A system built on incomplete data

For decades, clinical research has been structured predominantly around male physiology. Hormonal cycles and female-specific conditions were treated as complications rather than foundations. The result is a system where diagnosis is delayed, symptoms are fragmented across specialists and many conditions go undetected for years.

This is the problem Lida Ahmadi is building against. Not as an edge case, but as a structural failure with consequences for half the global population.

From food tech to femtech

Lida has been building companies for over a decade, most recently with Snacks, a B2B food subscription brand acquired by Felfel in 2023. After the exit she was looking for something with a different kind of weight.

The turning point came at a TEDx event in Zurich, where a researcher presented data on the systematic exclusion of women from clinical studies. Lida began digging into the space and found that most existing solutions were oriented toward wellness rather than diagnostics. The more clinical opportunity was largely untouched. That is where she found her cofounder, whose question “why can't we do for hormones what continuous glucose monitoring did for diabetes” became the foundation of Monix.

What Monix is building

Monix is developing a wearable biosensor that measures hormone levels continuously and in real time. A patch worn on the arm or abdomen feeds data directly to the patient's phone and the clinician's dashboard.

The company is starting in IVF, where timing is everything and the current process requires patients to visit the clinic every two to three days for blood draws. Monix would allow remote monitoring and precise intervention. Beyond fertility, the same infrastructure applies to endometriosis, polycystic ovary syndrome, perimenopause and other conditions currently managed with limited diagnostic visibility.

Redefining progress and building resilience

Moving from consumer tech to life sciences required Lida to recalibrate completely. A successful lab experiment is progress. A validated hypothesis is progress. Major milestones take years.

"I had to redefine what progress means for me," she says.

Resilience follows the same logic. "You build your little army of motivators and cheerleaders." In a space where proof takes years, the people closest to the work carry the momentum.

Giving patients their agency back

Today, patients in hormonal health are largely passive. They describe symptoms and receive a diagnosis, or they do not.

"We are giving women a tool and giving them their agency back," Lida says. "Once you have the data yourself, you become the manager of your own data." It is a shift from patient as recipient to patient as participant.

The funding gap

Women's health still receives around 3% of total global healthcare funding. Hormonal health accounts for roughly 1% of that. The investor scepticism Lida encounters is not primarily about financial risk. It is about relatability. What reads as urgent to women often presents as a niche to investors who have never encountered it personally.

Her response is to reframe the conversation. Delayed diagnosis has measurable economic consequences. When women's health is presented as a systemic inefficiency rather than a personal issue, the conversation shifts.

A call for entrepreneurs in life sciences

"The world doesn't need another SaaS product," Lida says. "We need more business founders in life sciences."

The harder spaces hold the more significant opportunities. If you have a background in building companies, there is a strong case for bringing it somewhere it is genuinely rare and genuinely needed.

Where to follow Lida

You can follow Lida Ahmadi and the Monix journey on LinkedIn, where she shares insights from building in femtech and navigating the realities of early-stage health tech.