Women have been left behind in every area of medical research, and technology is helping to change that.
According to the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), women were rarely included in clinical trials before 1993, leading to a significant gap in research on women’s health. This fact highlights a foundational flaw in medical research. Much of what we know about health is based on male bodies. While there might be some overlaps for conditions common to all genders, there is a strong link between women’s reproductive system/hormones with the variety of conditions and disorders. As a result, we're working with only three decades of meaningful research for many aspects of women’s health, especially those specific to female biology.
This is where Fibra comes in. Fibra is a revolutionary women's health platform that aims to provide personalized and accurate reproductive health data through patent-pending smart underwear and a mobile app. The company's initial focus is on fertility and cycle tracking, as it seeks to simplify the fertility journey for women, especially those with irregular menstrual cycles. Fibra's smart underwear monitors five parameters: pH in vaginal secretion, volume change in vaginal secretion, skin temperature, heart rate, and heart rate variability while the user is asleep, and sends the data to a database via a low-power Bluetooth module. The insights are then displayed on the app for the user. Fibra represents a pioneering effort to give women answers and ownership of their health
Fibra’s go-to-market of the trying to conceive (TTC) journey is to help make sense of female fertility health. Despite being female-focused, fertility is still a historically under-researched area of medicine. Issues such as polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), endometriosis, and unexplained infertility affect millions yet are still misunderstood, misdiagnosed, or treated with a one-size-fits-all approach. It is not uncommon for women to endure years of uncertainty before receiving a proper diagnosis, partly because symptoms are frequently dismissed or normalized. Despite growing awareness, funding for women’s health research remains limited compared to other health fields, resulting in slow innovation and persistent inequalities in care and access to effective treatment.
Fibra’s innovation addresses the exact gaps that have plagued women’s health for decades, namely, the lack of personalized, continuous, and gender-specific data. In a landscape where much medical knowledge is still retrofitted from male-centric research, Fibra’s approach represents a shift toward proactive, women-centred healthcare. By combining wearable technology with data analytics, Fibra empowers users with insights into their unique reproductive health patterns, especially those who don’t fit the "average" cycle model that traditional tools are based on. In offering passive, non-invasive monitoring that aligns with the lived realities of women’s health, Fibra is not only filling in research and care gaps but also reframing fertility as something that should be understood through precision and inclusivity, not outdated norms.
This kind of innovation exemplifies what it means to design for equity in healthcare and is finally giving women access to tools built for their biology.
If you are interested in learning more about Fibra, please visit their website here.
