News
Round up: Restoring immunity in menopausal women with HRT and more
Femtech World explores the latest research developments in the world of women’s health.
Phase 2 trial of non-hormonal endometriosis treatment completed
Hope Medicine has completed a global Phase 2 study evaluating the safety and efficacy of non-hormonal endometriosis treatment – HMI-115.
HMI-115 is a monoclonal antibody that blocks the prolactin receptor, and is a potential first-in-class treatment for endometriosis.
This study included 108 female patients with surgically diagnosed endometriosis in the US, Poland and China.
According to the company, the treatment demonstrated statistically significant improvement of endometriosis associated pain.
HMI-115 was well-tolerated with no treatment-related serious adverse events.
Specifically, at the end of the study treatment, the least-square-mean dysmenorrhea pain score was reduced by 42 per cent in the 240 mg q2w group, compared to that of the baseline.
The least-square-mean non-menstrual pelvic pain score was reduced by 52 per cent.
These reductions are statistically significant. No typical peri-menopausal symptoms were reported.
There were no significant changes in menstrual patterns, bone mineral density and sex hormone levels including estradiol, LH, FSH and progesterone.
Lan Zhu, director of gynecology at Peking Union Medical College Hospital and leading investigator of the study, said: “HMI-115 relieved endometriosis pain in women without disturbing their sex hormones.
“It can potentially shift the treatment paradigm.
“We will be able to treat women without menopausal side effects or even infertility.”
Nathan Chen, CEO of Hope Medicine says that the company is now communicating with key regulatory agencies, including FDA and NMPA, to finalise the Phase 3 protocol and to initiate global Phase 3 studies.
Hormone replacement therapy may help restore immunity in menopausal women
Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) may help reverse changes in the immune system caused by menopause, potentially booting immune health, a new study has found.
The research reveals new evidence that menopause significantly alters women’s immune system, increasing their vulnerability to infections.
The study is the first detailed analysis of how ageing and sex differences influence monocytes, a key group of immune cells that act as the body’s first responders to infection.
Analysing blood samples, the team found that after menopause, women develop more inflammatory types of white blood cells called monocytes, which are less effective at clearing bacteria.
These changes were linked to lower levels of complement C3, an immune protein that helps monocytes engulf and destroy harmful microbes.
In contrast, men of the same age did not show these changes, suggesting menopause has a uniquely disruptive effect on female immunity.
To test whether hormone therapy could influence this decline, the researchers studied peri-and post-menopausal women taking HRT.
They found that these women had healthier immune profiles, with fewer inflammatory monocytes and stronger infection-fighting ability as compared to age-matched controls.
Levels of complement C3 in their blood were also higher in those taking HRT, bringing them close to the immune status of younger women.
HRT is already prescribed to manage symptoms, but this study suggests it may also help maintain immune health and reduce infection risk in later life.
The researchers caution, however, that more work is needed to confirm whether HRT reduces real-world infection rates, and to understand how different formulations or delivery methods affect the immune system.
The authors caution that while the findings are promising, the study does not mean HRT should automatically be prescribed for immune health.
More research is needed to confirm whether women taking HRT have lower infection rates in real-world settings, and to investigate how different types and route of HRT administration may affect the immune system.
New imaging technique helps us understand how eggs mature and ovaries age
The ticking of the biological clock is especially loud in the ovaries — the organs that store and release a woman’s eggs.
From age 25 to 40, a woman’s chance of conceiving each month decreases drastically.
For decades, scientists have pointed to declining egg quality as the main culprit.
But new research from UC San Francisco and Chan Zuckerberg Biohub San Francisco shows that the story is bigger than the eggs: The surrounding cells and tissues of the ovary play a crucial role in how eggs mature and how quickly fertility wanes.
Understanding these changes may hold the key not only to extending fertility, but also to improving health.
The risks of many age-related diseases rise after menopause or ovary removal, and slowing ovarian aging could help reduce these risks.
The team set out to profile what normal ageing looks like in the ovaries of mice and humans.
First, they developed a new three-dimensional imaging technique that allowed them to visualise eggs in the ovaries without having to slice the organs into thin layers, as had been done before.
In mice that were the equivalent of 30 to 40 human years, they observed a dramatic drop in both immature resting eggs that are waiting in reserve and in growing eggs that are beginning to mature for ovulation.
And just like women in their 30s, the mice did not conceive easily with in vitro fertilisation (IVF).
When the scientists extended their 3-D imaging to human ovaries, they uncovered an unexpected finding: Eggs are not evenly scattered throughout the ovary.
Instead, they cluster in “pockets” surrounded by egg-free zones. With age, the density of eggs within these pockets declines.
