A panel of women in femtech told an audience at Sensors Converge 2024 that too little has been done to boost women’s health, especially regarding collecting data on disease indicators.
Drug trials before 1994 were mostly performed with male subjects, leaving out more than half the population, the panel noted. One lesson learned from that mistake is that today’s engineers and designers of new products must take pains to include a diverse group of subjects (including women) during product design and testing, they recommended. And, they argued for more health indicator data collection.
Product designers need to carefully define the use case for wearables, and test against different skin tones and different-sized bodies, said Stacy Salvi, vice president of Movano Health. She wore the Evie smart ring made by Movano that is designed for women to track heart rate, blood oxygen levels, menstrual symptoms, sleep patterns and more.
Panelists said smart rings worn by many thousands of women could be used to gather needed data on menopausal signals, creating a corps of “citizen scientists.”
Catherine Liao, chief strategy officer at CardieX, a medical device maker focused primarily on heart health, said regulators should be requiring data on pregnancy care, for example.
“We’re missing an enormous amount of biometric data on women,” Salvi added. Meanwhile, panelists agreed that data from wearables needs to be contextualized, not just collected.
While there have been shortcomings in gathering data on women’s health, the panel asserted that private and public investment in femtech are actually on the upsurge. Analysts predict the femtech market will reach $50 billlion in 2025. With women in control of 80% of household spending,they agreed the business opportunities are real for new devices and for investors.
Meanwhile, research into women’s health is on the rise, said Maike Scharp, deputy director of foundation strategy at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “It’s a globally important problem,” Scharp said. The foundation and NIH are collaborating on the Innovation Equity Forum, which has described 50 high-return investment opportunities in R&D into women’s health.
“A lot of companies and investors see opportunities,” said Salvi.
The Women in Sensors & Engineering Panel, "Revolutionizing Women's Health--The Blueprint for FemTech Triumph," was moderated by Monica Highfill, founding director of Highfill Health, a holistic nutrition practice.