Rewriting the Future of Women’s Health Part Two
Written by Anastasiya Rozenbaum, Kyra Ungerleider and Jenny Duan
A new wave of innovation is redefining women’s health — and with it, one of medicine’s most overlooked opportunities. In this second part of our series Rewriting the Future of Women’s Health, we explore how breakthrough advances, from Cambridge’s biotechnology ecosystem to Silicon Valley’s health-tech frontier, are transforming the field.
Among the most important insights emerging from this transformation is the growing recognition that ovarian ageing may play a far greater role in women’s lifelong health than previously realised. Far beyond fertility, the ovary shapes cardiovascular, skeletal, cognitive, and metabolic ageing trajectories across the lifespan. A growing body of evidence now demonstrates that ovarian function, and, critically, the timing of reproductive ageing and menopause, plays a defining role in women’s health and longevity [1]. And yet, despite being the fastest ageing organ in the female body, the ovary remains one of the least studied organs [2].
When ovarian decline occurs prematurely, the consequences are profound. Women who undergo early menopause face a two- to three-fold increase in all-cause mortality, alongside an approximately 40% higher risk of cardiovascular disease [3]. Clinically, changes in bone density can emerge within just one year of medically induced menopause [4]. Experiencing menopause before the age of 45 further elevates the risk of osteoporosis and fractures, as prolonged estrogen deficiency accelerates bone loss over time [4]. More broadly, one in three women lives with a condition linked to ovarian function- and aging, from infertility and Polyendocrine Metabolic Ovarian Syndrome (PMOS) to early menopause [1]. Yet despite its central role in women’s lifelong health, reproductive longevity remains one of the most underexplored frontiers in modern medicine.
The urgency of this unmet need becomes especially clear in oncology.
Imagine a young woman undergoing chemotherapy and entering menopause at the same time as her mother. For many cancer survivors, this is the reality of survivorship they never anticipated. Each year, approximately 1.5 million girls and women of reproductive age are diagnosed with cancer [5], and while oncology has made extraordinary progress in improving survival, one urgent challenge remains: how do we ensure these women preserve long-term health, longevity, and quality of life? Between 40% and 97% of reproductive-age women experience treatment-induced menopause following chemotherapy or radiotherapy [6]. In many cases, from 50 to 100% of their eggs are destroyed, causing abrupt ovarian failure and accelerated biological ageing [7].
This growing unmet need is precisely what OvartiX is targeting with its first therapeutic program, OVX001.
Based in Cambridge, OvartiX is building the first fully integrated drug discovery platform centred on ovarian biology and ageing as fundamental drivers of women’s lifelong health. By combining large-scale human multi-omics datasets with engineered female-specific ovarian models, the company has created a powerful therapeutic discovery engine for conditions that disproportionately or uniquely affect women. This is the first lab-in-the-loop infrastructure for women’s health, coupling machine learning outputs with biologically relevant validation systems to enable the discovery and validation of novel therapeutics rooted in ovarian dysfunction, reproductive ageing, and the systemic diseases they influence.
The platform’s first therapeutic asset is OVX001, a non-hormonal therapy designed to prevent medically induced menopause in women undergoing gonadotoxic cancer treatment. Administered during cancer therapy, OVX001 is designed to protect ovaries and preserve their intrinsic endocrine function, rather than compensating for its loss after irreversible damage. Discovered in the human genetics of women with naturally delayed menopause and with pre-clinical data showing 80-95% protection off eggs, this short-term treatment has long-term impact on survivor healthspan.
Looking ahead, OvartiX is building a broader ovary-centric women’s health and longevity portfolio, spanning PCOS, ovarian ageing, menopause, fertility disorders, and systemic diseases influenced by ovarian biology, including cardiovascular, skeletal, neurodegenerative, and metabolic disorders. By repositioning the ovary as a central regulator of lifelong health rather than solely a reproductive organ, the company aims to unlock entirely new therapeutic pathways and pioneer disease-modifying therapies that move beyond symptom management to alter the biological drivers of disease progression, with the potential to redefine standards of care and reshape the future of women’s health.
Another critical frontier in women’s health innovation lies at the intersection of digital health, wearable technology, and longevity science. According to The Business Case for Accelerating Women’s Health Investment Report by WHAM, despite women accounting for over 80% of healthcare consumer spending, companies focused on women’s digital health receive just 3% of total funding. Across the Atlantic, a new generation of Silicon Valley founders is working to change that.
Clair, founded by Stanford graduates Jenny Duan (B.S. ’25) and Abhinav Agarwal (B.S. ’24, M.S. ’25), is a research-backed, privacy-first platform that places hormonal patterns at the centre of women’s health innovation. The two founders are building a novel wrist wearable that combines ten biosensors with deep learning models trained specifically on female physiology, including irregular cycles and PMOS. The ambition is far bolder than cycle tracking: to deliver continuous insights into hormonal dynamics that underpin women’s health across their lifespan.
The company emerged from the convergence of mission-driven insight and technical expertise. Jenny and Abhinav met at Stanford, where Jenny was taking a class on women's health and nonprofit philanthropy, focusing on gaps in the healthcare system, while Abhinav was deeply immersed in building wearable health technologies. They bonded over their shared passion for healthcare and specifically women's health. Women have long been underrepresented in research and clinical trials, leading to fragmented datasets, delayed diagnoses, and slower progress in understanding conditions that disproportionately affect them. Jenny's experience working with women who weren't taken seriously due to "lack of data to back up the symptoms they were experiencing," combined with Abhinav's deep technical knowledge of what wearables could actually detect created a powerful founder partnership.
