Good morning! Trump’s attorney general nominee went before the Senate, Meta loses a lawyer over its masculinity era, and an at-home test for cervical cancer gets closer to market.
– Take-home test. In a Fortune piece about 20 innovative breakthroughs in health to watch for in 2025, my colleague Erika Fry included Teal Health. The company has indeed achieved a true innovation that is poised to solve one of women’s most unpleasant health care experiences: the annual Pap smear, which screens for cervical abnormalities.
Teal Health will allow women to instead screen for cervical cancer at home using a device it calls the “Teal wand.” Rather than retrieving cervical cells, Teal’s process is a form of primary HPV screening that relies on vaginal cells—which means women can do it themselves. (And because of its form of screening, they only need to do it once every five years.) The company submitted to the FDA in October to offer the first approved at-home cervical cancer screening. It was given a “breakthrough device designation,” which means it’s on an accelerated path to approval.
Today, Fortune is the first to report, Teal Health has raised an additional $10 million to help it prepare to go to market. Emerson Collective and Forerunner led the investment, which brings Teal’s total funding to $23 million. Existing investors include Serena Williams’ Serena Ventures and Chelsea Clinton’s Metrodora. Forerunner partner Nicole Johnson is joining Teal’s board.
About one in three women in the U.S. are considered under-screened for cervical cancer. While the discomfort of the typically-used Pap smear is a secondary explanation, the primary reasons women cite for going un-screened are time and the convenience of getting to an appointment. In rural areas, deserts of OB/GYN care make it difficult for women to access screenings and are expected to get worse; in big cities where doctors are plentiful, it can still be hard to get an appointment for an annual visit as a new patient.
“We’re not all getting screened, or we’re getting screened, but it’s in a way that’s very uncomfortable, very invasive, very violating,” says Teal Health CEO and cofounder Kara Egan. Egan’s cofounder Avnesh Thakor, a doctor and Stanford professor, developed the first prototype of the device; Egan joined him four years ago to help make the device appealing to customers and bring it to market. The company is aiming to launch in California and to work with insurers to have its device covered in-network as a preventative screening; Egan is also leading conversations with health systems and employers to reach more patients.
Egan argues that the market for this kind of health innovation has been misunderstood—assumed to be the one in three women who go unscreened. But even if women going un-screened are the first target, the market should be “all women who deserve a better experience,” she says.
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
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ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
-No place for politics. During her hearing yesterday, Trump cabinet nominee Pam Bondi was pressed on how she would keep the Justice Department’s criminal investigations independent if confirmed as attorney general. Bondi said that “politics will not play a part” in her work. New York Times
- Off the case. A lawyer representing Meta in its AI copyright case dropped the tech giant as a client, citing Mark Zuckerberg’s “descent into toxic masculinity and Neo-Nazi madness” in a post on LinkedIn. Bloomberg Law
- Change in plans. The White House withdrew a proposal to make insurance cover the costs of over-the-counter birth control. The plan, which was announced this past October, could have benefitted 52 million American women who are of reproductive age and have private health insurance. The 19th
- School sports. The House of Representatives approved a bill banning transgender athletes from female sports programs in schools. The legislation, primarily supported by Republicans, would not allow K-12 schools with trans students on their women’s sports teams to recieve federal funding. New York Times
- Campaign finance fine. The voting rights nonprofit founded by Stacey Abrams, former Georgia state representative, was fined $300,000 for violating campaign finance laws. New Georgia Project admitted to the violation, as the group spent over $3 million in 2018 backing Abrams and the Democratic ticket and over $600,000 in 2019 supporting an initiative in a local election. Axios
MOVERS AND SHAKERS
The cofounders of women's network Chief, Lindsay Kaplan and Carolyn Childers, are stepping down from running the business day-to-day, becoming a board member and board chair, respectively. Former Comic Relief U.S. CEO Alison Moore will take over as Chief CEO.
At Comic Relief U.S., former Comedy Central president Michele Ganeless succeeds Moore as the nonprofit's CEO.
Presence, a teletherapy services provider for PreK–12 special education, named Jessica Wang COO. Wang was previously SVP of global operations at 2U.
Hive Systems, a cybersecurity company, appointed Katie Dodson as president of Hive Systems Defense Solutions. Most recently, she was a director at the company.
Venture capital firm Greycroft appointed Ashley Valentine as CPO and Melissa Brandow as chief compliance officer. Most recently, Valentine was executive director of human capital at Rockwood Capital, and Brandow was Greycroft’s director of compliance.
AuditBoard, an audit, risk, compliance, and ESG platform, appointed April Crichlow as CMO. Most recently, she was CMO at Centrical.
Impact Climate Technologies, a provider of HVAC solutions, named Michele Pamboukis CHRO. She was most recently group CHRO at Engineered Stone Group.
Nutrafol, a hair growth supplement company, named Kim Biedermann chief research and development officer. Most recently, Biedermann served as chief science officer at Mend Nutrition.
Chanel appointed Simone Bagel-Trah and Teresa Ko to its board of directors. Bagel-Trah is chairwoman of Henkel, and Ko is senior partner, Hong Kong and China Chairman at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer. The fashion label’s recent board changes mean that there is now an equal number of male and female board members, per Bloomberg.
ON MY RADAR
The era of finance CEOs running retailers is over Bloomberg
The femosphere is the internet’s toxic women-focused answer to the manosphere Fast Company
How female athletes are shaping the future of business Business of Fashion
PARTING WORDS
“I told myself, ‘It’s gotta go because it’s stopping me from doing what I’m meant to do. Nobody has time for that.’”
— Country music singer Lainey Wilson on handling insecurities