“This was a surprise, we assumed eggs would be distributed more evenly based on what we see in the developing ovary,” said Laird, who is a Biohub investigator and a member of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center for Regeneration Medicine at UCSF.
“These pockets suggest that even within one ovary, the environment around an egg may influence how long it lasts and how well it matures.”
Next, the researchers teamed up with Neff’s group at the Biohub to study what genes were active in ovary cells as they aged.
Ovarian tissue from humans is hard to come by, and eggs are large and incredibly fragile.
So, instead of using standard miniature devices that separate and tag cells to sequence their active genes, the group painstakingly isolated individual eggs by hand to separate them from other cells.
After studying nearly 100,000 mouse and human cells, they identified 11 major cell types found in the ovaries, including one surprise: Glia, a type of support cell typically associated with nerves and most extensively studied in the brain, were in the ovaries.
At the same time, the study revealed that sympathetic nerves, the same nerves involved in the “fight or flight” response, form dense networks in ovaries that become even more dense with age.
When the researchers ablated these nerves in mice, the animals had more eggs in reserve but fewer that matured, suggesting the nerves help decide when eggs start growing. Together, the observations on glia and sympathetic nerves suggest a new role for the nervous system in ovarian health.
Other support cells called fibroblasts also changed with age, triggering inflammation and scarring in the ovaries of women in their 50s, years earlier than such scarring appears in organs like the lungs or liver.
“This all points to a brand-new line of inquiry about how nerves, blood vessels, and other cell types communicate with eggs,” Laird said.
“It tells us that ovarian ageing is not just about the egg cells but about their whole ecosystem.”
The new roadmap of healthy ovaries over time offers a starting place to ask how ovarian aging changes in different situations.
The team is already launching studies probing whether some drugs could change the timing or speed of ovarian aging, she said.
Ultimately, they hope to uncover ways to slow or delay ovarian aging, to impact both fertility and other diseases, like cardiovascular disease, which are common in women after menopause.
“The fountain of youth may actually be the ovary,” said Eliza Gaylord PhD, a postdoctoral fellow at UCSF who is co-first author of the study.
“Delaying ovarian ageing could promote healthier aging overall.”
Hormonal birth control can influence emotions and memory
A new study shows that hormonal contraceptives appear to shape how women experience emotions in the moment and how they remember emotional events later.
Researchers compared women using hormonal contraceptives with women who were naturally cycling.
Participants viewed positive, negative and neutral images while applying different emotion regulation strategies, such as distancing, reinterpretation or immersion, and later completed a memory test.
Women on hormonal contraceptives showed stronger emotional reactions compared to naturally cycling women.
When they used strategies like distancing or reinterpretation, they remembered fewer details of negative events, though their general memory remained intact.
In other words, they could recall the overall event but not all of the specifics. That gap may actually be helpful, allowing women to move on instead of replaying unpleasant details.
Strategies like immersion boosted memory for positive images in both groups, making happy moments stick more clearly.
The findings add weight to a question many women have had but few studies have answered: How does birth control affect not just the body but the mind?
Emotion regulation and memory are tied to mental health outcomes such as depression, and this research suggests hormonal contraceptives may influence those processes in subtle but meaningful ways.
The researchers plan to expand the work by studying naturally cycling women across different menstrual phases and by comparing types of hormonal contraceptives, such as pills versus IUDs.
By Con Raso, managing director, Tuned Global
Music and movement are neurologically intertwined. Tempo influences pace, rhythm supports endurance, and familiar tracks can reduce perceived exertion.
Beyond physiology, music creates shared moments. It sets the atmosphere, builds anticipation and turns individual activity into collective experience.
For sports, wellness and fitness brands, this means music selection needs to align with brand values, customer experiences and emotional outcomes.
Well-chosen music increases workout intensity and duration, improves customer retention, strengthens brand recognition, creates community and cultural relevance, and opens new partnership models.
When delivered through properly licensed, data-informed systems, these outcomes become measurable and scalable.
Music also gives brands a way to stay culturally connected to their audience. The question for operators is how to use music strategically and legally.
This is especially important because the way brands approach music has changed significantly.
Early adoption in wellness, fitness and leisure centres often meant plugging in a Spotify playlist and hoping for the best.
Today’s leading sports and fitness innovators are far more sophisticated, curating music experiences that are brand-led, data-informed, tailored to specific audiences and workouts and fully licensed for commercial use.
This shift is being powered by specialist music technology platforms like Tuned Global, which works behind the scenes with brands to manage licensing, catalogue access, analytics and distribution at scale.
