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TECH




FIERCE JPM WEEK: WOMEN ARE THE 'POWER BUYERS' OF HEALTHCARE. HERE'S HOW STARTUPS
ARE STRIVING TO SERVE THEM

by Heather Landi |
Jan 19, 2022 1:04pm
Women's health is no longer niche, said Carolyn Witte, co-founder and CEO at
Tia. "We're not cutting out 50% of the population, but rather building a
personalized care delivery model for the most powerful, yet underserved customer
in healthcare who controls 80% of the dollars," she said.(Questex)
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Women are the "power buyers" of healthcare, controlling about 80% of the
healthcare spend in the U.S., which is a nearly $4 trillion industry.



Women's health is now in the spotlight, and investors have been quick to put
their cash into this growing market.

Digital health startups focused on women's health care pulled in $1.3 billion in
funding across 26 deals by October 2021—nearly doubling all of 2020's funding
with four months still left to go, according to digital health venture fund Rock
Health.




"You have to have blinders on, quite frankly, if you're not understanding that
dynamic and where the trend line is going," said healthcare investor Lynne Chou
O'Keefe, founder and managing partner at Define Ventures, during a Fierce JPM
Week panel discussion.

"The question now is how do we now truly expand the definition of what is
women's health? I think that's all our healthcare," O'Keefe said.

O'Keefe's venture capital firm has invested in several innovative startups, like
Tia and Hims & Hers, offering new models of care that deliver an integrated
experience to women.

Tia, a startup building what it calls a "modern medical home for women," secured
a hefty $100 million funding round in September, marking one of the largest
series B investments ever for a healthcare company focused on women, according
to the company.

RELATED: Hims & Hers making its mark in teledermatology with Apostrophe
acquisition

Women's health is no longer niche, said Carolyn Witte, co-founder and CEO at
Tia. "We're not cutting out 50% of the population, but rather building a
personalized care delivery model for the most powerful, yet underserved customer
in healthcare who controls 80% of the dollars," she said.

As women's health startups continue to see strong growth, more investment
dollars going into the market help put women's health needs on the map, Witte
said during the discussion.

"But it's still a drop in the bucket. Only 5% of digital health dollars are
going into women's health, and even fewer of those dollars are going into R&D
for new products, new services and research focused explicitly on the needs of
women," she said.


WHAT DOES THE FUTURE OF WOMEN'S HEALTH LOOK LIKE?

The next wave of innovation in women's health needs to focus on moving the
needle on outcomes. To do that, startups and providers need to create care
models that shift from specific body parts or reproductive life stages and
siloed care to care for the whole person, Witte said.

Providers also need to connect the dots between places of care as healthcare
adopts a more hybrid model. "The future of healthcare for women and for families
is not just Zoom or just in a real-world clinic; it's video, it's chat, it's a
clinic, it's the hospital, it's at home," she said.

Startups and providers also need to focus on providing personalized and
culturally tailored solutions for a diverse swath of women that address social
determinants of health and systemic racism in the healthcare system, she
mentioned.

"Focusing on these three areas will enable us to shift from women's health being
on the map to women's health actually working better," she added.

RELATED: Tia clinches $100M to build out clinics, virtual care as investors bank
on women's health startups

As women are the "gatekeepers" to their families' healthcare spending, there is
an opportunity to expand women's health to encompass community health, O'Keefe
said.

"As we think about the social determinants of health, which determine 60% of
your healthcare outcomes, these are things such as food security and housing.
Women are the influencers and power buyers in making those decisions for their
families as well as their communities," she said.

As women's health startups aim to redefine healthcare for a digitally native
consumer, there also is an opportunity to partner with traditional
brick-and-mortar healthcare providers, said Hilary Coles, co-founder and senior
vice president of brand and innovation at Hims & Hers, a consumer telehealth and
wellness brand.

"[These startups] are extremely talented, honestly, at bringing in new people
into the healthcare system who would never have engaged with the healthcare
system before," she said, noting Hims & Hers' partnerships with providers like
Ochsner and Privia Health.

"I think that there's a real awareness now from the traditional healthcare
players that what existed before wasn't sustainable. And there's an awareness
that they were not going to be able to get, frankly, any of this generation to
engage and go through the front door with them. So, I'm excited about that
further kind of collaboration," Coles said.

"I think we're going into a stage of branded networks," said O'Keefe, "where a
consumer will go into a Hims & Hers or a Tia and then get referred to more a
traditional health system player and then refer back. That brand experience is
going to be incredibly important."

RELATED: Women's digital health rakes in $1.3B in 2021 buoyed by investor
interest in more integrated care


ON THE IMMEDIATE HORIZON

Looking ahead, Coles, O'Keefe and Witte expect more M&A in the women's health
market and a shift from point solutions to more comprehensive platforms that
address a broader range of health needs for women and their families.

Hims & Hers expanded into primary care and mental health services last year. The
company also is looking to go deeper in areas it's already in, Coles said,
pointing to the recent acquisition of Apostrophe to provide more dermatology
services.

Tia is focused on scaling and opening more clinics as part of its virtually
integrated model, Witte said. "We're expanding to further support women
throughout their lives, and we call this 'whole-woman, whole-life-care' with a
big focus on pregnancy in that postpartum period. This year especially, we're
going be hearing more from Tia about what we're doing there to fill in the
biggest gaps in care."

Check out the Fierce JPM Week interview for more insights from Coles, Witte and
O'Keefe about M&A in the women's health market, more funding and the role of
technology.

Read more on
Women's health Digital health Social Determinants of Health Telehealth Venture
Capital Diversity investment Consumer health JPM 2022 Hims & Hers Carolyn Witte
Rock Health




ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Heather Landi
Senior Editor for Health IT
hlandi@questex.com
https://twitter.com/HeatherLandi
https://www.linkedin.com/in/heather-landi-91a73513/



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