Discovery Park selects 11 femtech and women’s health startups for growth programme

Discovery Park innovation campus in Kent has chosen 11 promising startups in femtech and women’s health to join Discovery Spark, a growth and support programme for early-stage businesses. 

This special female-focused edition of the Discovery Spark programme offers tailored mentoring and support, preparing startup founders for success in investment pitches.

The programme kicked off with a session at Discovery Park on 21 May, with more sessions spread over the next seven weeks.

Concluding with Pitch Day on 4 July, the cohort will compete to win a prize package worth over £50,000 – including a year of lab or office space at Discovery Park, as well as support from specialist partners. 

Discovery Park selected femtech and women’s health as a focus for the programme in response to the government’s Women’s Health Strategy, which highlighted the lack of representation in medical research and shortfall in healthcare solutions specifically for women.

Despite living longer, the average woman spends nearly a quarter of her life in poor health, compared with a fifth for men.

Tackling female health inequalities is a big focus for the South East region, as Discovery Park partners with Kent and Medway Medical School, the NHS Kent and Medway Integrated Care Board and Health Innovation Kent Surrey Sussex. 

Discovery Spark is led by Dr Renos Savva, head of innovation at Discovery Park and a scientist, entrepreneur and venture development lead.

“Discovery Park is committed to championing the next generation of life science leaders, but even we were overwhelmed with the number of applications received for this edition of Discovery Spark”, said Dr Savva.

“The 11 selected companies represent the best-of-the-best in new innovations for women’s health, helping to address the ‘missing 52 per cent’ in health equity.

“Women make up the majority, yet continue to be overlooked in healthcare, with the UK having the largest female gender health gap in the G20.”

Companies selected for the Discovery Spark Femtech & Women’s Health Edition include imphatec, inventors of a pioneering subcutaneous drug delivery platform which aims to revolutionise the treatment of chronic and long-term illnesses – many of which disproportionately affect and unnecessarily burden women.

The company recently went through their first seed round, raising significant capital. 

Also included is Hulk Bio,winner of the Scottish EDGE Wild Card award 2024 – a biotech which is transforming infant nutrition by offering a stem cell-based human milk alternative when breastfeeding is not possible.

BodyOwn is aiming to simplify management of female sexual and reproductive health by providing a central point for validated information, care services and assisted guidance, using tech to set new standards of care for women’s health.

And personalised care provider Minter et AI Hormone Health is looking to improve access for women seeking diagnosis and treatment of perimenopause and the menopause, providing consultations and hormone health services both virtually and in-person. 

Organised as three immersive sessions held over the summer, Discovery Spark takes place at the park and includes overnight accommodation for those involved.

Each session lasts two days, covering people, teams and brand, presentation and communication, and business metrics and markets.

Dr MaryAnn Ferreux is chief medical officer at Health Innovation KSS, a partner of the femtech and women’s health programme at Discovery Park.

“Passionate innovators are key to addressing health equity”, she said.

“The Discovery Spark programme exists to champion these promising businesses, along with providing all important networks for collaboration and ideas sharing.

“At the first Discovery Spark day, our commercial and enterprise team led a session on developing and understanding your value proposition.

“This is critical for all innovators of any stage of development, to help them to recognise the problem that they wish to solve and the impact that they expect their solution would make to systems and patients.

“We look forward to providing further innovator support as the programme continues.”

The 11 companies selected for the 2024 cohort are BodyOwn, Cooden Cosmetics, Etre Libre, Hulk Bio, imphatec, Joii, Make your path, Minter et AI Hormone Health, Peach, S.M. Discovery Group (SMDG), and Young Mums Support Network.