It has been argued that women’s health has been under-researched, misunderstood and dismissed and that more attention needs to be paid to the huge investment potential in the continuously growing women’s health market. Reports indicate that women spent an estimated $500 billion on medical expenses in 2020 and it has been projected that the women’s health market will grow to $1 trillion annually by 2025. Moreover, women make about 80% of household health care decisions, live longer than men and spend more on healthcare and women see their healthcare providers more often than men. All this has led to the emergence of interest in “FemTech”, which is shorthand for “Female Technologies” and was first used in 2016 by a Danish entrepreneur named Ida Tin when describing her period-tracking app, Clue. McKinsey has described FemTech as encompassing a range of technology-enabled, consumer-centric products and solutions to improve healthcare for women across several female-specific conditions, including maternal health, menstrual health, pelvic and sexual health, fertility, menopause, and contraception, as well as general health conditions that affect women disproportionately or differently (such as osteoporosis or cardiovascular disease). According to McKinsey, FemTech companies can disrupt healthcare in a number of ways including improving care delivery, enabling self-care, improving diagnoses, addressing stigmatized areas and delivering culturally sensitive and tailored care.While estimates regarding the size of the opportunities for FemTech companies are impressive, total funding to women’s health and/or FemTech companies remains a very small percentage of the total venture capital funding that has gone to general, not female-specific, healthcare companies. Moreover, FemTech entrepreneurs and investors have been slow to expand their focus beyond maternal and childcare, family planning and fertility to include other areas where gender-specific healthcare solutions are needed. (e.g., arthritis and musculoskeletal disorders, which occur 1.5 times more in women than men; autoimmune diseases, which occur 3 times more in women than men; and depression and anxiety, which occur 2 times more in women than men). In addition, more attention needs to be paid to improving women’s overall health and wellness (e.g., managing stress, sleep, exercise, eating healthily and anxiety).Unfortunately, challenges affecting older women are mostly underrated and overlooked in discussions regarding the scope and trajectory of FemTech. FemTech entrepreneurs and investors need to focus on developing products and services that address the specific health concerns of older women. According to Aging in Place, the top health conditions affecting elderly women include breast cancer, osteoporosis, diabetes, arthritis, heart disease, dementia and depression. Health in Aging has reported that older women are more likely than men to have chronic, or ongoing, health conditions (i.e., arthritis, high blood pressure and osteoporosis); develop multiple health problems, which increases the complexity of care; and have memory or other cognitive problems and difficulties carrying out basic daily living activities on their own. This all suggests potential markets for telemedicine and virtual care services that will make it easier for older women to access healthcare, particularly for those living in rural areas and who have mobility issues, and technology for remote monitoring of those chronic conditions that are more prevalent among older women such as heart disease and diabetes. Older women would also benefit from FemTech products and services that promote health aging, such as online platforms that provide education and support on health and wellness topics and fitness and nutrition programs
