The business of ‘female tech’ is growing
(NYTIMES) - Women represent half of the planet's population. Yet tech companies catering to their specific health needs represent a minute share of the global tech market. Tapping that spending power, a multitude of apps and tech companies have sprung up in the last decade to address women's needs, including tracking menstruation and fertility, and offering solutions for pregnancy, breastfeeding and menopause. Medical start-ups also have stepped in to prevent or manage serious conditions such as cancer. "The market potential is huge," said psychiatrist Michelle Tempest, a partner at the London-based healthcare consultancy Candesic. "There's definitely an increasing appetite for anything in the world which is technology, and a realisation that female consumer power has arrived - and that it's arrived in healthcare." She said one reason women-related needs had not been focused on in the field of technology was that life sciences research was overwhelmingly "tailored to the male body". In 1977, the US Food and Drug Administration excluded women of child-bearing age from taking part in drug trials. Since then, women have been underrepresented in drug trials, because of a belief that fl...
