Happy New Year!
Thank you all for your incredible support over the past two years! We’ve made great progress, and it’s all thanks to your trust, support, and engagement. You’ve played a key role in helping In FemTech India grow and push forward its mission to educate and collaborate in the field of women’s health.
This year, I want to give back to all of you, our loyal subscribers. We’re excited to launch the FemTech Circle WhatsApp channel of the global community, where you’ll have access to resources, investment opportunities, advisory roles, job opportunities and the chance to connect with leading women’s health founders. It’s a place to connect and support one another in the community.
If you’d like to be part of this exciting new initiative, simply send me your number, and I’ll add you to the group! Participation is by invitation only, and we already have top founders and investors on board.
From joining the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and partnering with Flo Health on the Pass It Project to representing India globally at the Women’s Forum for the Economy & Society and SiS: Women’s Health London, 2024 has been nothing short of incredible. Being featured on top media platforms and making headlines — it’s been a journey to remember.
We ended this year on a high note by taking our podcast and mission global, reaching over 1.2 million people across 90 countries, furthering our commitment to shaping the future of women’s health.
Our ecosystem now supports 170 founders & 125 companies around the world.
Thank you for standing by us and being part of our journey to shape the future of women’s health. We can’t wait to share some very exciting announcements with you in 2025.
Wishing you all the best for the year ahead! 🎉
Digital & Brands:
- Blinkit India Launches 10-Minute Ambulance Service in Gurgaon for Emergencies.
- The app Forbes rated 5 stars.
- Nearly 1 in 4 new startups is an AI company.
- Year-End Data Shows Consumers Pick Credit Cards for Rewards, Debit for Convenience.
What’s trending this week in women’s health :
💰 Funding News:
- AusperBio Therapeutics, Inc. and Ausper Biopharma Co., Ltd. (collectively AusperBio), a US and China based clinical-stage biotechnology company dedicated to advancing targeted oligonucleotide therapies to achieve a functional cure for chronic hepatitis B (CHB), closed a USD 73 million Series B financing.
- Waken Mouthcare, a London, UK-based oral care brand creating mouthcare products, raised £950M in Crowdfunding.
- Mabel, a Paris-based women’s health startup, has officially launched following two years of research and development and a €600K pre-seed funding round. The company focuses on addressing women’s mental health through microdosing programs and mushroom-based supplements.
- Ema, an AI platform focused on women’s health, has announced the completion of its latest funding round, pushing its total funding past $3 million. The Boston-based company has established itself as a leading agentic AI platform dedicated to transforming women’s healthcare delivery and outcomes.
📢 NEWS:
- Eczema can be maddening, causing thick, scaly patches of dry skin that itch like the devil.There’s no cure for the skin condition, but a new study shows that self-guided talk therapy can help a person deal with the itching.
- A woman’s binge drinking might be related to her hormones. The female hormone estrogen appears to promote binge drinking in women, a new mouse study published recently in the journal Nature Communications shows. Specifically, estrogen causes women to “pre-game,” or consume large quantities of alcohol within the first half-hour after it’s offered, results show.
- Weight loss tops many folks’ list of New Years resolutions, and lots of people are turning to cutting-edge weight-loss drugs like Ozempic to help them drop excess pounds. These drugs, called glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1 RAs), work in several different ways to help people lose weight, gain control over their blood sugar levels, and improve their heart health, a new study published in the journal Cureus says.
- It was a year in health news that will be hard to forget. As blockbuster weight-loss drugs known as GLP-1s made a sizable dent in the obesity epidemic, study after study revealed other ways in which these powerful medications can improve health.
- Global warming will increasingly have dire consequences for people with degenerative brain disorders like dementia, Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.
- Female stroke victims are less likely than men to take drugs that could lower their odds of a second stroke. Women are 80% more likely to report that they don’t take cholesterol-lowering medications as prescribed, a new study shows.
- That morning cup of coffee or afternoon spot of tea might be protecting you from cancer.A new evidence review says that coffee and tea consumption are linked to a lower risk of cancers of the mouth, throat, and head and neck, per the results published in the journal Cancer.
- Very early-stage breast cancers are notoriously tough to spot via mammograms, but new technology might make detection easier.According to a new study published recently in the Journal of Biophotonics, Scottish researchers are combining AI with high-tech “laser analysis” to spot changes in circulating blood that could signal the earliest stages of breast tumors.
