Founder Friday with Inara Lalani of FemTherapeutics
Inara Lalani, Negin Ashouri, and Dr. Mihnea Gangal founded FemTherapeutics Inc. to redesign the one-size-fits-all approach to women’s health and restore gender equality in medical innovation. Given nearly 50% of women suffer from pelvic organ prolapse during their lifetime, FemTherapeutics is a FemTech company advancing women's health by harnessing the power of AI, cloud computing, and 3D printing to bring personalized non-invasive treatment plans to pelvic health.
We caught up with Inara to hear what’s new for FemTherapeutics, what’s coming up next, insights into what’s happening in the industry, and advice she would give to her past self and up-and-coming women founders.
What’s New
Celebrating the end of 2023, Inara and the FemTherapeutics team celebrated the opening of their very own office space, lab, and clinical room in downtown Montreal. Moving into 3,000 sqft, they now have a clinical room, prototyping lab, and generous space for their team to work with their hardware and grow.
Speaking of growth—they’ve hired two new employees from the US and have had a number of their team members relocate to Montreal. Inara is excited to see how the team is evolving and attracting more employees to Montreal for in-person collaboration and building.
There has also been significant progress on the technical side, with a second feasibility study having kicked off in fall 2023. The three month study involved fitting patients with various pessary designs that were personalized to each individual's anatomy and lifestyle needs. Following the feasibility study, the team has a clinical trial lined up for mid-2024.
Additionally, Inara and the team have also been in the works of implementing a quality management system to get ISO 13485 certified: an international standard for quality management systems specifically tailored to the medical device industry, ensuring that organizations meet regulatory requirements and maintain consistent quality in the design, production, and servicing of medical devices.
What’s Next
The team has developed another product complementary to the FemTherapeutics' main product, the custom pessaries. In simplest terms, the new measurement tool will be used to help with fitting their pessary devices and obtaining pelvic floor measurements in a variety of other use cases.
Inara and the team are currently in conversation with a manufacturer to discuss sales and distribution agreements—stay tuned as they share updates on their social media and website.
What’s Going On in the Industry
Inara is pleased to see the entire FemTech industry moving toward a more data-centric approach, with more companies and leaders leveraging as much data as possible to build products and platforms.
This shift is great news for FemTherapeutics, as it will unlock more innovation and R&D in the space for years to come. Focusing on extracting extensive information about their consumers and physicians will significantly enhance the team's product development down the line.
FemTherapeutics—among the first wave of companies embracing this approach—is pioneering efforts to build upon uncharted territories. Inara shares how although it has been quite challenging, the team is excited to continue leading this movement.
Advice to Your Past Self & Other Women Founders
“I’m not going to lie and say that this has been an easy journey,” Inara says. “I've definitely had moments of self doubt and thoughts of this being something too challenging to take on, but each year I’m surprised over how much we've accomplished and how far we've come from the year before.”
Despite the hurdles and hardships that come with being a founder, it’s been a rewarding journey that has been well worth it for Inara.
She advises getting out of your own head and leaning on your network, getting external validation from investors, mentors, advisors, and team members. There are often moments of second guessing and striving for the next big thing, but sometimes just reflecting and thinking, 'hey, I’ve been working so hard to get to this point,' is all you need to keep going.
Take a moment and celebrate that.
And then keep at it and keep going until it really is the end of the road because you never know where your business or where opportunities can take a turn.
The51 is proud to partner with the National Angel Capital Organization (NACO) in telling founder stories to accelerate the representation of women within Canada’s innovation economy.