SheMed
SheMed

For nearly a decade, I had answers for everything except my own body. I had a degree in nutrition. I had access to specialists. I had a family with a background in healthcare.

None of it helped me understand why I was in pain, why my weight would not shift no matter what I did, why I kept ending up in hospital with no explanation that stuck.

It took nine years, multiple surgeries, and more blood tests than I can count before someone finally joined the dots. The diagnosis was PMOS, the updated clinical term for polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), a condition that had shaped nearly every aspect of my health for years without anyone naming it.

It affects an estimated one in eight women in the UK, disrupting hormonal balance, metabolism, and fertility. The average time from first symptoms to diagnosis is over two years. For many women it is longer.

The cruelest part is not the condition itself. It is the years spent being told that what you are experiencing is normal.

That experience is why SheMed exists.

Building What I Needed but Could Not Find

My sister Chloe and I started SheMed in 2024 because my diagnosis and the research both pointed to the same thing: a structural gap in women's healthcare that nobody was solving. We both knew what it felt like when the system fails a woman.

We knew what it felt like to have your health concerns minimised, to be handed generic advice that did not account for how the female body actually works, to be told to eat less and move more when the problem was hormonal and metabolic and considerably more complicated than that.

SheMed is the UK's first clinician-led GLP-1 weight loss programme designed specifically for women. We work with GMC, NMC and GPhC registered clinicians to prescribe Wegovy, Mounjaro, and oral semaglutide (and soon oral orforglipron) alongside personalised at-home blood screenings.

Every decision is based on a woman's individual blood biomarkers and health history, not only a BMI number pulled from a chart designed for someone else.

GLP-1 medications have changed what is possible in obesity medicine. Wegovy has been clinically proven to reduce body weight by up to 20.7%. Mounjaro, which works on two hormone receptors rather than one, has shown weight reduction of up to 21% in clinical trials.

For women with PMOS, where insulin resistance and hormonal dysregulation make weight management significantly harder than it is for most people, these treatments are not incremental improvements. They are genuinely transformative.

The problem is access. It has been inconsistent, expensive, and almost never tailored to female physiology.

The Scale of What We Are up Against

Two per cent. That is the share of UK medical research funding spent on pregnancy, childbirth, and female reproductive health, despite one in three women experiencing a reproductive or gynaecological issue.

Two per cent, despite women making up half the population and experiencing a range of conditions – PMOS, endometriosis, perimenopause – that are still poorly understood, poorly funded, and poorly treated.

The NHS Confederation reports that for every £1 invested in women's health services, the NHS could save £11 in avoided costs. Yet these services remain chronically under-resourced.

The consequences show up in waiting rooms and on prescription pads. Women are diagnosed later than men across a range of conditions. They are treated less aggressively. They are discharged sooner.

Symptoms are sometimes confused with other conditions or are lifestyle-related. In weight management specifically, the clinical literature on GLP-1 medications has historically included far fewer women than men, which means the hormonal and metabolic dimensions of how these treatments work in the female body are only beginning to be properly studied.

SheMed was built to change that, designing a programme around female physiology rather than retrofitting one built for someone else.

What a $1 Billion Valuation Actually Means

In October 2025, SheMed raised $50 million in Series A funding at a $1 billion valuation. We became the second UK femtech company to reach unicorn status, after Flo Health.

That number gets attention, and I understand why. But the part that matters most to me is not the valuation. It is what the valuation represents.

Investors are finally recognising that women's health is not a niche. It is a vast, chronically underserved market.

The global femtech sector is projected to exceed $100 billion by 2030. Capital is moving in ways it simply was not five years ago. That shift matters because research follows funding, and better research means better treatment for the women who need it.

Over 100,000 women have trusted us in the UK, with plans from £59 per month including a free at-home blood test.

But I want to be honest about what investment does and does not fix. Money does not close structural gaps in healthcare on its own. What closes them is building something that genuinely works: clinically rigorous, accessible, and designed with real understanding of what women actually experience.

Every decision we make at SheMed comes back to one question: does this improve the experience and produce better health outcomes for the women we serve. That is the only metric that matters.

What We Are Building Towards

PMOS is one condition. Perimenopause, endometriosis, hormonal weight gain, insulin resistance. These are the conditions that shape the health of millions of women in the UK, often in silence, often without the clinical support they deserve. SheMed was built to serve all of them.

We do not think of ourselves as a weight loss company. We think of ourselves as the place where women can finally access clinician-led, data-driven healthcare that meets them where they are, at any stage of life, with whatever combination of conditions they are managing, without having to fight to be taken seriously.

When I think about the nearly a decade spent looking for answers, I do not frame it as time lost. I frame it as the reason I know exactly what we are building and exactly why it matters. And the reason we will not stop.

About the Contributor: Olivia Ferro is Co-Founder and CEO of SheMed, the UK's first clinician-led GLP-1 weight loss programme for women. SheMed is trusted by over 100,000 UK women with personalised treatment plans from £59 per month.