Since the onset of the pandemic, telehealth has dominated the market, allowing more people to get medical care without scrambling to a clinic. With new startups popping up, more and more people are using these healthcare platforms to get the care they need. The 800-pound gorilla in the room Ro, is a telehealth startup aimed at creating a patient-centric healthcare system. Their mission is to provide quality healthcare to those without insurance as an alternative to traditional healthcare companies.
Recently, Ro has added fertility and reproductive health to its arsenal of many features through the acquisition of Modern Fertility.
What is Modern Fertility?
Modern Fertility is a company started in 2017, offering at-home tests to women to determine fertility health.
The tests are all done at-home, with the results sent into a lab. From there, the lab offers the best diagnosis and solution for the fertility concerns the couple has.
Modern Family’s founders Carly Leahy and Afton Vechery currently run the company and will be taking over the digital healthcare sector of the platform as well.
Leachy plans to take the vice president position for Ro, while Vechery will take the helm as the president for the women’s-health vertical.
How Ro got into the Digital Healthcare Market
Ro began as a hair loss and erectile dysfunction medication and supplements company for men. Since then, Ro has built a telehealth platform that offers online health clinics and treatment as well as monitoring for a variety of chronic conditions.
The startup utilizes a vertical integration platform including pharmacy medications, at-home care, and telemedicine as well.
The recent venture into the home healthcare market follows the acquisition of Workpath, a healthcare software company.
Since 2017, Ro has conducted six million telehealth visits in almost every county in the US, including almost all of its primary care locations.
The co-founder and CEO of Ro, Zachariah Reitano had this to say about the acquisition, “What excited us most about Modern Fertility is their relentless focus on the customer, their unique, proactive approach to fertility and women’s health, and the fact that Afton and Carly live and breathe Modern Fertility with every ounce of their being. Together they’ve created, in our opinion, a women’s health company that is the defining feature of a generation.”
What this Means for Users
With a 105% increase in digital-healthcare startups spread over 22 different companies, the rise in digital healthcare especially for women’s health is becoming more prevalent than ever.
Plus, with 1 in 6 couples struggling to conceive but only 55 infertility clinics available in the US, with Modern Fertility couples can get the help they need to conceive.
The company offers digital tools, at-home tests backed up by research, and other information to provide insight on fertility at a fraction of the cost.
One product which is a $159 finger prick can help a woman see how many eggs they have, the ovarian reserve, and the best option for fertility treatment. They also include a quantitative ovulation test to detect when a woman ovulates, a cycle tracking app, an early detection pregnancy test, along with digital fertility tracking tools.
Vechery says this about Modern Fertility. “We started Modern Fertility to transform women’s health from reactive to proactive. We now have the opportunity to dramatically accelerate our vision of supporting women in every single step of the journey in reproductive care and beyond. With Ro, we will be able to drive better outcomes and lower costs for millions of women—and redefine women’s health as we know it.”
The platform will slowly integrate with Ro and will scale their operations while also offering new and personalized healthcare experiences.
What does this mean for users? They can get fertility tests online and determine their fertility health instantly without needing to schedule appointments. With many still against in-person doctor visits, Ro and Modern Fertility offer an alternative for people to get vital information they need at the palm of their hand.
The acquisition of Modern Fertility will impact Ro’s current healthcare vertical integration plan. That leverage allows Ro to offer a more expansive women’s healthcare suite across its platform.
