Ovia Talks explores how new tech could drive earlier, smarter women’s health decisions

Approximately half of the U.S. population is female, and many menstruate during their reproductive years, creating millions of biological signals that could offer insight into health and disease. Yet for decades, menstrual blood has been dismissed, under-studied, and largely ignored.

NextGen Jane is changing that. For the latest episode of Ovia Talks, we’re thrilled to have CEO Ridhi Tariyal join us to share how her team uses menstrual blood to create molecular profiles that can reveal women’s health conditions faster, more objectively, and without invasive surgery.  

As Tariyal explains, “We’re so deliberate in calling menstruation a natural biopsy. Every single month, your body is shedding uterine lining and we generate molecular profiles of your gene expression from that tissue.” Under Tariyal’s leadership, she has led NextGen Jane in pioneering a new frontier of menstrual health insights.

NextGen Jane is also a portfolio company in Labcorp’s Venture Fund, which helps support innovative companies by partnering with leaders and companies across healthcare to drive innovation, patient-centered, and data driven care for all. 

Endometriosis: a silent diagnostic odyssey

Endometriosis affects 1 in 10 women, yet it can take an average of 8–10 years to get diagnosed. This delay isn’t just inconvenient, it can mean repeated doctor visits, misdiagnoses, ineffective treatments, missed work, and skyrocketing healthcare costs.

Tariyal dives into why this happens: “A lot of that delay is society normalizing pain, as well as the fact that it occurs at such a young age. If you talk to a lot of endo patients, they’ll tell you that their pain started when they were in their teenage years.”

NextGen Jane is working to improve diagnostics by analyzing menstrual blood collected via tampon. “The gene expression profiles for people who have endometriosis look significantly, reliably different from the gene expression profiles from people who do not have endometriosis,” Tariyal explains.

She emphasizes the tampon itself isn’t doing anything special. The innovation lies in the data the body provides. By creating faster, more accurate diagnostics, NextGen Jane aims to get women appropriate care sooner and help avoid ineffective treatments, reducing both clinical and financial burdens.

What this could unlock next

Menstrual blood could reveal early signals across other reproductive and hormonal health conditions, opening the door to earlier intervention, more personalized care, and better outcomes at scale.

Tariyal shares a “eureka moment” from the lab: comparing menstrual blood to peripheral blood revealed dramatically more gene expression activity — proof that menstrual blood isn’t redundant, it’s a richer, novel source of data.

She encourages participation, noting, “Women can help move research forward by simply mailing in a tampon. Your contribution helps unlock insights that weren’t even on our radar a few years ago.”

Learn more about this emerging research at nextgenjane.com.

🎧 Listen to the full episode here.

What’s next for Ovia Talks?

Have ideas for future episodes? We’d love to hear them.

📩 Email us at talks@oviahealth.com.