Adia Health

Jun 29, 2019

Share to facebook Ageing Fertility  2016 was the first year in England that more women gave birth over the age of 40, then women who were under the age of 20. Indeed, the average age of a first-time mother in England in 2017 was 28.8 (for men 33.4) whereas in 1980 it was 22.7. With both men’s and women’s fertility starting to actively decrease from the age of 35 it is no surprise that fertility is becoming a bigger issue and as a result, a big business, with more couples experiencing problems conceiving. Like many founders of health and wellbeing related companies, this was the case for Lina Chan, founder of Adia Health. Born in Brazil to Chinese immigrant parents, Chan had had a highly successful career in finance. Having got married aged 34, she started trying for a baby at the age of 35 and ended up going through a full journey of miscarriage, difficulty conceiving and pre-term birth. Neither Chan, nor her partner had ever done any fertility or blood tests and as she says, blindly thought that they would get pregnant easily as we are often taught to believe. Sadly, her first pregnancy was lost at 27 weeks, and her second miscarried at 8 weeks. Luckily for Chan, her doctor was proactive and at that point ordered a series of blood tests which showed that she had a blood clotting disorder. Once armed with that knowledge, and a plan to address it, she went onto have three children. Lina Chan Founder of Adia Health Adia Health Chan realized that when it comes to her career and everything else in her life she had been proactive, but when it came to conceiving and pregnancy, her experience was reactive. One reason many women experience this is that fertility and pregnancy difficulties are still very taboo topics, which is why Chan is so open about her own experience. This led her to found Adia Health to help women navigate and control their own fertility journey through education, access to holistic support, test and experts. How Does It Work? Adia Health’s first product launched in January 2019 and is experiencing 50% growth month on month. Through a small sample of blood done as a finger prick at home, Adia delivers fertility hormone tests to help give women the knowledge they need to be proactive. This test provides a detailed picture of a women’s reproductive health including her ovarian reserve, period health, how they may react to IVF and thyroid health. With all the publicity about Theranos and finger prick blood test, Adia Health says that they have worked hard to be transparent with their testing, using accredited laboratories who are inspected for overall quality management by The United Kingdom Accreditation Service with both internal and external quality controls, as well as regular audits and clinical governance. To ensure the test is accurate they send the samples to two different laboratories. Once a user has received that information they then have access to curated specialists in women’s health including fertility specialists, nutritionists, and coaches. Users are also able to access a wealth of educational information and mindfulness meditation. All the content on the platform has been developed by experts in the field of obstetrics, fertility, nutrition, and psychology, therefore, eliminating the confusion that “Dr. Google” often creates for women. Making Fertility Accessible The test costs £99 and all other services and content are free. Chan is determined to make the product as affordable as possible to ensure that Adia can reach as many women as possible. Having raised an initial seed round of £250,000 including from Seedcamp, Adia received a grant of £30,000 from the Wellcome Trust to conduct a study measuring women's wellbeing improvement as they use the platform and gain access to holistic support. To date, the women in the study have reported that by being on the platform they feel more knowledgeable, confident and improved emotional wellbeing. Adia Health App