Consumer health company Intrinsic gained $15 million in funding to acquire more women’s health-focused brands, the company announced Wednesday.
New York City-based Intrinsic is a consumer packaged goods (CPG) company that acquires and sells female health brands — like lactation massagers and hands-free pumping products — in stores like Target and online. It also sells to large health systems (which then offer the goods to patients), to government programs which can provide them to low-income families and to medical supply distributors so women can purchase them with other supplies covered by their insurance. It’s similar to large players like Johnson & Johnson and GSK, but differs by focusing on women.
“There are dozens of disease states and healthcare challenges that women have that have been understudied, underdiagnosed, undertreated and often stigmatized by both the medical system and the big CPG companies,” said Yadin Shemmer, co-founder and CEO of Intrinsic, in an interview. “These conditions are menopause, pelvic floor disorder, [polycystic ovary syndrome], to name a few. The big CPG companies have historically tended to focus narrowly on period care and baby care when they thought about women and we think women need help with more than just periods and babies.”
Intrinsic’s $15 million funding round brings the company’s total funding to $128 million. Its investors include FCA Venture Partners, MAP Investco, Define Ventures, Link Ventures and Redesign Health. The company declined to share which funding round this is and who it was led by. Crunchbase, however, shows that it is in its Series B round.
With the money, Intrinsic plans to acquire more brands with a female focus, Shemmer said. It is looking for products that address a spectrum of women’s health needs and life stages, whether that’s for menopause, PCOS, pelvic floor disorders or other conditions.
“[We want] brands that are ideally addressing an unmet need and doing so in interesting, novel ways; that have really happy customers, ideally that are raving fans; that if possible are omnichannel already,” Shemmer stated. “In other words, they’re not just [direct-to-consumer], they’re not just e-commerce, not just in retail, but managed to find their way to numerous channels. We want brands that have a unique voice in the way that they speak to women and brands that are growing and profitable.”
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
When Intrinsic acquires a company, it helps it find new outlets to sell its products, redesign its website, market its products and develop new products. The products get to keep their own names and brand identities instead of coming under a central Intrinsic brand.
In acquiring more brands, Intrinsic ultimately aims to address female healthcare needs that are often overlooked.
“[We want to] fulfill our mission of making a difference to women and those they love,” Shemmer said. “We want to find brands that actually do good, that actually make a difference and fill in the gaps that have been left behind by the medical system and some of the incumbent CPG companies.”
Photo credit: Andrii Shyp, Getty Images
