This Biotech Startup Wants to Delay Menopause by 15 Years

(Photo: Dingzeyu Li/Unsplash) Menopause is no joke. Between hot flashes, sleep problems, chills, seemingly nonsensical mood swings, and associated health risks, this period of a person’s life is inconvenient for some and miserable for others. Biotech startup Celmatix is hoping to change that. CEO Piraye Beim, who founded Celmatix back in 2009, is working to develop a drug that can effecitvely delay menopause, giving patients several extra years of symptom-free life.

Menopause begins when someone’s ovaries produce far less estrogen and progesterone than they once did. This causes said ovaries to slow the release of follicles that influence one’s ability to reproduce. Though everyone hits menopause at a bit of a different pace, Beim believes she and her firm can offset the beginning of this phase by 10 to 15 years, pushing the average onset age up to 70 years old. This would both extend a patient’s fertility and hinder the health issues that coincide with the beginning of menopause, like heart disease, bone disease, and Alzheimer’s.

“If we could buy women an extra 10 to 15 years of natural endocrine function, we’re talking about a huge boost in their vitality and their wellness at a critical stage in their life,” Beim told Fortune when Celmatix’s mission became public last year. Celmatix plans on starting clinical trials of its menopause-delaying drug in 2023. The trials will begin with women undergoing chemotherapy, which is a common cause of premature menopause.

(Photo: Louis Reed/Unsplash)

Celmatix’s drug primarily works by mimicking anti-Mullerian hormone (AMH), which ovarian follicles naturally produce to regulate the body’s reproductive functions. Patients will be able to stop taking the drug if they wish to have a baby, just like they already do with birth control. Celmatix is also working under a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to experiment with new non-hormonal birth control, as hormonal options come with a slew of side effects that make most contraceptives unappealing. 

Healthcare options largely impacting women have long been under-researched and under-funded for reasons we won’t go into here, but Beim sees big change on the horizon. Since 2020 Celmatix has been working with multinational pharmaceutical and life sciences company Bayer, which has sunk hundreds of millions of dollars into women’s healthcare research in recent years. An increase in awareness of women’s health issues, along with the growth of “femtech” (medical technology focused on those assigned female at birth) are also helping medical professionals take their patients’ experiences more seriously. 

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