There are many startups focusing on women's health and reproductive health. Most of these startups focus on women's fertility, including ovulation, birth control and inability to conceive. Women's health is still a neglected area.
The majority of our knowledge of illnesses has been based on the perspectives of men. This is because most of our understanding comes from studies involving male patients. Women of childbearing years were excluded from drug trial studies until the 1990s. This bias continues to be a problem in healthcare. Other issues include the underrepresentation and trivialization women's physical complaints, which is related to misdiagnosis for endometriosis among other conditions, as well as gender bias in funding research, particularly research grants.
Numerous studies have shown, for example, that the National Institutes of Health funds go to diseases that most directly affect men. 2019 NIH funding studies based on disease burden, which is the amount of time lost to illness over a period of time, showed that male-favored conditions were funded twice as often as female-favored ones.
Let's take the example of endometriosis. Endometriosis refers to a condition in which endometrial-like tissue (lesions), can be found outside of the uterus. Endometriosis can only occur in people with uteruses. It has not been as well studied and funded as other conditions. It can lead to infertility, fatigue, chronic pain, and painful intercourse. One in 10 women may be affected by the disease, but diagnosis is slow and can only be confirmed with surgery.
Non-invasive tests are not available. A woman may be diagnosed due to infertility. This can lead to a lengthy process that can take as long as 10 years. It is difficult to understand the disease progression and biology, as well as the relationships with other lesion diseases like adenomyosis, even after diagnosis. The current treatments include surgery to remove lesions and medications that suppress ovarian hormone production (mainly estrogen).
There are however, some changes. In 1994, the NIH established the category of women's health research for budgeting purposes. It was then updated in 2019 to include only research that is specific to women. Recognizing the prevalence of male bias in human and animal research, the NIH required grant applicants to recruit both male and female participants in 2016. These changes are slow. Endometriosis received $7 million in NIH funding for fiscal 2018, which puts it at the bottom of NIH's 285 research/disease areas.
It is fascinating to see that important changes are coming from other sources and not just from the funding agencies or pharmaceutical industry. Patients and doctors who treat these diseases are driving the change. We are seeing pharmaceutical companies such as Eli Lilly or AbbVie in the women's healthcare space following the example of their patients. They are slowly expanding their R&D base, and increasing their efforts to expand beyond reproductive and other important areas for women's health.
Private sources are funding new technological innovations that target endometriosis. Women's health was finally recognized as one of the most promising areas for investment in 2020. There are a number of diagnostics companies, including NextGen Jane, which raised $9 million in a Series A in April 2021 to fund its smart tampon. DotLab is a startup that provides non-invasive endometriosis screening and testing, which raised $10m from investors last July. The research-study app Phendo, which tracks endometriosis and Gynica, which focuses on cannabis-based solutions for gynecological problems, are two other notable achievements.
Endometriosis can be so complex that it may prove difficult for any one biotech startup to tackle it all. Collaborations are one way to address this problem. Auransa and Polaris Quantum Biotech, two companies, have joined forces to address the challenge of endometriosis and other diseases specific to women.
This collaboration between two women-led AI companies combines data, algorithms, and quantum computing to understand disease biology and chemistry. They are also not content with in silico, but want to help patients with therapeutics.
The speed at which a field such as women's health can progress can be greatly influenced by new partnerships. Women-centric diseases like endometriosis and triple-negative breast carcinoma, as well as ovarian cancer, can be neglected without such coordinated efforts. This could lead to inadequate therapeutics being delivered to clinics quickly.
The field can advance faster by using state-of the-art technology for complex women's diseases. This is especially true with the support of patients advocacy groups, researchers, doctors, and other funding options such as crowdfunding.
We believe it is both a win-win situation for patients and businesses to pursue the women's health market. The global market for endometriosis medicines is expected to grow by $2.2 billion over the next six years.
