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The Stollery Children's Hospital Foundation and the Alberta Women's Health Foundation have jointly committed $93.5M to the Women and Children's Health Research Institute over the next ten years - $70M from SCHF and $23.5M from AWHF. It's the largest gift in the University of Alberta's history and marks the third consecutive decade of this partnership, bringing combined support since 2006 to over $112M. WCHRI is Canada's only research institute dedicated to women's, children's and perinatal health.
The Indian D2C brand behind GoPadFree reusable period underwear has raised $2.4M in a Series A led by Atomic Capital raising their total funding to $3.7M. This recent injection is another sign of the companies rapid growth, recently reporting, 3x year-on-year revenue growth, and new plans to scale from 500,000 to 5 million active users over the next three years by expanding into energy, fatigue and pain management products.
The UNICEF Femtech Ventures cohort has now launched, backing 11 startups from Africa and Asia working on sexual and reproductive health. The cohort kicked off in Pretoria, South Africa, hosted by the Swedish Ambassador, and will spend a year building solutions aimed at improving health outcomes for girls and women.
"The most important innovation for women and girls is already being built, by the entrepreneurs closest to the challenge/ UNICEEF Femtech Ventures backs them with the capital, technical support and partnerships to turn what works locally into access at scale."
— Thomas Davin, Global Director, UNICEF Office of Innovation
🔗 https://businessday.ng/technology/article/unicef-femtech-ventures-backs-11-startups/
Kyoto-based femtech startup Flora has raised ~¥230 million (USD$1.5M) in a funding round including Ritsumeikan Social Impact Fund and Nagase & Cobringing, bringing the companies total funding to ~¥500 million to-date. This new boost will go toward enhancing its Wellflow platform, expanding AI-powered data services and scaling internationally across Asia.
The FDA has given approval for VEPPANU (vepdegestrant) for treatment in adults with ER+/HER2-, ESR1-mutated advanced or metastatic breast cancer following at least one line of endocrine therapy, marking the first FDA-approved PROTAC. This approval led Arvinas' shares to ruse to $10.27, extending the stock's one-year gain to almost 37%.
