"I LOVE going to the gyno!" said no one ever. Sure, your annual visit is a priority, but shouldn’t there be a more convenient way to stay on top of your vagina's health all year round?
That’s what Ridhi Tariyal and Stephen Gire asked themselves before launching Next Gen Jane in 2013. The startup is developing a high-tech tampon designed to use blood samples to report on the user’s vaginal health. Ridhi, an entrepreneur, and Stephen, a scientist, met in an infectious disease lab at Harvard and bonded over their mutual dissatisfaction with the medical testing process pertaining specifically to women’s health.
The two founders emphasize the need to diagnose a problem before it gets out of hand. “We had to come up with something that would allow women to find out about these conditions sooner than every year,” Ridhi tells FastCompany.com. "You can pick up a disease any time, and letting it sit there for a year until your next visit can have consequences downstream that you don't want. The system has to change."
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However, there’s a long way to go before you’ll be able to get your hands on this product. Ridhi and Stephen haven’t been able to disclose details about the mechanism behind their “smart tampon,” because they are currently conducting clinical trials.
"We have to get to a place where we have working, high-quality tests for enough conditions that it actually makes it worthwhile for women to test themselves every month," says Ridhi, who is the company's CEO. "Our vision is to manage reproductive health from menarche to menopause. We're thinking about all the ways that women could find data about their bodies useful."
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This technology could provide women with numerous data points regarding their vaginal health such as hormonal and fertility levels, and the existence of endometriosis, cysts and growths, STDs, and other infections.
While the product is still in the early development stage, Next Gen Jane hopes to have a working prototype in the next year or so. As they point out on their website, it’s become increasingly clear that knowledge is indeed power, so why not apply that notion to every aspect of your health?
