Networking the healthcare world through Content, Events and Connections

WHF Magazine Globe

The rise of FemTech

March 17, 2023
by Healthcare World

The global FemTech market is valued at $25bn and projected to rise by 15 per cent in the next few years, so it deserves greater attention, say Vincent Buscemi and Letitia Winterflood-Blood of Bevan Brittan LLP 

There is no official definition of “FemTech”. But if you search online for this term, the consensus seems to be it refers to technology, services and products that improve women, females, and girls’ health and wellness. As women comprise 51 per cent of the global population, it seems strange that it needs its own classification as a subset of health tech. There is no doubt that female-targeted apps provide invaluable medical advice to women, girls and others, so this area of innovation rightly deserves to be in the spotlight and given greater attention. In terms of the benefits it can bring, this can particularly be the case in emerging economies where cultural traditions may have a disproportionately detrimental impact on females.

So is FemTech a misnomer? And if it is, how has it entered the mainstream and is now worth $25bn globally? Vincent Buscemi (Partner) and Letitia Winterflood-Blood (Senior Associate) from Bevan Brittan LLP, are particularly interested in the rise of FemTech, especially as a number of their digital, MedTech, life science and traditional healthcare clients are increasingly active in this space and, as a firm where the majority of the lawyers are women, equality is a priority.

FemTech was coined as a term as late as 2016. For Vincent Buscemi, the reality is that it has been a positive disruptor in healthcare because there are now many more people taking it into consideration. “At Bevan Brittan we are always very interested in following FemTech companies and looking at how they’re structured,” he says. “There are many more products and services specifically focused on women’s health and women’s health needs, particularly as GEN-Z and the younger generations now use technology for almost everything.”

Healthcare relevance of FemTech 

FemTech encompasses everything from menstrual health, reproductive health, sexual health, maternal health and menopause. Until now FemTech founders have tended to be female, reinforcing the FemTech description. Indeed, in some contexts the term FemTech is used to describe women in tech more generally. It has additional relevance in that certain conditions not specific to females, such as osteoporosis, affect more women than men or affect women differently.

For Letitia, there is the prevention agenda as well. “People are talking about women’s health more openly now, giving women the confidence to manage their own health and issues they would have shied away from previously,” she says. “We need to take advantage of this shift and make it easy for women to manage those issues, particularly as health systems around the world are being reshaped following the COVID pandemic.”

As a general rule, women have always been more open about discussing health issues with their doctor, whereas men can often be diagnosed too late for a positive outcome. Through wearables and FemTech apps, medical and healthcare information can be now disseminated widely and also privately, enabling women to understand when to approach their GP or indeed other support, relieving pressure on primary care services.

As with any healthcare product, FemTech has to take into consideration how people consume healthcare on the ground. To combat local cultural issues, “FemTech can be adapted at a cost at a local level to tailor products and services to different groups in different societies or parts of the world” Letitia says. This approach of tailoring the tech to local needs has potential to help those groups that have historically been marginalised – often women. “There has been increased prevalence of telemedicine and remote monitoring/wearables to facilitate healthcare at home since COVID. This has been particularly helpful for rural communities and women’s health issues that have traditionally been stigmatised.”

For Vincent, “ultimately this is important because, across the world, one of the main thrusts of whole population healthcare and population health management is about identifying health needs and reducing health inequalities”. Apart from it being a good thing to do, this should be a key objective solely from a socioeconomic perspective – a healthier, happier population is likely to be a more productive one with fewer demands on other public services such as social care.

Controversy around FemTech 

Vincent observes that some critics suggest that categorising FemTech reinforces certain gender stereotypes. “There’s no such thing as mentech or mantech, so FemTech could be seen as being somewhat exclusionary to certain groups. But that ought not to detract from the positive things that the whole FemTech market and industry is seeking to achieve.

But surely FemTech is of relevance to the 49 per cent of the population that is male? Letitia agrees, saying the agenda of FemTech is also about reducing health inequalities between men and women. “It provides an interface to connect communities and introduces a social aspect as a way to seek reassurance, for example through online forums. However, it’s also about being able to get care where you actually need it and identifying when an issue needs medical assistance,” she says. An app is unlikely to be the end of the road where medical intervention and treatment is needed but it will make a major contribution to ensuring the right treatment is sought at the right time. Given that women are – generally – more likely to seek medical assistance than men and at an earlier stage of an issue arising, perhaps the approach to health management which the FemTech industry is developing can lay the foundations for a male-centric equivalent.

However, by categorising female-targeted products in this way, Letitia is concerned that it could result in further marginalisation. Adding the FemTech label does not necessarily mean it will meet female-specific needs. “It’s not a box ticking exercise around women’s health or simply an area in which women work,” she says. “It’s more about adjusting the default approach to everything, while acknowledging that there are some issues and conditions which will be more relevant or relevant in a different way to women.”

Where the focus is shifting on to ‘women’s health’ issues, the danger emerges that everything else (e.g. orthopaedics, respiratory medicine) remains male-centric in terms of innovation, focus, design and funding. In Vincent’s opinion; “We need men working on FemTech because, apart from anything else, it will promote greater understanding in all areas of life.”

And this feeds into the rise of equality, diversity and ESG initiatives. From a legal point of view, it’s a different offering as well. As one of the UK’s top law firms, Bevan Brittan has a high proportion of female lawyers (and partners) with several wellbeing and equality initiatives, such as a menopause group. “There may be certain clients who are more comfortable talking to a female lawyer about these issues, particularly in the Middle East, and we are happy to offer this,” says Vincent

Economic effects of FemTech 

In Vincent’s opinion, many employers will have a reasonable number of females in the workforce, and a healthy, happy, well-adjusted workforce often leads to greater productivity and a positive contribution to the economy.

If nothing else – it’s good for business. On the consumer side there is a big market for more female-focused products. On the organisational/ employee side, making changes in this area potentially unlocks a huge chunk of hidden talent that will lead to better productivity, more innovation, and potentially better profitability. Outside the FemTech arena, 51 per cent of any potential target market is female, so ensuring that women play a substantive role in product design, development and implementation is vital.

“If you’re carrying a female input for your products and the services, it is more likely to result in better adjusted and better designed products,” Vincent says. “It’s a slightly cold business angle, but it’s in the company’s interest to include this perspective from a purely economic and business point of view. It may be an area that some people or companies might like to ignore, but ignore it at your peril because ultimately it’s big and getting bigger.”

In practice, funding is also key. On the whole investors have bought into the idea that there is a major gap in the healthcare market and one that can reap rewards. “A range of private equity and other investors are looking at healthcare because, over the last few years with the pandemic, they haven’t invested as much as they would have, so there is liquidity within those investor markets to invest in this area,” says Vincent.

There may be some who are deterred by the categorisation, but according to a report by Beauhurst, the industry globally is expected to reach $60bn by 2027. A February 2022 report by McKinsey noted that women account for 80 per cent of consumer purchasing decisions in the healthcare industry yet, remarkably, women’s health has been considered a niche market and a mere subset of healthcare. “Ultimately, with the rise of ESG and the prevalence that investors are putting on impact investment, and the fact that female health issues are all historically under-funded and under-researched, FemTech is an area where investors could make a real impact in a relatively short space of time,” Vincent concludes.

Share this article

< Back to home

We are
Healthcare World

The leading, networking, publishing, events
and consultancy business for international healthcare

 

If you’re looking to take your business
overseas, we can help you...

Share This