Rather than forcing sports brands to become music experts, these platforms allow them to offer legally compliant music in commercial environments, control curation across locations or content formats, and adapt music to different activities and intensities.
Through advanced APIs and centralised cloud infrastructure, operators can manage licensing, catalogue access and music governance at scale, while maintaining full creative control.
They also provide the reporting required by rights holders and integrate music into apps, devices, wearables and connected platforms. The result is music that feels intentional, on-brand and deeply embedded in the experience.
Music in action
Lululemon Studio and Mirror: At-home Fitness and Health
When Lululemon acquired Mirror, it marked a shift towards fully connected, at-home fitness where content, coaching and atmosphere converge.
Music plays a key role in making those workouts feel immersive and motivating, especially without a physical studio or shared space.
Instructors needed access to curated, commercially licensed music delivered consistently across live and on-demand workouts, while remaining compliant with music rights regulations.
Tuned Global provided Lululemon Studio with a branded playlisting app solution that enabled instructors to curate fully licensed music tailored to each workout.
Drawing from a licensed commercial catalogue and supported by usage reporting to rights holders, the system ensured compliance while giving instructors the flexibility to design high-energy, brand-aligned sessions.
The result was a seamless blend of movement, coaching and sound that makes digital workouts feel immersive and premium.
Psycle London: Performance Led Experiences
Con Raso
Boutique fitness studio Psycle London has built a loyal following by transforming workouts into performance-led experiences where music is central to the brand.
Each class is choreographed to sound, with instructors designing sessions that build emotional peaks and sustained intensity.
As Psycle expanded its digital and on-demand offering, it needed a way to give more than 70 instructors access to fully licensed commercial music while protecting the business from legal and reputational risk.
Tuned Global delivered a branded playlisting app that enabled Psycle’s instructors to search a cleared commercial catalogue by artist, genre or BPM, preview full tracks and build tailored playlists for classes ranging from high-intensity rides to strength and conditioning.
Behind the scenes, the music is delivered through secure API infrastructure integrated into Psycle’s own platform, with automated reporting to rights holders and support across label and publishing negotiations.
By combining creative flexibility with licensing governance, Psycle were able to scale its music-led experience across studio and digital environments without compromising on brand integrity, compliance or operational control.
Steezy: Movement and Music
Steezy, one of the world’s leading online dance platforms, sits at the intersection of sport, movement and music.
For dancers, music is not background sound. It defines timing, style and expression.
As Steezy scaled internationally, music became both its greatest asset and its biggest operational challenge. Delivering classes built around commercial tracks created both operational complexity and significant licensing risk.
Tuned Global provided the licensed music catalogue delivery infrastructure that enabled Steezy instructors to search a cleared catalogue, curate playlists tailored to specific classes, and prepare sessions using full commercial tracks.
The system ensured that music used across Steezy’s app and desktop platform was properly licensed and reported to rights holders, supporting global expansion without exposing the business or its creators to legal liability.
By combining instructor-friendly tooling with robust licensing governance, Steezy was able to continue growing its international dance community while keeping music at the centre of the experience.
A wider wellness ecosystem
For wellness, sports, fitness and leisure operators considering deeper music integration, a few principles stand out.
First, treat music as a product feature. It should support the outcome you want, whether that is higher intensity, calm recovery, emotional connection or brand recognition.
Second, get licensing right from day one. Using consumer streaming services in commercial environments exposes brands to legal and reputational risk.
For example, In 2019, more than 20 music publishing groups filed a $150 million copyright lawsuit against Peloton, alleging the company used more than 1000 unlicensed songs in its workout videos.
In another example, just last year the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia ordered a Sydney gym chain owner and five of his companies to pay more than $235,000 in damages and interest after operating multiple locations without a valid OneMusic licence.
Third, give creators freedom while maintaining brand control. Instructors, coaches and athletes bring personality, so give them tools to curate music safely within brand guidelines.
Last but not least, use data to refine the experience.
Track how music impacts engagement, completion rates and retention, because music is measurable. Finally, think cross-platform.
Your music strategy should work across physical venues, mobile apps, connected devices and on-demand content. Consistency builds trust.
What’s ahead for music as a performance tool
Music in wellness will become even more adaptive. As AI, biofeedback and real-time analytics become more embedded in fitness technology, music will increasingly respond dynamically to heart rate, pace or emotional state.
Early implementations in health and performance environments are already demonstrating how adaptive music can optimise outcomes.
As wearable technology and connected fitness continue to evolve, music will play an increasingly central role in shaping personalised experiences.
The infrastructure choices operators make now will determine how easily they can adopt these capabilities later. Those who invest early in licensed, data-informed music systems will be best placed to innovate without risk.
