FemTech: bridging the gender gap in healthcare

Gender discrimination in medical research has long been a reality. For example, typically male mice are used in early phase clinical trials as researchers think/have thought that the female hormone cycle can impact test results. The same biases reflect in the under-representation and underfunding of woman-centric research.¹ The outcome of an one-size-fits-all approach based on male-centric trials is incomplete knowledge of how gender, as a biological factor, impacts treatments and medicines that come on to the market.² Experience has shown that women experience adverse reactions to medicines twice as often as men, and in most cases suffer worse side effects too. This could be explained by women often being underrepresented at all levels of clinical trials.³

In recent years, research focus has become more gender specific.⁴ This includes universities offering advanced trainings in gender-specific medicine.⁵ As inequalities are addressed, we see an increase of females in medical research, and new products and technologies being developed to positively change women’s healthcare. In the US, investments in companies focusing on female healthcare – FemTech – rose from USD 0.8 billion in 2021 to USD 3.3 billion in 2022.⁶ Projections put the global FemTech market at USD 75 billion by 2025.⁷

Among others, FemTechs provide digital personalised care, telemedicine, one-on-one support services and access to a peer community. So far investments have mostly been in obstetrics, gynecology and fertility services, but the scope is set to broaden. There are investments in new technologies like soft-tissue reconstruction techniques, detection tools for breast cancer and instruments to improve surgery experience and outcomes in female-centric procedures like caesarian sections and treatment for pelvic floor disorders.⁸ Consumers of FemTech services are not only those who identify as female. Transgender and non-binary individuals also seek reproductive health, menstruation, fertility tracking, hormone therapy-related and other services.

Gynecology and fertility devices are typically digital apps and trackers. Users track their health and well-being on such apps, which involves sharing information about their menstruation cycles, sleep patterns and stages of pregnancy etc., private information that is rarely shared outside a circle of close family and friends.

And therein lies the rub. A recent study found that is it not only the operators of certain popular apps that have access to sensitive data. So too do third-party tracker agents, who can collect user data from the apps and share them with other third parties like advertisers, analytics providers and social media platforms.⁹ One aspect is how secure the data is and the potential individual impact of a data breach if sensitive information is leaked. On an individual account, a data leak could be very harmful given, for instance, recent political developments in the US to limit abortion rights and global backlash against gender and womens’ rights.¹⁰ Another personal risk aspect is when a state has legal access to electronic data related to individuals, for instance to monitor women considering abortion.¹¹

Collecting personal data to target individuals with personalised online advertising is lucrative business. By consenting, users relinquish control – sometimes unwittingly – over how their data is used.¹² The consequences are manifold and potentially invasive. For example, a recent mother who uses an app may start to receive advertisements for weight-loss services. Such marketing can pressure the mother to live up to standards deemed socially desirable, to the detriment of her mental health and overall well-being.

Addressing gender health inequality gaps should be a priority in medical R&D, but should not come at the cost of exposing women to further personal risks.