- Bedtime stories are a time-honored means of helping kids calm down and get a good night’s sleep. Analysis of four traditional children’s tales show that the fanciful stories contain important lessons about sleep, hidden under a layer of fairy dust, researchers report in a study published recently in the BMJ.
- New British research shows that too much of a good medication can be a bad thing. In the study, repeated doses of paracetamol, known as acetaminophen (brand name Tylenol) in the United States, raised the risk of gastrointestinal, cardiovascular and kidney complications among those over 65.
- If you’re a mom right now, you are likely tearing your hair out as you juggle the sizable scheduling demands of the holiday season. Maybe you feel like you are carrying the load alone.The study, published recently in the Journal of Marriage & Family, reveals that mothers overwhelmingly carry this “mental load.”
- It was a year in health news that will be hard to forget. As blockbuster weight-loss drugs known as GLP-1s made a sizable dent in the obesity epidemic, study after study revealed other ways in which these powerful medications can improve health.
- A recent study has found that Native American women were disproportionately affected by vaginal dysbiosis, a disruption in the balance of bacteria that increases the risk of human papillomavirus infection, which can cause cervical cancer.
- The vast majority of women who contract bird flu during pregnancy and their unborn baby will die from the virus, according to a new study. The findings stress the importance of early inclusion of pregnant women in public health vaccination programs during pandemics.
- New research has found a pervasive low-quality diet among pregnant and postpartum individuals, reflecting “an urgent need for widespread improvement.” The study assessed diet quality in the same individuals from the beginning of pregnancy through one year postpartum. Few studies have analysed diet quality in pregnancy and postpartum in the same participants.
- The hormone estrogen regulates binge drinking in females, causing them to “pregame”—consume large quantities of alcohol in the first 30 minutes after it’s offered, according to a preclinical study led by scientists at Weill Cornell Medicine. The study establishes, for what is thought to be the first time, that circulating estrogen increases binge alcohol consumption in females and contributes to known sex differences in this behaviour.
🌐 Global Companies:
- Global pharma major Lupin Limited announced the acquisition of Huminsulin in India from Eli Lilly and Company (Lilly) to further enhance its diabetes portfolio. Lupin has been marketing the Huminsulin range of products consisting of Insulin Human, including Huminsulin R, Huminsulin NPH, Huminsulin 50/50, and Huminsulin 30/70, through existing Distribution and Promotion Agreements with Lilly, India.
- IDEAYA Biosciences, Inc., a precision medicine oncology company committed to the discovery and development of targeted therapeutics, announced that it has entered into an exclusive license agreement for SHR-4849, a novel DLL3-targeting Topo-I-payload ADC programme with Jiangsu Hengrui Pharmaceuticals Co., Ltd., an innovative global pharmaceutical company headquartered in China focused on unmet clinical needs.
- CARsgen Therapeutics Holdings Limited, a company focused on innovative CAR T-cell therapies for the treatment of hematologic malignancies and solid tumours, announces the positive results from the pivotal phase II clinical trial.
- Hangzhou Sino-US Huadong Medicine Co., Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Huadong Medicine Co., Ltd., and SynerK PharmaTech Co., Ltd. have reached a strategic cooperation. The two parties will jointly develop the small nucleic acid drug SNK-2726, targeting angiotensinogen (AGT) for the treatment of hypertension.
🇮🇳 Government News
- In an initiative to combat climate change and promote sustainable practices in the healthcare sector, the National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Healthcare Providers (NABH) has launched the NABH Guidebook for Climate Action and Sustainability in Healthcare.
- A Parliamentary panel has sought the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) to submit a detailed note on the recent decision by the government to increase the prices on 11 drug formulations by 50 per cent.
- From 2025 onwards, all the pharmacy colleges in Tamil Nadu will have trained academicians unlike in previous years as the state branch of the pharmacy teachers association of India (TN APTI) is gearing up for introducing the Faculty Development Programme (FDP) from next month.
☀️ Stories we’re following this week!
📳 – Quick Reads:
- FDA Approves Generic GLP-1 Medicine For Diabetes Treatment: Migraine patients often suffer a long time before docs zero in on the best dosage for drugs designed to prevent their terrible symptoms.
- Every Cigarette Smoked Could Cost You 22 Minutes of Life, Research Says: Considering a New Year’s resolution to quit smoking? New research might provide all the motivation you need: Each cigarette could shorten your life by up to 22 minutes, researchers say.
- Phone App May Help Treat Opioid Use Disorder, Data Suggests: A smartphone app appears to help people battle opioid use disorder (OUD).
See you next Friday, friends 👋
Navneet
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