The first of its kind screening test for the cervical cancer of the cervix won approval from the Food and Medicines Administration on Friday, making the path of the DIY device to be in the hands of eligible women next month. And this is already on a network with large insurers Aetna, Cigna and Blue Cross of California.
Developed by Femtech Startup Teal Health, Teal Wand, which is modeled after a swab, is shown in clinical trials to have the same accuracy as the cervical cancer test performed in your Ob-Gyn using speculum. This company has raised a total of $ 23 million with funding from Serena Ventures, Metrodora and Labcorp.
While the home test will not replace your gynecologist visits where you can get a full pelvic exam and deal with other problems with your doctor, the CEO of Teal Health Kara Egan hopes its accuracy, comfort and comfort factors will encourage more women to receive rescue screening.
About one in four women currently lags behind the cervical screening of the cervix, which, along with the HPV vaccine, is a proven way to prevent cancer development. Cervical cancer will kill over 4,000 women this year.
In clinical trials, 94% of users said the Teal stick was preferable to the test in the doctor’s office, and 86% of the participants said they would be more likely to be upset with the cervical cervical screening if they could do it at home.
“All women prefer a better way,” says Egan. She talks to Fortune about the Teal stick and why some women skip potentially saving care.
This interview is edited for length and clarity.
Fortune: What problem is Health Teal, which seeks to solve women’s health?
Kara Igan: When we look at the first three reasons why women do not check, it is “access”, “convenience” and “fear/discomfort”. But when you talk to real women, they explain it differently. Such as: “I do not check because I am a mother and I have two young boys and all the time a doctor is taken away with them.” Another woman said, “I live in New York and I can’t find Ob-Gyn.” This is a problem with access, but we describe it daily and we cannot find an appointment or we cannot get a job.
Teal addresses all this. You can collect your sample comfortably at home. We surround the experience with a telephoto solution, so you get access to doctors for both prescription and examination of the results. This is comfortable and flexible – you can take a visit to your home when it works for you.
Teal Wand by Teal Health
Fortune: Take a look at me how it works. How do I understand that I need screening, how to collect the sample and how to get my results?
Kara Igan: You start by visiting the Teal Health website and completing a brief admissibility registration. Most people do not know when they are due, but based on your last screening and its type, it can be from one to five years. Most insurance will cover it every two years. If you are not sure – just review.
We use exactly the same test used in the doctor’s offices – a basic HPV screening, which is now the standard. The difference is that you collect the sample using the stick at home. So you will have a short visit with our clinician and she will explain how Teal will work. It takes a total of about 10 minutes. Then we send the kit to your house. It is designed as a swab, which is something that every woman is comfortable with. We designed this to be both comfortable, but also to give the woman confidence that she collects enough samples. In our clinical trial, 98% of women collected enough test sample.
You can’t do it wrong. If enough sample is not collected, the result is returned as invalid – not a fake positive or negative.
Here’s how it works: place in the vagina to the back wall, extend, rotate 10 times, slide it back, pop out of the sponge, place it in the vial and send it back to the laboratory.
The clinician knows both your new results and your last history. So connecting these two together is how we decide if you have any subsequent meetings. And that’s exactly the same as if you did it personally.
Kara Egan, CEO of Teal Health
Fortune: That sounds simple enough. So why don’t we do this in the doctors’ offices?
Kara Igan: A good question. He just hasn’t shifted yet. Although the doctors can Allow in self -control, the problem that Teal Relves reaches the meeting first. Most women choose a rear not only for comfort, but also because it is easier to end.
All women deserve a better way. We have a problem with the way it is done right now and that one of four women is lagging behind, but all the women who are being examined are like: “I didn’t like it.” Why should it be so? We have developed screening tests. We are comfortable with the screening at home. There was a lot of momentum to do this, but a large piece of it asked women what they prefer.
This story was originally presented on Fortune.com