses.”
The accelerated approval programme allows earlier approval of drugs that treat serious conditions and fill an unmet medical need based on surrogate or intermediate endpoints.
For Etcamah, approval was based on how long patients lived without their disease worsening, measured from when the resistance mutation was first detected in their blood.
The FDA said it has not yet been confirmed whether intervening when the mutation is detected, rather than waiting until disease progression is confirmed, results in a clinically meaningful benefit. Confirmatory studies are therefore required to verify and describe clinical benefit.
Angelo de Claro, director of the FDA’s Oncology Center of Excellence, said: “I commend both the FDA and the sponsor for their commitment to advancing cancer care and securing this accelerated approval.
“This marks the first FDA approval of a cancer therapy guided by the detection of a resistance mutation in circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) before imaging tests show that the disease is progressing.
“But additional evidence is needed to confirm clinical benefit.”
Circulating tumour DNA, or ctDNA, consists of small pieces of tumour DNA released into the blood and can allow earlier molecular detection of resistance mutations.
The FDA also authorised the Guardant360 CDx assay as a companion diagnostic to identify patients with breast cancer who have ESR1 mutations for treatment with camizestrant.
Efficacy was assessed in a clinical trial comparing a switch to Etcamah plus a CDK4/6 inhibitor with continued treatment using an aromatase inhibitor plus a CDK4/6 inhibitor.
Estimated median progression-free survival was 16 months in the Etcamah group, compared with 9.2 months in the aromatase inhibitor group.
Etcamah’s prescribing information includes a boxed warning about the risk of irregular heart rhythm when taken with certain other medicines. It also includes warnings about an abnormally slow heart rate and potential harm to an unborn baby.
The FDA convened its Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee for the application on 30 April 2026.
Entrepreneur
Last chance to save on Women’s Health Week and Women’s Sport Summit: Early Bird pricing ends 11 September
Early bird pricing for W Group’s two flagship October summits – Women’s Health Week Europe 2026 and Women’s Sport Summit Europe 2026 – closes on 11 September.
Both events take place at Emirates Stadium, London, bringing together founders, investors, corporates, and industry leaders shaping the future of women’s health and sport.
Women’s Health Week Europe 2026
7-8 October | Emirates Stadium, London
This year’s edition will be Women’s Health Week Europe biggest one yet: with 700+ attendees, 80+ speakers, and 20+ sponsors, it will also feature two stages – a Global Stage covering market trends and policy, and a Scale Stage focused on company-level growth and commercialisation. WHW takes place across two days of content, business matchmaking, and dealmaking.
Agenda highlights include:
- Where Capital Flows: Funding Trends in Women’s Health – with Merete Clausen (EIF), Ekaterina Gianelli (Calm/Storm), Henriette Hessen (Verdane), Jemma Day (British Business Bank), Ravit Warsha Dor (Telus Global Ventures), Tim Davis (LSEG)
- Six Feet Under-funded: Surviving the Valley of Death in Women’s Health – with Patric Stenberg (Gesynta Pharma), Valentina Milanova (Daye), Amber Vodegel (28x)
- The Women’s Health Label – Gift or Curse? · Live Debate – with Juan Camilo Arjona Ferreira (organon), Marissa Fayer (DeepLook Medical), Christian Lautner (Heal Capital), Annie Theriault (CBIV), Ida Tin (Clue)
- Passport to Scale: Taking Your Women’s Health Business Global – with Vanessa Carpenter (Femtech Across Borders), Annie Theriault (CBIV), Victorine Lançon (Daya Ventures), Dr Mridula Pore (Peppy)
Early bird pricing (ends 11 September):
| Ticket type | Early bird | Standard |
| Startups, Scaleups, Investors, Non-Profits, Government | £599 + VAT | £699 + VAT |
| Corporates, Payors & Providers | £1,799 + VAT | £1,999 + VAT |
| Service Providers & Consultants | £3,299 + VAT | £3,499 + VAT |
Register for Women’s Health Week Europe | See the full agenda for WHW
Women’s Sport Summit Europe 2026
6 October | Emirates Stadium, London
The first-ever Women’s Sport Summit expands W Group’s expertise in connecting key decision-makers to the sports industry.
WSS brings together rights holders, brands, investors, athletes, and media to accelerate commercial growth across the sector.
Agenda highlights include:
- From capital to crowd: the women’s sport cycle at scale – with Omar Shaikh (Arsenal FC), Nicole McWilliams (Google), Kerstin Lutz (Mercury13), Jo Currie (BBC Sport)
- Women’s sport through the investor lens: what gets funded – and why – Hugo Sever (APEX Capital)
- Rethinking ROI: what are we measuring that doesn’t actually matter? – Fi Watherston (Metro Bank), Silvia Keiser (Billie Jean King Cup), Gabriel Akin-Odujobi (Crux Football), Tammy Parlour (WST)
- Beyond the 90 minutes: matchday as a commercial product, not just a fixture – Maggie Murphy (Aston Villa Women FC), Sam Feasey (Diageo/Guinness), Molly Miller (OneFootball), Megan Feringa (The Athletic/The New York Times)
Early bird pricing (ends 11 September):
| Ticket type | Early bird | Standard |
| General Pass | £299 + VAT | £399 + VAT |
| Service Providers & Consultants | £1,799 + VAT | £1,999 + VAT |
Register for Women’s Sport Summit Europe | See the full agenda for WSS
Attending both events?
For group tickets or to attend both summits this October, contact Callum, W Group’s Client Success Lead, at [email protected].
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