More scientists and academics are trying to prolong the lifespan of humans in order to ensure that those extra years are worth living. Some of the teams are focused on detecting cancer earlier in the process of prolonging lifespan.
A small but growing group is starting to focus on menopause, which affects half of the population and is associated with a long list of health conditions.
Gameto wants to change the trajectory of women's health and equality by addressing the problem of accelerated ovarian aging.
The company's CEO, Dina Radenkovic, who studied medicine at University College London and has spent most of her career in computational medicine, said that the ovaries age up to five times faster than any other organ. When a woman is born with a certain number of ovocytes, an immature female sex cell that later gives rise to fully mature ovum or egg cell, they eventually run out of these.
Gameto wants to help delay that process, or even push it off forever if a woman chooses, by developing a platform for ovarian therapeutic that will initially be used to improve the process of assisted fertility but hopefully, eventually, be used, too, to identify cell therapies that can prevent what rad Asked for more details, she said that the young company has begun testing whether ovarian supporting cells could help mature eggs and reduce the number of IVF cycles that many women who are hoping to become pregnant currently endure.
She says that the company has strong evidence to back up its platform and that it is chaired by Martin Varsavsky, who has created a nationwide network of fertility centers.
Some investors are willing to bet on the company. Maryanna Saenko, the company's co-founder, says Gameto is excited about the prospect of a better standard of care for women undergoing menopause. She says that the suffering caused by menopause is not a biological imperative and that the many complications that come along with menopause, particularly early-onset menopause, can be avoided with today's hormone replacement therapies.
Arch Venture Partners, Robert Nelsen, and Anne Wojcicki are among the other participants.
Gameto raised $3 million in seed funding last year, including from Atomic founder Jack Abraham.
The market opportunity is huge and the thesis makes a lot of sense. Look for other startup to focus more on delaying menopause.
Gameto has some competition, including from a 12-year-old company that is creating a drug program to slow the depletion of a woman's ovarian reserve and that also hopes to separate a woman's reproductive function from her hormones. According to Fortune, the company has received grants in the past to work on contraceptives, and in early last year it announced a partnership with a pharmaceutical company and a drug development company.
Researchers are looking into the issue of treating menopause as a disease that can be treated. You can check the paper that was published in 2019.