Tami L Wahl
Government Affairs, Policy & Regulatory Advisor, Legislative Counsel | Establishing oversight without sacrificing innovation.
United States
One notable change has been the confluence of interest in women’s health from a broad cross section of stakeholders to include women, innovators, investors, software engineers, practitioners, and politicians. To further bolster, modern health technologies and the demand for individualized health care have also played a role in broadening the pool of interested parties. Once critical mass is established, the possibilities are endless.
The level of interest in and number of innovators entering the women’s health space is off the chart; however, a major challenge that may ultimately curtail the interest (and investment dollars) is the lack of curiosity in pursuing new pathways to market. Forcing modern applications and ‘devices’ into a dated system may ultimately throttle innovation and slow the adoption of newer technologies. Industry is absolutely positioned to deliver fresh, viable pathways to market. Industry could also stumble and stay in the square peg, round hole dynamic.
One key catalyst for the women’s health tech sector to continue to thrive is to collectively establish that individuals fundamentally own their health data. This shift would be a landmark measure in approaching health and product development (e.g., licensing opportunities, access to real time data on product performance).
A catalyst for product developers to stay engaged and in turn, continue to bring investment dollars to the cause, is to push back that every at-home product needs to be cleared as a medical device. This translates to shorter timelines and fewer dollars to enter the market. And if this savings is reflected in the cost of the product to the end-user, there is the potential for greater adoption (use) of the product.
