Can you delay menopause age? CEO of startup Celmatix is chasing the 'moonshot'

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Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Germany’s Green Party fields a candidate to succeed Angela Merkel, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor weighs in on two cases, and founder and CEO Piraye Beim wants to disrupt menopause. Have a great Tuesday.

– A menopause ‘moonshot.’ Piraye Beim has a succinct sales pitch: menopause control. The founder and CEO of startup Celmatix is on a mission to achieve what she calls a “moonshot.”

In a new interview with my colleague Beth Kowitt, Beim explains that delaying menopause would mean staving off the health factors associated with it, like heart disease and Alzheimer’s. “If we could buy women an extra 10 to 15 years of natural endocrine function, we’re talking about a huge boost in their vitality and their wellness at a critical stage in their life,” Beim says. “It will align us more with men, basically.”

Celmatix is developing a drug program to slow the depletion of a woman’s ovarian reserve; it’s expected to enter clinical trials in 2023.

As fascinating as Celmatix’s drug is the market the company operates in. Women’s health therapeutics is unique for just how little disruption has occurred in the past several decades. Beim argues that pharma companies are not incentivized to innovate partly because the women’s health drugs currently in use are big money-makers, with some franchises raking in $1 billion a year.

That’s starting to change. Why? Beim points to broader societal changes in the past year and half, from COVID-19’s disproportionate impact on women to public recognition that only a sliver of funding goes to female founders. “The broader cultural focus and shift in female empowerment is becoming loud and clear to pharma,” she says.

You can read Beth’s story here.

Claire Zillman
claire.zillman@fortune.com
@clairezillman

The Broadsheet, Fortune’s newsletter for and about the world’s most powerful women, is coauthored by Kristen Bellstrom, Emma Hinchliffe, and Claire Zillman. Today’s edition was curated by Emma Hinchliffe.

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