1.3 million women in the US (alone) enter menopause every year. According to a report by the VC Female Founders Fund, menopause is a $600 billion opportunity. The femtech industry has made great advances to improve women’s care for menstrual health, fertility, and pregnancy. Yet, despite the boom in femtech, there hasn’t been much tech developed to help the 6,000 women that go into menopause each day.
In 2021 so far, femtech startups have raised $2.5 billion in VC investment, up 44x vs. 2010. Between 2016 and 2021, femtech startups have raised $6.3 billion, while menopause startups have raised $128.9 million, this is only 2% of total investment in femtech. “Only 5% of femtech startups address menopause, and overall the opportunity is huge.” Adrianna Samaniego, Investor, Female Founders Fund.
🐁 Paralysed mice walk again after gel is injected into spinal cord. A self-assembling gel injected at the site of spinal cord injuries in paralysed mice has enabled them to walk again after four weeks. The gel mimics the matrix that is normally found around cells, providing a scaffold that helps cells to grow. It also provides signals that stimulate nerve regeneration.
🧠 In the UK, the NHS are to give therapy for depression before medication under new guidelines. Currently, those with mild depression are offered antidepressants or a high-intensity psychological intervention, such as CBT. Under the changes, those with “less severe depression”, which includes people with mild depression, should be involved in conversations with doctors about what would suit them best, but group CBT could be offered as a first treatment.
💓 Cardiologs' cardiac diagnostic now cleared for kids. According to the CDC, in 2016, 1.3% of children ages 0 to 17 had a heart condition and 40% of these children with a heart condition have one or more other special healthcare needs. The French company Cardiologs is now looking to use its new designation to help assist in detecting cardiac complications in kids.
💊 FDA clears Medtronic’s PillCam system for remote endoscopy procedures. PillCam SB3 is a remote endoscopy procedure program to deliver the capsule straight to a patient and, via a telehealth appointment, a provider guides the patient through the remote procedure. Over the course of the eight-hour procedure, the PillCam SB3 capsule transmits approximately 50,000 images securely to the cloud, where they can be assessed by a GI physician to make a diagnosis.
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Latest healthtech and biotech deals
The largest from last week:
🇫🇷 Owkin became a unicorn by raising $180M from Sanofi at $1.0B valuation. The Parisian AI startup runs a virtual lab (research platform, and a portfolio of AI models and solutions) where clinicians, pharma companies and academics can access anonymized data sets and models. Sanofi will use Owkin’s technology to find new biomarkers and therapeutic targets, build prognostic models, and predict response to treatment from multimodal patient data.
🇵🇹 SWORD Health, Porto-based virtual therapy for musculoskeletal conditions, became a unicorn by raising $163M in Series D and $26M in a secondary round.
🇺🇸 Luma Health, patient communication and scheduling, raised $130M in Series C.
Other notable deals from around the globe:
🇺🇸 Benchling raised $100M in Series F at a $6.1B valuation. Benchling’s software helps biotechs and scientists to design experiments and share data from those projects, a process that it says can speed up scientific discoveries and bring products to market faster.
🇬🇧 Sense Biodetection, molecular diagnostics company, raised $15M in Series B. The company intends to use the funds to support the anticipated U.S. and European commercial launch of its Covid-19 Test on its Veros instrument-free molecular platform.
🇳🇱 Neuroplast, a biotech company developing autologous stem cell therapies for patients suffering from neurodegenerative diseases, raised €10M in Series B.
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