Issue #108 -The Inside Story of Flo Health’s Unicorn Success 🎙️

 From India to the World! At FemTech India, we’re redefining women’s health for the next generation! 

🎙️ The FemTech India Podcast has officially gone global, and I couldn’t have asked for a better guest than Anna Klepchukova – a woman, mother, and the Chief Medical Officer at Flo Health Inc. for nearly 7 years. She joins me to share her journey in building Flo Health from its early days to a global success.

Tune in to find out the inside story on how Flo heath a period tracking app went from startup to unicorn status, her personal experience as a woman from Eastern Europe, growing up with a deep understanding of women’s health, and her passion for improving it globally. 

The “Pass It On” initiative, which aims to provide Flo Premium access for FREE to 1 billion women worldwide.

AND What’s next for Flo Health?

The 2024 Tech4Eva hybrid conference is once again bringing together industry stakeholders from around the world including: corporates, investors, entrepreneurs, innovators, academic researchers, students as well as ecosystem builders to discuss the current and the future of technologies for women’s health – with a focus on maternal health.

Be part of shaping a brighter future for Women’s Health and register here:
Register Here

QubeHealth, a Mumbai, India-based healthcare payments company, raised an undIsclosed amount in Pre-Series A funding, at Rs. 270 Crore valuation.Funds raised will be used for further investment in technology and new feature launches like embedded insurance, gen-AI led recommendation engine and a healthcare marketplace; prior to its Series-A round later this financial year. Qube is looking to raise about $9 Million in its upcoming Series-A.

• Parallel Fluidics, a company developing on-demand microfluidic manufacturing solutions with applications in IVF and other life science fields, has secured $7 million in seed funding. The round was led by J2 Ventures with participation from 8VC and Praxis.
• Persperity Health, a Caltech spin-out, has secured $1 million in pre-seed funding to develop sweat-sensing technology for non-invasive hormone monitoring. The round was led by Freeflow Ventures, with participation from Caltech, Wilson Hill Ventures, Heritage Group, and ATMA Capital.
• XRHealth, a Boston, MA-based provider of therapeutic virtual reality (VR) and extended reality (XR) solutions, acquired NeuroReality, an Amsterdam, the Netherlands-based VR games company.
• Wave Therapeutics, a Chicago, IL-based developer of AI-enabled, soft robotics cushioning technology, received an investment from Nurse Capital as part of its seed round of funding.
• Inquis Medical, a Menlo Park, CA-based medical technology company specializing in advanced thrombectomy systems, raised $40M in Series B funding.
• Dovetail Genomics, a Scotts Valley, CA-based company providing genomic solutions, received a $2M SBIR Grant from the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI).

• Women who are pregnant but who also have the ovarian cyst disorder polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) are at higher odds of giving birth to an underweight baby, new Norwegian research shows.The risk rises even higher if the woman with PCOS is also obese, the study found.
• People with a history of concussion face a 25 per cent higher risk of having severe mental health issues after childbirth. The research underscores the importance of identifying individuals with past concussions early in their prenatal care and highlights the need for long-term, trauma-informed support to safeguard their mental health.
• Women who take vitamin D supplements during a pregnancy may be giving their kids the legacy of stronger bones, new British research suggests. Children whose moms took vitamin D supplements when pregnant had stronger, denser bones at the age of 7 compared to the kids of women who didn’t, a study from the University of Southampton shows.
• Rates of anxiety and depression among U.S. adults, especially younger folks, continues to rise, the latest federal data shows. Nearly 1 in every 5 (18.2%) adults reported anxiety issues in 2022, up from 15.6% in 2019, reported Emily Terlizzi and Benjamin Zablotsky, researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
• Abortion pills are safe and effective even very early in a pregnancy, a new study finds.  Clinics and hospitals tend to defer medication abortions until a woman’s pregnancy is confirmed using ultrasound, researchers said. But abortion pills can be safely taken prior to the sixth week of pregnancy, researchers reported Nov. 6 in the New England Journal of Medicine.
• According to the researchers, high blood pressure affects almost 1.3 billion adults globally and is one of the biggest causes of premature death due to stroke and other causes. The new study focused on almost 15,000 adult volunteers who were given activity trackers to chart their daily involvement in six key activities:
• The active chemical in “magic mushrooms” may help treat anorexia, a new study has found. Following psilocybin treatment, 4 of 10 study participants showed clinically significant reductions in their anorexia-driven eating habits, researchers report.
• Nearly 16% of American adults — that’s close to 1 in 6 — now has diabetes, according to the latest data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Increasing age and widening waistlines greatly increase the odds for the disease, which happens when the body doesn’t use insulin properly, resulting in high blood sugar levels. If left unchecked, diabetes can be disabling and even life-threatening.
• Seniors who are drowsy during the day and find it hard to muster enthusiasm for activities could be at higher risk of a brain condition that precedes dementia, a new study warns.
• An experimental portable device might be able to detect lung cancer from a person’s exhaled breath, researchers report. The device contains “nanoflake” sensors that can detect small changes in the gases exhaled by a person with lung cancer.
• A pioneering pilot program launched by the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) utilises a specialised iPhone device and accompanying app to streamline throat cancer diagnosis, potentially enabling hundreds of patients to receive clearance from suspected cancer more rapidly. The innovative adapter providing a 32 mm lens and accompanying app can turn an iPhone into a portable diagnostic gadget. The new technology aids nurses to detect or rule out throat cancer in less than 24 hours. 
• People who sleep in on weekends can lower their risk of heart disease, finds a Chinese study presented at the European Society of Cardiology’s annual meeting. Sleep deprivation has been linked to heightened risks of obesity, hypertension, diabetes, heart attack and stroke.
• Yoga can help ease chronic low back pain, even if the classes are conducted online, a new study shows.Guidelines recommend using physical therapy or yoga to treat lower back pain before moving on to painkillers, but it can be tough for some people to make it to a yoga studio.

