Podcasts Business Piloting your Life Giving people, especially women, the means to control their own healthcare with Tracy Warren of Astarte Ventures

Giving people, especially women, the means to control their own healthcare with Tracy Warren of Astarte Ventures

Published: May 1, 2018, 1 p.m.

Who is Tracy Warren?

Tracy is general partner of Astarte Ventures, an early stage investment firm focused exclusively on women\u2019s and children\u2019s health and wellbeing.\xa0 The firm has made investments in eight companies with technologies focused on women and children, including Maven, Prima-Temp, Naya Health and Madorra.\xa0 Through Astarte Ventures, Tracy and her co-founders came together to form Astarte Medical to dramatically impact the lives of preterm infants.\xa0 As founding CEO, she leverages her experience of serial entrepreneurship and over 15 years as a venture capitalist and early stage investor to lead strategy and fundraising.

Prior to Astarte Ventures, Tracy served as general partner at Battelle Ventures and focused on investments in health & life sciences, as well as emerging energy technologies, with an emphasis on institutional-based transactions.

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Show Highlights

  • Tracy shares her background starting as an investment banker, moving into venture capital, and then into investing in women and infant health.\xa0
  • Terri provides an explanation of FemTech and PediaTech.\xa0 FemTech is not supporting female founders but is focused on women\u2019s health. PediaTech is focused on children\u2019s health.
  • Only recently have women been recognized as the focal point for decision making in healthcare.\xa0
  • 80-85% of all household healthcare decisions are made by women.\xa0
  • Digital health / convenience technologies start to change the conversation around women\u2019s health.\xa0
  • Healthcare must change to meet the needs of women and all of the things they juggle on a daily basis.\xa0 Women can be early adopters of the tech to deliver the caliber of health women want and deserve.
  • Tracy and Terri are not seeing the momentum in the FemTech space.\xa0 They are seeing a lot of good companies, but these companies are struggling due to lack of funding and there\u2019s no obvious avenue to getting better access to the funding to truly grow and scale the companies to have the impact.\xa0 It\u2019s a catch-22.\xa0
  • Many people still see FemTch as evangelistic.
  • Terri commented on how VCs traditionally took greater risk investing but aren\u2019t doing so now and she challenged the VCs to return to taking risks in this space where there is unmet need and demand and great opportunity.\xa0
  • Terri is seeing movement in the employer space to provide more female and family friendly benefits.\xa0 Tracy agrees that employers are focused on employee retention and will be the first to put some stakes in the ground in this space.
  • Tracy says the challenge is greater culturally.\xa0 Women\u2019s issues have been largely attributed to just being a woman and not seen as treatable and real health issues.\xa0 Examples include menopause and post-partum related issues.\xa0
  • Terri talks about how women are not heard when they visit healthcare providers.\xa0 There\u2019s no empathy, only pity.\xa0 This is a healthcare provider training issue and women need to better advocate for themselves and not rely on the \u2018doctor knows best\u2019 myth.
  • Tracy talks about how women are now able to talk about things that our mothers didn\u2019t talk about like periods, sex-related issues, and other female health topics. As the walls start coming down between women and culturally (like on TV) the solutions will become more mainstream and possible.\xa0
  • Terri asked Tracy if the openness that we have in California the same across the country and Tracy said no, not yet.\xa0 The shift will occur with each generation.\xa0 Education is a powerful thing.
  • Tracy shares how her daughter is a shrewd shopper about her health and the apps.\xa0 There is self-advocacy now that didn\u2019t exist even 15 years ago.
  • Tracy talks about some of her early stage investing in the FemTech and PediaTech space including Maven Clinic, PrimaTemp (infertility/fertility), Astarte Medical (improving pre-term birth outcomes), and Madorra (vaginal dryness).\xa0
  • If Tracy could wave a magic wand, she would find a way for people to be able to control their own healthcare.\xa0 The US system was designed to cover everyone regardless of the choices they have made.\xa0 Now that we move into preventive health, we need to rethink the model and blow it up and start it all over again.\xa0 This would put women in charge.\xa0
  • Terri expands on the importance of getting childhood diseases under control to reduce the longer-term quality of life issues and the increase in cost of chronic disease treatment and management.\xa0
  • Tracy talks about the perverse incentives of the pharma companies to develop and sell the billion-dollar drugs to treat sickness rather than having investors invest in companies that are focused on preventive measures.\xa0
  • Tracy talks about gender-based trial design and there has been a significant amount of research around women at different lifecycles related to specific conditions.\xa0 She thinks there will be a data play at some point that will consider these differences.\xa0

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Terri\u2019s Key Takeaway

Data is out there; it will be liberated; and it will guide us to better care.\xa0

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References in the Podcast

  • Stacy Feld: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stacy-feld-0061141/
  • Ida Tin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/idatin/
  • Clue: https://helloclue.com/
  • Maven Clinic: https://www.mavenclinic.com/
  • Tammi Jantzen: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tammi-jantzen-64066b32/
  • Girl Boss Radio: https://www.girlboss.com/podcast
  • Nicole Dahlstrom:\xa0 FemTech Collective:\xa0 https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicole-dahlstrom-066a1042/
  • Lola: https://www.mylola.com/
  • ElleBox: https://elleboxco.com/
  • PrimaTemp: http://www.prima-temp.com/
  • Astarte Medical: http://www.astartemedical.com/
  • Madorra: http://www.madorra.com/
  • Tueo Health: http://www.tueohealth.com/

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Contact

Tracy can be reached via LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracy-warren-57a29/.\xa0

You can follow Terri on Twitter at @terrihansonmead or go to her website at www.terrihansonmead.com or on Medium:\xa0 https://medium.com/@terrihansonmead.\xa0

Feel free to email Terri at PilotingYourLife@gmail.com.

To continue the conversation, go to Twitter at @PilotingLife and use hashtag #PilotingYourLife.