“I don’t understand the need for this.”
That’s the response Rachel Bartholomew, CEO and founder of Hyivy Health, would often receive when pitching investors on a new vaginal dilator.
Used to improve the flexibility and strength of the pelvic floor, this type of medical device relieves pain that can arise due to anatomical differences, pelvic surgery, cancer treatment or menopause.
Hyivy Health’s vaginal dilator, called “Floora,” uses auto-dilation and heat therapy to help patients, making it more technologically advanced than the ones Bartholomew had seen on the market, she says. The medical device is currently in development but, as Bartholomew points out, there are steep hurdles for anyone marketing women’s health innovations.
“You have to pitch to wives, pitch to daughters, pitch to mothers, pitch to all of these adjacent women that are in the lives of the people who hold the …