Women across the globe share a universal experience: visiting their doctor with concerns about reproductive health or their menstrual cycle, only to be met with the frustratingly familiar line, “Don’t worry, you’re fine.”
This common dismissal of women’s health issues is exactly what inspired Ova, a student-founded product designed to help women track and understand their menstrual cycles, bringing personalized healthcare data directly to users.
The team’s first product, currently in development, is a patch integrated with non-invasive sweat biosensors. The biosensor will collect data on hormonal changes so users can get real-time health information.
They are also hoping to integrate these biosensors into products that already exist whether it’s the patch, the IUD, a diva cup or any kind of product a woman would use.
“We have a vision statement that we try to live by, and it’s own your cycle, own your health, own your life,” explains fourth-year Ivey Business School student Ireland Catherwood, emphasizing the company’s commitment to give women the autonomy they deserve in understanding their bodies.
Ova was founded in September 2024 as part of the Ivey New Venture Project by six Western University students.
The idea stemmed from the founders’ shared frustration with a consistent problem they faced in their lives — their reproductive and menstrual health concerns being ignored.
The team’s research has been guided by feedback from women at all stages of life. Fourth-year chemical engineering and Ivey student and chief executive officer Aditi Basdeo explained the group talked to over 100 women, from those menstruating in their 20s to women just finishing menopause in their 50s. The unanimous response was that they felt their concerns were dismissed at one point or another by current healthcare providers.
Ova aims to allow users to understand their bodies without long wait times, unnecessary wait tests, blanket solutions and potential misdiagnoses that often come from the healthcare system.
Fourth-year mechanical and biomedical engineering student Maeve Van Driel explains that through their conversations, they also identified a gap in the market for devices for menopausal women that can grant “power and peace of mind” around the changes women go through as they enter menopause.
“As a historically taboo subject, menopause is considered an individual issue. When it happens you are expected to deal with it silently and cope with your symptoms alone,” says Van Driel.
While the target market for the patch is women with menopause, the tech they are building applies in other areas for all women.
Ova’s biosensor technology is the heart of this innovation. They collect data from the body, allowing the app they’re planning to develop to provide women a clear picture of their hormone levels, like estrogen and progesterone. For women with irregular cycles, the app will notify them of their current phase — menstrual, follicular, ovulation or luteal.
Basdeo explains that basal body temperature, the lowest temperature your body reaches while sleeping, is a good indicator of where you’re at in your cycle.
“Let’s say you are someone who has really irregular cycles and you can’t tell from just tracking the days, this could give you an indication of where you’re at — if you’re in your luteal, follicular or ovulation phase,” says Basdeo.
One of the major benefits of Ova is the ability to detect hormone imbalances early. Regular monitoring of hormone levels can help diagnose conditions like endometriosis, polycystic ovary syndrome or even gynecological cancers more easily.
“If you have women in your family who have already had ovarian, cervical or uterine cancer, you’re at a higher risk, so being able to monitor that over a longer period of time can really put your mind to ease,” Basdeo says.
With health data being highly sensitive, Basdeo says Ova is committed to protecting users’ information.
“We haven’t built the data infrastructure yet, so all of the security pieces aren’t in place, but something that we as a company will never be doing is selling our data to another company,” Basdeo says. “Everything is going to be confidential and privatized, so your data isn’t going anywhere but within the organization and to your phone.”
Ova’s long-term goal is to expand into multiple product lines that serve women at different life stages, says Basdeo.
“The faster we can get to market, the better it is to serve women in different kinds of spaces,” Basdeo adds.
The product is still in development, but the team plans to launch it within the next three to five years.
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