Music is a performance tool, a brand asset and a powerful lever for engagement. The examples above show that this applies at every scale, from a single boutique studio to a global combat sports brand.
The most successful innovators understand that when music and movement align, something special happens. With the right technology and licensing in place, that can scale.
About Con Raso, Managing Director of Tuned Global
Con Raso is an entrepreneur passionate about innovation, new technologies, and start-ups.
Over the last few decades he has focused on creating innovative mobile and online distribution models within the B2C entertainment market, enabling brands to utilise music as a marketing tool, via unique customer engagement strategies.
Being inherently well-versed in both technology and music, Con ensures our solutions are aesthetically pleasing, engaging and disruptive.
About Tuned Global
Tuned Global is the leading data-driven Cloud Music Platform that empowers businesses to integrate commercial music into their apps or launch complete streaming experiences using advanced APIs, real-time analytics, licensing solutions, music intelligence and customisable white-label apps.
Our turnkey solutions for music, audio, and video, coupled with a broad ecosystem of third-party music tech integrations, make us the most comprehensive platform for powering digital music projects.
We streamline complexities in licensing, rights management, content delivery and music discovery, enabling rapid innovation and bringing new ideas to life.
Since 2011, we’ve supported 40+ companies in 70+ countries — across telecom, fitness, media, aviation, and more — to deliver innovative music experiences faster and more cost-effectively.
For more information, visit www.tunedglobal.com.
Only 18 per cent of UK workplaces have a menopause policy, according to a new survey. while half of 1,000 women said they feel supported during menopause at work.
The study found that 37 per cent of respondents said their employer does not provide any menopause support at all.
The new study, commissioned by women’s wellness specialist Serenova for International Women’s Day, surveyed perimenopausal, menopausal or post-menopausal women aged 30 or over.
Elle Sheppard, global head of marketing and communications at Serenova, said: “Mid-life women have so many pressures to face, the last thing they need is to feel like they have to suffer in silence at work, or worse, get forced into leaving a career they love due to a lack of support.
“Going through the menopause, including the peri and post stages, can last for years; this isn’t just a ‘flash in the pan’ day when you don’t feel your best, it’s a long period of lacking confidence, feeling exhausted and putting up with physical pain too.
The findings come as the government launched its gender pay gap and menopause action plan guidance on 4 March 2026, which will be compulsory for large businesses by April 2027.
Women working in healthcare and social services reported feeling the most supported, with 57 per cent agreeing they feel “somewhat” or “very” supported.
This was followed by public services, law and security at 53 per cent, education and non-profit at 52 per cent, and business, finance and professional services at 48 per cent.
Women working in retail reported feeling the least supported, at 44 per cent.
Among healthcare and social services workers, 36 per cent said their employer does not provide any support provisions, 22 per cent said their workplace had a menopause policy and 16 per cent said their employer provided counselling support. Just 7 per cent had access to menopause leave.
In comparison, 15 per cent of retail workers said their workplace had a menopause policy, 8 per cent had counselling and 10 per cent had menopause leave.
This was higher than in healthcare and social services, where just 7 per cent had menopause leave.
Regionally, workers in London reported feeling the most supported, with 59 per cent agreeing they feel “somewhat” or “very” supported, nine per cent higher than the national total.
The South East followed at 55 per cent, while Yorkshire and the Humber ranked lowest at 45 per cent.
Sheppard said: “Serenova was launched on International Women’s Day last year, with a goal of helping women take charge of their wellbeing so they can navigate this life phase with clarity and confidence.
“As we celebrate our first anniversary, we wanted to find out how supported women really feel, to shine a light on the reality of navigating midlife as a woman.”
A new daily menopause pill approved for NHS use could bring relief to women with debilitating hot flushes and night sweats.
Around 500,000 women are expected to be eligible for the treatment, which experts say could help those unable to take hormone replacement therapy, or HRT.
The drug, fezolinetant, also known as Veoza, is a daily non-hormonal tablet designed to target the brain signals that trigger some of the most disruptive menopause symptoms.
In final draft guidance published today, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence recommended the 45mg tablet for women experiencing moderate to severe hot flushes and night sweats.
More than two million women in the UK are thought to suffer these symptoms during menopause, often beginning during the earlier stage known as perimenopause.
For many, the effects are severe, disrupting sleep, affecting concentration and straining relationships. In some cases women are even forced to cut back on work.
An estimated 60,000 women in the UK are currently out of work or on long-term sick leave due to severe menopause symptoms, costing the economy roughly £1.5bn a year.
Research also suggests one in 10 women has left the workforce entirely because of a lack of support.
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