| | DECEMBER 20189FEMTECH INVOLVES THE USE OF DIGITAL HEALTH APPLICATIONS SUCH AS SOFTWARE, DIAGNOSTICS PRODUCTS, AND SERVICES TO IMPROVE WOMEN'S HEALTHdigital clinic chain that is making care accessible virtually, exclusively to women in the comfort of their homes. Improving Screening & DiagnosisLack of access to diagnostic equipment and consum-ables plagues the Indian healthcare system. This is true across the women's healthcare value-chain, from prenatal screening to diagnosis of urinary tract infec-tion to issues such as cervical cancer or diabetes. Sever-al companies are recognizing this latent need through innovative solutions. For example, GE Healthcare's Vscan with Dual Probe ­ is a pocket-sized portable ultrasound machine that has enabled several women patients in developing countries in Africa and India to better manage their pregnancy. Also, iBreastExam is a low-cost, battery powered, handheld medical device to screen for breast health developed by UE Lifesciences, which has a partnership with GE to target women cus-tomers in ASEAN, Africa and South Asia. Other Indi-an companies that are leading the way are AIndra that focuses on an artificial intelligence based point-of-care detection system for cervical screening, and Niramai with its low cost, accurate, automated, portable cancer screening tool (as an alternative to mammography) for breast cancer detection.Improving Maternal & Reproductive HealthFertility, pregnancy and maternal care are major ar-eas of concern, especially for women opting for later pregnancies or are at higher risk of complications due to physiological factors. From egg freezing, embryo screening, fertility treatments to mobile apps and wearables for `self-tracking' their ovulation cycles, dig-ital health is changing the landscape of reproductive health. In India, 10-15 percent of couples face infer-tility issues and there are several innovative compa-nies looking to disrupt this space. Plackal Tech offers a fertility and menstrual health tracker using Maya, an mhealth application that works with all major smartphone platforms and has a global user base of seven million women. Inito is another company disrupting the fertility test space with its ovulation testing strips along with a reader device and Inito mHealth application.Encouraging Self-Management of Healthcare IssuesFrom making healthcare minimally invasive, less intrusive, more practical, and personalized to im-proving efficiency of screening and diagnosis pow-ered by cutting-edge technology such as artificial intelligence, big data and analytics, advantages of-fered by Femtech are many. Though currently a very nascent market, increasing awareness about availability of such applications among women and encouraging adoption of these applications in conjunction with conventional therapies by health-care professionals will take Femtech to the next level in India.
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