COVID-19 boosts women's wellness tech start-ups

A group of women's health technology start-ups that launched as the sector fretted about the impending COVID-19 lockdown have emerged strongly from the period, saying it has proven a perfect time to get traction.

Companies Kin Fertility, CRANEL and Caia tackle very different areas of health but share a common experience of needing to think fast to keep their fledgling ideas afloat.

Kin Fertility launched its flagship product, Australia's first online subscription service to the oral contraceptive pill, in February after founder Nicole Liu quit her two-year stint as a McKinsey & Co consultant.

With Australians keen to avoid laborious visits to the GP and pharmacist to re-prescribe and pick up the pill, it has attracted 15,000 customers in just three months.

They pay $55 a year plus pill costs, and can get the pill at home after filling in an online questionnaire.

"When we launched, telehealth wasn't really a big thing," Liu says. "It sounds really silly now, but it was really new. At the time, there were still questions around 'can you keep same quality online as in a face-to-face consult?' and 'is it safe?'

"COVID revealed how underprepared Australia was from a telehealth perspective in general, but also that consultations can be done safely and easily through telehealth because now the whole industry had to shift in that direction."

According to a media briefing by Deputy Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly, the COVID-19 era has seen Australia go from very few telehealth appointments to 10 million in areas ranging from mental health care to pregnancy.

Liu originally envisaged Kin Fertility as a women's health publishing house, after she was misdiagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) and incorrectly told that she was infertile. She said this led to her going down an anxiety-inducing Google rabbit hole looking for accessible information.