• OmniActive Health Technologies has acquired ENovate Biolife, a developer of proprietary, clinically researched botanical ingredients for health solutions. This deal, funded through internal accruals, has further strengthened the company’s commitment to providing high-quality, scientifically validated health ingredients to consumers globally.
• Duoning Biotechnology announced a strategic partnership agreement with Branca Bunús Ltd. (Branca Bunús). Under this agreement, the two companies will collaborate on the development, optimization, and application of transfection reagents, with the goal of providing biopharmaceutical customers with innovative transfection reagents through resource sharing, thereby enhancing the efficiency of biopharmaceutical development in upstream bioprocess.
• Bespak, a specialist inhalation contract development and manufacturing organisation (CDMO), and Orbia Advance Corporation, S.A.B. de C.V. (BMV: ORBIA) Fluor & Energy Materials (Koura), a global leader in the development, manufacture, and supply of fluoroproducts and technologies, announced a collaboration intended to accelerate the transition to climate-friendly inhalers utilising Orbia Fluor & Energy Materials’ low global warming potential (GWP) propellant known as Zephex 152a.
• Transgene, a biotech company that designs and develops virus-based immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer, and ProBioGen, a leading CDMO in biologics, vaccines and viral vectors, announce that the companies have entered into a license agreement for ProBioGen’s AGE1.CR.pIX suspension cell line.
• Scottish technology company iGii has announced a multi-million pound partnership with health monitoring company Prymexa to develop an at-home toolkit for early perimenopause detection. The collaboration aims to address a significant gap in menopause awareness and monitoring, with 60% of women under 40 reporting they don’t feel informed about this life stage.

• The Department of Community Medicine at Noida International Institute of Medical Sciences (NIIMS), in collaboration with the IAPSM-UP UK Chapter, hosted an engaging workshop focused on the integration of virtual reality (VR) in competency-based medical education. This innovative session provided an in-depth exploration of how VR technology is transforming medical training, allowing students and professionals to gain hands-on experience in a risk-free environment.
• Young people with severe obesity who underwent weight-loss surgery at age 19 or younger continued to see sustained weight loss and resolution of common obesity-related comorbidities 10 years later, according to results from a large clinical study funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

📳 – Quick Reads: 

• Fish Oil Supplements Might Help Prevent Cancer. The omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids in fish oil supplements might help protect people from cancer, a new study claims.
• Too Much Sitting Harms the Heart, Even in Folks Who Exercise. There’s just something about sitting. New research shows that too much time on sofas and chairs harms the heart — even among people who get the minimum recommended amount of daily exercise.

See you next Friday, friends 👋
Navneet

[Sign up here to never miss on the latest updates.]