Supporting women's intimate health with Bayer

"Digital health is playing an increasingly important role moving forward and is evolving," says Rohan Kamath, Head of Global Strategic Commercial Intelligence at Bayer Consumer Health. “We see healthcare brands and healthcare businesses trying to meet this increased demand for information and education through their brands, through their platforms to bring more credible information, products, and solutions.”

See also: Bayer and Ada's webinar 'Supporting patients through partnerships'

“There's apprehension among some consumers to go and talk about intimate health to a pharmacist or a doctor,” says Kamath. “A digital tool becomes a first secure point, which can then be supplemented with a healthcare provider or a pharmacist engagement, so it's a credible first step through the digital journey.”

Daria Costantini, Brand Lead for Canesten, Bayer Consumer Health, notes that women experiencing intimate health issues often feel stigma and shame that makes them reluctant to make an appointment for suspected yeast infections. 

“The reason we exist as a brand is to help free people from shame and discomfort,” she says. “Knowing the struggle that women are facing every day, we knew that we had to do something to enable women to be able to self-diagnose in an easy and more convenient way.”

Women need tools that enable equitable healthcare access.4  Currently, just 1% of $198 billion invested in healthcare research and innovation is directed toward women’s health conditions and the latest data found that there were zero approvals for med tech devices aimed at gynecological infections.9

“Digital is the way to do it,” says Costantini. “We understood very early on that digital innovation was going to be a key enabler for us to be able to champion the self-diagnosis agenda [and be] the sustainable solution to give access to as many women as possible.”

Artificial intelligence (AI) has gained traction due to its potential to overcome barriers to stigmatized areas of healthcare, including sexual health.10

"There's a lot of buzz around AI. For us, it was all about finding the right balance between technology and trust... credible, trustworthy science and solutions–that was the key," Kamath says. “Working with Ada was all about finding the right balance between technology and trust."

“Healthcare and digital health companies like Ada and Bayer are enabling and accelerating self-care through their brands and products,” says Kamath. “Ada’s capabilities around symptom assessment and AI, with a focus on unlocking significant value, and enabling self-care for consumers and women, really complemented our brands.”

The assessment does more than assist women who complete the questionnaire and access treatment options for intimate health issues; it also serves as an important tool for ongoing education about women’s intimate health issues.

“Each consumer we reach is a consumer that we've helped and, especially with intimate health conditions; we've created a knowledge pool that can then pass on to family members and daughters, Kamath says. “That piece is also super powerful because we are creating new knowledge, awareness about conditions that may have then gone unmanaged.”

The benefits of digital tools go beyond helping women access diagnoses and treatment options. By providing easy access to safe, discreet information, support and healthcare access, digital health tools provide women more autonomy and decision-making over their health and wellbeing.11

“Ada is a great mechanism for consumers to really critically assess and understand their symptoms and get clarity on what conditions they might be suffering from,“ Kamath says. “[With Ada] engagement was much higher among consumers going through that journey versus what we had seen traditionally. We saw more time spent on the site, more time spent consuming educational content, and a much higher conversion of people looking to take action.”

In the UK, Bayer Canesten is the second most visited website (behind the NHS) nationwide. The goal was to drive additional traffic to the website, increase dwell time and grow the number of users completing assessments and engaging with Canesten products and educational content. Ada’s symptom assessment became the biggest driver of traffic to the website.

“The depth of engagement was quite nice,” Costantini says. “We are actually helping consumers through the digital journey to answer some of the questions that they wouldn't have been able to answer had they not gone for a diagnosis or had not approached the doctor or the pharmacist.”

Ada Health takes a science-first approach to ensure that users can find the right care at the right time based on their current symptoms, individual health, and risk factors. Ada has a proven track record of working with pharmaceutical companies to develop registered digital medical devices, which is what Bayer wanted in a partner to support women’s intimate health needs.

Since the partnership between Bayer and Ada launched in 2021, more than 430,000 women have completed assessments. Of those women, 37% were between the ages of 20 and 29, and 32% were between 30 and 39. The data highlights the value of digital health platforms like Ada for breaking taboos and removing barriers to care, especially among younger users.

The assessment tool also results in other significant impacts:

Costantini believes there are other immeasurable benefits to partnering to create a digital tool for women’s intimate health, citing increased brand reputation and more empowered consumers.

“The trust and equity that Canesten has as a brand is one reason that this has worked because women immediately adopted this tool as a credible solution,” she says. “Self-assessment is one of the key challenges these women have, and the ability to connect symptoms with a condition in a trustworthy way is what's been missing. We know from all the research that we've done that this is clearly a major support for them.”

Bayer and Ada are building on their successes and pursuing new opportunities to expand the partnership to support women’s intimate health. Plans are in development to integrate an omni-channel approach that allows women to complete the digital symptom assessment by accessing a QR code in the women’s intimate health section of the drugstore that provides recommendations for the appropriate treatment. 

“We continue to increase the level of engagement with consumers,” says Kamath. “The numbers are much stronger versus when we started off and that is trending well in terms of moving forward.”

Ada’s capabilities around symptom assessment and AI, with a focus on unlocking significant value and enabling self-care for consumers and women, proved to be such an effective complement to Bayer Consumer Health brands that the company is exploring further opportunities to partner with Ada on their precision health agenda.