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Perimenopause was largely overlooked by the health care system for decades. Now, after the removal of an FDA “black box” warning on hormone therapy, perimenopause is becoming big business.

Demand for hormone therapy has spiked, creating a huge market for telehealth startups. Four leading startups in the perimenopause space – Midi, Winona, Alloy and Evernow – have raised millions. Midi has already become the first “menopause unicorn.” www.wired.com/story/inside...

Since the pandemic, Americans have embraced telehealth, and they’ve also warmed up to compounded products sold by virtual clinics. Both of these changes have helped to set the stage for hormone therapy’s big rebrand.

Many people who might have previously considered a compounded hormone too risky, or who might have preferred seeing a doctor at a brick-and-mortar location, are now comfortable being prescribed these medications over the internet. www.wired.com/story/inside...

The potential customer base is vast in part because a remarkably long list of ailments are attributed to perimenopause and menopause. Some doctors worry that there are so many symptoms that almost anyone with aging ovaries can qualify as plausibly perimenopausal. www.wired.com/story/inside...

Midi is the most prominent platform offering focused perimenopause care, but whether a person is perimenopausal is less and less a concern. Midi’s clinicians prescribe GLP-1s – the golden goose of the telehealth world – and Midi also sells supplements. www.wired.com/story/inside...

In addition to providing a rare approximation of national unity (uniting everyone from medical professionals to liberal feminists and MAHA acolytes) the perimenopause telehealth boom offers something else: a glimpse into the future of medicine in America.