Digital Birth Control

Our portfolio company Clue announced yesterday that they have received FDA approval for a digital birth control feature.

Clue’s mobile app is used by over 13mm women around the world to track their monthly cycle and this new FDA approved feature, called Clue Birth Control, will be offered as a premium feature in the Clue app.

While Clue Birth Control is not 100% effective, it is an alternative to more invasive forms of birth control. It requires nothing more than regular inputting of the start date of a woman’s cycle.

Here are some comparison’s of its efficacy:

Clue says the product has been shown to be 92% effective at preventing unwanted pregnancy under ‘typical use’ and 97% effective under ‘perfect use’ — referencing the standard research terminology for measuring contraception effectiveness (the latter meaning the product is used exactly as instructed every time the woman has sex vs ‘typical’ use which accounts for some usage slip-ups).

What those percentages mean in practice is that under typical use, eight couples out of 100 would be predicted to get pregnant over a year of use of Clue’s digital birth control. While — in the perfect use scenario — the failure rate would be three out of 100 over a year’s use.

(For comparison, Natural Cycles says its product is 93% effective under typical use and 98% effective under perfect use; while — per the Guttmacher Institute‘s US study — the pill is 93% effective under typical use and 99% effective under perfect use; and male condoms are 87% effective under typical use vs 98% effective under perfect use.)

https://techcrunch.com/2021/03/01/clue-gets-fda-clearance-to-launch-a-digital-contraceptive/

The options available to women to manage their fertility cycle have grown significantly over the last 60 years and that has provided women with more control over their lives. Clue’s digital birth control offering will not be for everyone but it certainly will help some women who cannot or do not want to use more invasive methods.