Dr. Jennifer Hintzsche (Founder and CEO, PherDal Fertility Science)

Can you explain your job to a five-year-old? 

My PherDal baby is five years old. And so she knows that mom helps people have babies. I have a four year old son and a five year old daughter. They like to put together the boxes for our kits. They think that they're big Legos. But they know that when we drop them off at the post office, they're mommy's scientific kits that help people have babies. 

What excites you most about your job?

What we're doing is delivering hope to people that might not have it otherwise. I was one of those people. I felt helpless on my infertility journey. And I know that every day, what we're doing is delivering hope to people and that they are going to now have the tools delivered right to their door that can help them become a parent. And that's what helped me become a mom. 

The empowerment that we're giving people to take control of their fertility and try something that's safe and FDA cleared that you can try in the privacy of your own home before going into the clinic—that hope and empowerment is really what gets me excited.

Of course, I love hearing our success stories and getting pictures of babies. I also know I'm going to be able to talk to my daughter 20 years from now, and she's going to have access to healthcare that I didn't have, and we're helping that happen, and so that's really what keeps me going.

Which trend will change the future of medicine? 

It's a combination of at-home medical care. So, things like the PherDal kit. But there's also new over the counter diagnostics that are coming out and are combined with telehealth. I think the intersection of those innovations are really going to change the future of medicine. 

I grew up in a town of 2000 people. So, I didn't have access to a lot of healthcare that today can be done on an app or delivered to your house. And I think that is huge and being able to get affordable and accessible care to more people who need it. The people who are driving telehealth and at home medical devices and technology, they're the people that are going to help those underserved people the most. 

Looking back, which trends have you missed or underestimated? 

The vaginal microbiome. My background is in biology and computer science. I did bioinformatics for most of my career. So, I sequenced DNA. And when I was trying to solve my own problem when we couldn't afford fertility treatment, I went to dive into the research to try to solve my own problem, and sadly, I didn't need to dive very far because, at the time in 2017, there wasn't a lot of women's health research, just in general. We have seen it exponentially explode. 

And it wasn't until around then that women and minorities were even required to be in phase 3 clinical trials. So that was the same time that I'm diving into the research and found out about intracervical insemination and thought that it could help us conceive, but nothing existed. 

We hold two patents for being the only sterile at home insemination kit, and I think a lot of people who are in the medical field will be like, ‘Isn't sterile the first thing that a medical device should be?’ And sadly, that isn't the case. 

The research is now corroborating what a lot of our hypotheses were: that as women are aging, they're having more partners, there are certain aspects of their lifestyle, and all of that impacts your microbiome. And if the fertility scales are already not tipping in your favor with things like age, that can really impact your fertility. And so study after study, it's coming out showing that, if you are disrupting your vaginal microbiome, it can hurt sperm before it ever even has the chance to reach the egg. And it's subclinical. So, you wouldn't even know. You wouldn't have any symptoms. I love seeing that research come out that proves why we have such success because of understanding the fundamentals of science and things—like sterility—that matter.

The leading reproductive endocrinologists now are saying the vaginal microbiome and the reproductive microbiome are really the next frontier in medicine and reproductive medicine. And we should get to the point where we're testing your microbiome as a measurement of just your health—like your blood pressure. And that data is going to be crazy interesting.

Which MedTech initiative or startup deserves more attention? 

I wonder, is Femtech too broad? There's so many cool, passionate, badass women doing so many things in Femtech right now that I just started thinking about many of these other startups, you get to know as you're gaining traction and growing. And again, to be able to look back in 20 years and tell my daughter: ‘I know who made that possible, I know who made that available. You can now do this because of this person.’ There's so many women who are just taking back control of their health and finding ways to help others that I just think Femtech in general Is going to grow exponentially in the next five years.

Where would you put a million dollars? 

There are so many femtech companies out there applying and fighting for funding. Two years ago, if you would have asked this mysterious person with the check, ‘Hey, do you think you could crowdfund a medical device through FDA clearance from prescription to over the counter?’ They probably would have laughed at you. But PherDal is here today and crowdfunded because 433 people showed up and believed in us. So, I would do the same. I would find femtech companies that are as lean and scrappy and passionate [as we were] and won't take no for an answer. And I would invest in those women that are going to make the world a better place.

What's the best advice you've ever received? 

After going through infertility, when I did conceive with the PherDal kit, then came 38 weeks of anxiety and feeling extremely fragile because you don't trust your body at that point to be able to grow a human. And so, I didn't feel like I was going to be a mom until I held her in my arms. I put a lot of pressure on myself then, and I needed to do everything right. And this goes for business, too. 

But I remember my aunt wrote me a card, and it said: Your daughter doesn't need a perfect mom because you are the perfect mom for her. It was so simple and beautiful and true. And, it just gave me such relief. In business too, we're not going to be the cure for everybody, but we're going to help, and we're going to do the right thing, and we're going to do our best to help support people, and we're not gonna be perfect, and that's okay.