9 Things we learned about femtech and the future of women’s health at FemTech Connect Asia

A statistic mentioned frequently over the two-day event was that women control 80 percent of healthcare decisions. They are likely the primary caretakers in a family, making appointments and healthcare purchasing decisions. Women need to be at the centre of the industry's progress. 

“Focusing on the needs of women and women in families is a sound business decision for healthcare,” said Dr Steven Tucker, founder of Tucker Medical Singapore. 

It goes further than that, too. For every $1 invested in women’s health, $3 is projected in economic growth.

A key trend highlighted by Anna Butterworth, founder of Ultra Violet Agency, was the shift from "healthcare being solution-focused to prevention", which will in part be fuelled by an increased use of AI, where millions of data points can be drawn on to identify potential health outcomes, detect potential disease earlier, and offer preventative treatment.

This also ties into a shift towards more personalised healthcare, a trend highlighted by Sastya Wardani, co-founder and CEO of PLans, an AI-powered personalised assistant platform to help women with their reproductive health. 

“Personalised medicine is the future,” added Dr Tucker. “We don’t all respond to the same drug in the same way. It's the right drug for the right person at the right time," he said referring to the rise of pharmacogenomics, which investigates how a person's genetic makeup can impact how their body processes certain medications. 

“It’s now a patient-doctor-AI relationship,” said investor Alvin Tay of Biomedia Holdings of the role AI is increasingly playing.

While there are plenty of applications of AI in women's health, from AI-powered diagnostic support tools, to smart fertility trackers, to using AI to analyse mammograms for breast cancer, Priya Thachadi of Villgro Philippines added that "AI is not the solution; it's really an enabling tool."

A panel discussion exploring women's health and AI saw Thachadi, Mei-Ling Lu of HeHealth and Maria Gaitanidou of Hati Health discuss some of the applications of AI as well as their concerns, which included fears around data and informed consent—"health data is highly personal, especially in the context of sexual health and maternal wellness," said Thachadi. 

There's too much "data collection for collection's sake and for monetisation," added Gaitanidou, while Lu stressed the importance of transparency, particularly around how AI used in healthcare is trained, as it's important that efforts are made to ensure institutionalised biases already present in healthcare are not being further entrenched. 

While much of the femtech industry in Southeast Asia is currently focused on reproductive health, whether that's menstrual health, fertility care or maternal healthcare, there is much more to women's health. 

“There’s breast cancer, osteoporosis, thyroid problems, dementia, heart disease. There’s also sustaining hormones longer. It’s time we go beyond [reproductive health],” said Dr Hisham Badaruddin of Noviu Health. 

The progression and treatments of various conditions and diseases are often different in men and women, so there is plenty to be addressed. "We need more innovation,” said Alvin Tay, who was keen to see more startups outside of the menstrual and reproductive health space. 

Mabel Yen Ngoc Nguyen, co-founder and CEO of EloCare, which develops healthcare devices for optimised chronic and ageing care, including wearable technology to help midlife women manage menopause, has seen progress in this area since founding her startup in 2020. “We only saw interest from community, but not from investors and institutions," she shared. "Now, after a few years, we see institutions and governments starting to ask about these things.”

Findings from the Insights into the Femtech Landscape in Southeast Asia report showed that the top five challenges when trying to openly discuss women’s health issues include fear of judgement or shame (52 percent), societal stigma and taboo (39 percent), lack of privacy or safe space of discussion (36 percent), gender bias or inequality (31 percent), not knowing how to start such conversations (30 percent).

These findings were further confirmed by various speakers across the event. Nicola Gerber of Amazon Web Services, who spoke on a panel about integrating women's health into the workplace, shared the discomfort that some of her colleagues in Asia-Pacific feel discussing topics such as menopause and fertility, while entrepreneur Sastya Wardani added that in Southeast Asia "women's health is still something we don't talk about, something very taboo" and that the "education part is still a lot of work."

Benjamin Lum of Zora Health highlighted the importance of bringing more awareness to women's health and the issues women face. “Awareness leads to education, then action,” he said, acknowledging that there is still a long way to go and highlighting the need to engage stakeholders at every level, including the men. “Where are the men in the room when it comes to being more aware about the struggles women face?”

Alia Rahman of Amplexd Therapeutics highlighted the importance of self-administered healthcare solutions, particularly for women. “Self-administered therapy, whether a wearable or a drug—that’s the direction we are moving in,” said Rahman, whose company is developing self-administered intravaginal suppositories for topical treatment of HPV-induced cervical dysplasia, which can lead to cervical cancer. 

Dr Tucker agreed on the growing importance and prevalence of wearable technology, which uses data for a more personalised approach, while Ultra Violet's FemTech Futures report predicts an increase in at-home AI diagnostic tools. 

A self-administered or at-home approach to women's healthcare offers privacy and comfort, convenience and expanded access, and can empower women to take control of and manage their own health. 

The Insights into the Femtech Landscape in Southeast Asia report found that the term "femtech" is not widely recognised. Just one in four women of those surveyed were familiar with the term. Breaking that down by country, this was just 13 percent of women in Singapore and 16 percent of women in Thailand, though the rates were higher in the Philippines (31 percent) and Vietnam (37 percent). General understanding was that femtech relates to menstrual products and services, though the term covers much more than that. 

It was, however, promising to note that 54 percent of current non-femtech users showed intention or consideration for near-future use of femtech products. 

Barriers for femtech in the region included lack of awareness (42 percent), affordability and cost of femtech products and services (32 percent), and privacy and security concerns (26 percent). 

There were other concerns around the term femtech, particularly from the investor side. “Investors aren’t that receptive to the world femtech yet," said Alvin Tay, who suggested that founders “think of a different way to frame your solution."

Amidst concerns around data sharing and data privacy—a key concern highlighted around the increased adoption of AI in healthcare and with the prevalence of women's health apps—Ultra Violet's research highlighted a trend for women going “off grid” digitally to protect their privacy and mental health.

In a similar vein, Alia Rahman of Amplexd Therapeutics suggested a move towards more natural and simple solutions, something we are increasingly seeing in other fields. The suppository developed by her company uses EGCG as its primary active ingredient, a polyphenol derived from green tea that does not come with the toxicity concerns that other drugs might.

There were a number of predictions related to the way we build families and how that might change. While much of femtech currently focuses on reproductive health, there are significant potential developments within this area.

It's “thinking about not just how eggs are frozen, but how we can prolong fertility,” said Dr Tucker, who talked about transplanting DNA in mitochondria to reverse ovarian ageing and preserve fertility. Sastya Wardani also discussed ovarian preservation to extend a woman's reproductive age, while Mayra Hurtado mentioned the potential impact of hormone health on reproductive longevity and as a means to prevent osteoporosis. 

Ultra Violet's FemTech Futures report highlights other areas of innovation from the gene editing of embryos to address chromosome deficiencies and other issues, to artificial wombs, which could help to sustain extremely premature babies. In all these areas, there are limitations and risks, the potential for misuse and a necessity for regulation. 

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