The underlying scientific principle is hormonal inference, which has long been used in everyday tools such as ovulation tests and home pregnancy tests, which rely on hormones in urine as proxy markers of biological events. Clair applies a similar concept, but instead of relying on single-point urine measurements, it uses multimodal physiological data captured continuously from the wrist. By identifying coordinated patterns across temperature, heart-rate variability, sleep, and other biomarkers, the platform can distinguish true hormonal shifts from confounding factors such as stress, alcohol, or caffeine. In effect, Clair is built on the idea that hormones leave distinct physiological fingerprints across multiple systems, making continuous inference both possible and increasingly accurate. As Clair’s clinical advisor, Dr. Brindha Bavan, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Stanford Medicine, notes, continuous hormone monitoring through wearables has the potential to aid both diagnosis and treatment assessment across a range of conditions.
Early results are promising. In a prototype study spanning 40 women, 127 cycles, and more than 5,000 days of data, Clair achieved 94% accuracy in classifying menstrual cycle phase and detected luteinising hormone surges with 87% sensitivity, all without any additional testing. By treating cyclical physiological variation as biological signal, Clair aims to enable continuous, personalised insights in women’s health. Importantly, although initially launched as a wellness device, the company plans to pursue FDA 510(k) clearance for medical-grade applications with a clinical trial at Stanford Medicine is scheduled to begin this spring. Furthermore, the broader implication extends beyond fertility, as continuous hormone inference could inform athletic training, metabolic health, understanding perimenopause transitions, and earlier recognition of endocrine dysfunction.
The persistent misconception that women’s health is a niche category has constrained innovation, research, and capital allocation for generations. Yet the rise of category-defining unicorns such as Maven Clinic, Flo, and Midi Health tells a very different story. These companies have already demonstrated the scale, demand, and economic power of the sector.
What is now becoming clear is that women’s health is not a peripheral niche, but one of the most significant untapped opportunities in modern healthcare, with the potential to unlock profound societal and economic value while defining the next era of precision and personalised medicine.
References:
[1] Cavalcante, M. B., Sampaio, O. G. M., Câmara, F. E. A., Schneider, A., de Ávila, B. M., Prosczek, J., ... & Campos, A. R. (2023). Ovarian aging in humans: potential strategies for extending reproductive lifespan. Geroscience, 45(4), 2121-2133.
[2] Wang, G., Yang, R., & Zhang, H. (2025). Ovarian vascular aging: a hidden driver of mid-age female fertility decline. npj Aging, 11(1), 24.
[3] Honigberg, M. C., Zekavat, S. M., Aragam, K., Finneran, P., Klarin, D., Bhatt, D. L., ... & Natarajan, P. (2019). Association of premature natural and surgical menopause with incident cardiovascular disease. Jama, 322(24).
[4] Shieh, A., Ruppert, K. M., Greendale, G. A., Lian, Y., Cauley, J. A., Burnett-Bowie, S. A., ... & Karlamangla, A. S. (2022). Associations of age at menopause with postmenopausal bone mineral density and fracture risk in women. The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, 107(2), e561-e569.
[5] Sun, P., Yu, C., Yin, L., Chen, Y., Sun, Z., Zhang, T., ... & Wan, Z. (2024). Global, regional, and national burden of female cancers in women of child-bearing age, 1990–2021: analysis of data from the global burden of disease study 2021. EClinicalMedicine, 74.
[6] Rodriguez-Wallberg, K. A., Jiang, Y., Lekberg, T., & Nilsson, H. P. (2023). The late effects of cancer treatment on female fertility and the current status of fertility preservation—a narrative review. Life, 13(5), 1195.
[7] Reiser, E., Bazzano, M. V., Solano, M. E., Haybaeck, J., Schatz, C., Mangesius, J., ... & Toth, B. (2022). Unlaid eggs: ovarian damage after low-dose radiation. Cells, 11(7), 1219.
Anastasiya Rozenbaum is pursuing an MPhil in Translating Medical Devices and Advanced Therapies at the School of Clinical Medicine. She conducts cardiovascular imaging research at The Victor Phillip Dahdaleh Heart & Lung Research Institute, with a focus on precision medicine and women’s cardiovascular health. She holds an MSc in Cardiovascular Medicine with distinction and has conducted cutting-edge biomedical and bioengineering research across the Netherlands, Oxford, and Cambridge. Anastasiya is also the Founder and Chair of King’s Healthcare Society and has led global health initiatives to advance maternal and pediatric care in Ethiopia. She also founded STEM mentorship programs supporting girls from underserved communities. Her contributions to health innovation and social impact have been recognised through multiple national and international awards, including the Dutch Heart Foundation, the European Commission, and Prince Bernhard Scholarship.
Kyra Ungerleider is the Founding Scientist at OvartiX, a biotech company pioneering ovary-centric drug discovery for women's reproductive health. With over 10 years of experience in longevity and DNA damage research, she holds a PhD in Clinical Neuroscience from the University of Cambridge. Kyra previously served as a Cancer Research Training Award Fellow at the National Cancer Institute, where she specialized in cellular senescence and DNA damage response mechanisms. She is now leveraging her expertise in high-throughput CRISPR and small-molecule screening to develop novel therapeutics for conditions that disproportionately or uniquely affect women, including PCOS, infertility, and ovarian aging.
Jenny Duan is the Co-Founder and CEO of Clair, bringing expertise in women's health advocacy, growth marketing, and venture investing to revolutionize how women understand their bodies. Jenny's path to founding Clair began in high school while working with women experiencing domestic violence and homelessness through Rose Haven nonprofit in Oregon, where she witnessed repeatedly how women weren't taken seriously by healthcare providers due to lack of quantitative data. At Stanford University, where she graduated early with a B.S. in Symbolic Systems (AI Ethics and the Social Internet), she met Abhinav Agarwal, the Co-Founder and CTO of Clair, who brings deep technical expertise in AI/ML, wearables, and health technology.