How Femtech will be a game changer. Frost & Sullivan reports that women in menopause will be key beneficiaries of developments in femtech (female technology), as the digital savvy Generation X enter menopause.

The market is also largely untapped, according to Forbes magazine due to “stigma” and “silence”; and solutions are welcomed as the health care burden is significant. According to Forbes, globally, it is estimated that the additional healthcare burden of menopausal women experiencing the most common symptoms of menopause, is approximately $660 billion globally; and the burden on the economy due to productivity losses can total over $150 billion. The combined total is more than $810 billion.

“However, Femtech has been more active in the area of menstrual health and pregnancy and has already seen funding worth $241 million in the first quarter of 2019. Only a handful of companies are targeting women’s midlife health issues, and this space remains heavily underfunded,” Forbes reports.

In fact, Creandum, a leading European VC firm, reports that reproductive life solutions for women represent 99.97% of the market; while only 0.03% prioritise women experiencing the different stages of menopause. Software company Untitled Kingdom believes technology can assist women in the various stages of menopause in getting the help they need. Because despite everything they go through during menopause, 55% of women don’t do anything at all to treat their symptoms.

Source: Untitled Kingdom

How Femtech will be a game changer. All of this makes the group an addressable market for femtech companies, Untitled Kingdom states, quoting the co-founder and CEO of women’s health startup, Gennev, Jill Angelo: “I believe the menopause market is just waking up. There’s been a lot of innovation in pregnancy, fertility, and menstrual health because it’s well-defined and not associated with aging. Menopause, on the other hand, is something every woman experiences, and yet, many markets don’t speak of it, because it has a stigma associated with aging and non-reproductive years… versus the freedom it brings to women kicking off the second half of life.”

The femtech industry will find strong applications in menopause management, said Chandni Mathur, transformational health industry analyst with Frost & Sullivan: “Certain digital health start-ups have been quick to identify this opportunity and offer B2C digital health tools such as mobile apps to guide menopausal women through this phase with lifestyle intervention tips; and, more recently, online telehealth consultations.”

If anything, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated these trends in digital health as digital consultations became more widely accepted during pandemic lockdowns and stay-at-home orders, the world over.

Frost & Sullivan predicts that the femtech market could be worth $50 billion by 2025: “Most women from Generation X, who are now in their late 40s and approaching menopause, are technologically proficient and digitally literate. They manage their lives, relationships and finances using social media as well as new technologies. These women are comfortable with their smartphones, well aligned to the concept of “digitisation of health”, and provide a strong addressable market for femtech companies. Femtech saw funding worth $241 million in the first quarter of 2019 and we have seen strong activity in the areas of menstrual health and pregnancy.”