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How ‘femtech’ startups are using groundbreaking tests to overhaul a systemically misogynistic healthcare system.
Despite around 800 million people experiencing a period on any given day, very little is known about menstrual blood.
The history of menstruation is itself a fraught story – women and those who menstruate have been ushered into a code of shameful silence since time immemorial, and despite strides in healthcare and gender rights, this sense of taboo has lingered.
Female reproductive healthcare is still underfunded and understudied. Women suffer immense pain after facing misdiagnosis or dismissal by medical professionals.
In the UK, just 2.1% of medical research funding goes to reproductive conditions, despite research showing that 31% of women experience severe issues with their reproductive health.
Self-professed ‘femtech’ startups are fighting to change that, many of them using menstrual blood as a springboard from which to overhaul the healthcare landscape. One such company is Qvin, founded by Dr Sara Naseri.
Dr Naseri hopes her business can help those who menstruate to better understand their bodies whilst making strides for medical research more broadly – particularly where it relates to menstruating bodies. Qvin takes monthly blood samples in a bid to offer ground-breaking new health insights.
‘Blood is the most commonly-used bodily fluid for medical decision-making,’ says Dr Naseri. ‘I thought: women bleed every month. Why has nobody used this blood for health purposes?’
Indeed, Qvin’s research has shown that menstrual blood can be used to monitor anything from blood sugar to cholesterol levels.
But Qvin isn’t alone in its quest. Other brands have emerged with their own spin on the menstrual blood testing process. Brands like NextGen Jane (NGJ), a Bay Area-based startup founded in 2014.
NGJ relies on women across the US to package and mail their used tampons each month, and so far they’ve obtained around 2,500 samples this way. These companies have found themselves in a race to develop blood tests using menstrual effluent collected non-invasively at home.
The hope is that this technology will help to diagnose gynecological and reproductive health conditions for those who send in their menstrual blood for analysis. But despite this emphasis, the blood could also be used to track hormones, screen for cancers, monitor diseases such as diabetes and boost stem cell research.
