NextGen Jane is a women's healthcare company founded in 2014 by Ridhi Tariyal and Stephen Gire, headquartered in
Oakland, California,
United States.[1] The company is recognized for developing a Smart
Tampon System to provide insights into a woman's reproductive health system.[2][3][4]
History
In 2013, Tariyal was part of the first class of the Blavatnik Fellowship at
Harvard University.[5] The purpose of the fellowship is to place recent MBA graduates in labs across Harvard with the goal of commercializing life science-based enterprises.[6]
Following the completion of the fellowship, Tariyal and Gire founded the company to center around fertility and empowering women to manage their own
reproductive health.[7] They later developed intellectual property for a Smart Tampon System to gather
genomic information about a woman's health.[8][9][10][11]
Products and services
The Smart Tampon System is a device that detects early markers of
endometriosis in the
menstrual blood, as well as track other biological changes in a woman's body. The conventional method of diagnosing endometriosis is by surgeons inserting a small camera into the
pelvic cavity to look for
endometrial cells in places other than the lining of the
uterus. When these cells are detected, the diseased tissue can be removed. The method of analyzing the menstrual blood retained in the tampons aims to improve the diagnostic index of these diseases, as well as improve the discomfort and impracticality experienced by women with more conventional methods of diagnosis, enabling them to manage their healthcare more autonomously.[12][13][14][15]