A London-based femtech company that received early backing from Nex founder Michael Spencer will today announce that its flagship product will soon be free to women through the NHS.
NHS Supply Chain will make the Elvie Trainer, which is an insertable pelvic floor muscle trainer that provides bio-feedback on Kegel exercises through a smartphone app, available at no cost to the patient as the health service seeks to reduce its £233m spend on treating urinary incontinence. The device usually retails at £169.
The company was launched in 2015 by women's health expert Tania Boler and Alexander Asseily, the former chief executive of wearable device group Jawbone.
“Its a real game changer for us because, first of all, we focus on younger women in the post-natal phase whereas this offers you access to a much larger population – often the women presenting to the NHS are older,” Boler told City A.M. “[The partnership] also offers us more credibility.”
Read more: The womens health company pioneering a new generation of connected devices
Elvies generated $1m (£769,000) from direct sales in 2016.
Sales more than doubled in 2017 and are expected to double again this year, Boler said.
“I think its fantastic validation of what Tania and the business has set out to achieve with their first product,” said Simon King from Elvie institutional investor Octopus Ventures. “Theyve designed a device which mimics the kind of best practice gold standard treatment thats already used in hospitals [and] made a beautiful product that people can use at home.”
In September, Elvie will launch a second connected device product which will focus on what Boler described as the "ugly, neglected" area for medical devices of post-natal care for women.
Studies have estimated that the use of biofeedback devices such as the Elvie trainer equate to a saving of £424 per patient head in the first year as they improve patient technique, patient compliance and cut surgery rates by 50 per cent, among other factors.
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