Name: Insights: Technology Is Democratizing The Fertility Industry
Uploaded: 2020-08-05
Duration: 4 min 4 s
Description: Investors funneled $646 million into the fertility sector in 2018.

 BETH KOWITT: We've seen startups pop up all over the space in the sector so there are some that are wearable so Ava bracelet, for example, is one that tracks ovulation. There are some that track menstrual cycles. We've seen some self-diagnostic tests. There's companies sort of all over the place here that are trying to get a piece of this market because it has been just so historically underserved. One really interesting startup in the space is a company called Modern Fertility. WOMAN: Meet Modern Fertility, the test that teaches you about your eggs and fertility hormones. AFTON VECHERY: Modern Fertility is a women's health company focused on making personalized fertility information accessible to women earlier in life. So our first product is the Modern Fertility hormone tests. We took the same exact laboratory tests that a woman would do at an fertility clinic if she or her and her partner were having trouble getting pregnant. We took those exact same tests out of the clinic and made them available to women earlier in life at a fraction of the cost that are really easy to access format. So we're able through, for example, testing your AMH levels, anti-mullerian hormone levels to actually understand the number of eggs that you have in your ovaries. And the number of eggs you have in your ovaries can help you understand really important things around your reproductive career. So it's not your ability to get pregnant right now, but if you're thinking about maybe kid number two or kid number three, what does the age of menopause look like for you and how do you think about that overall spectrum? We can have conversations about conditions like PCOS that have impacts one in 10 women. That's one of the leading causes of infertility. Conditions like POI, premature ovarian insufficiency that impacts one in 100 women that's associated with early menopause onset and a variety of other health conditions. And so it's really about just owning and having this window into your own biology to be able to use that information to make decisions that are right for you and your timeline. BETH KOWITT: Another company that's doing some really interesting work in the space is Carrot Fertility. And they're really much more of a benefits provider. So they're not an insurance company, but they are helping employers basically disperse fertility benefits to their employees. TAMMY SUN: I had a personal experience with fertility and the fertility health system. And I was fortunate enough that I had about $35,000 of my own savings in order to pay for my fertility treatments. But what I realized was that most people in America don't. Most Americans actually don't have more than $500 of savings. And 150 million Americans receive their health care coverage through employers in this country than any other way. That's more than Medicare and Medicaid in mind. And so we wanted to partner with employers to make it easy for them to deliver this aspect of health care coverage. And we want to make fertility benefits and fertility care a standard part of compensation packages at work like medical, dental, and vision. So we work with employers to create what we call a care plan design. Care plan designs are a first of its kind, flexible fertility spending. Every employer has a plan design of anywhere between $10,000 per employee to $100,000 or more. And again, there's no right number. It's really what is right for your business at your stage of growth. Once those parameters are set, we plug and play and it takes care of all of the rest as a software service. BETH KOWITT: One of the ways that I really do hope the sector continues to change as more money pours in is that it actually does increase access for more women. So I think fertility treatment has historically been viewed as for a certain kind of woman, a white woman, a wealthy woman, an educated woman. And I think that what really needs to change here is that access is broadened, and this really becomes something that is attainable for basically anyone who wants to get treatment. 

Investors funneled $646 million into the fertility sector in 2018.

Insights: Technology Is Democratizing The Fertility Industry

In 2018, investors gave $646 million to the fertility sector