• by Les Luchter , Staff Writer, Yesterday

On May 9, the FDA approved the first at-home screening device for cervical cancer: the Teal Wand.

In a quick turnaround, the Wand will be available online to California women next month, backed by local media coverage, pop-up events and social media campaigns, Mallory Walsh, Teal Health’s head of marketing and communications, tells Pharma & Health Insider. 

It’s no coincidence that Teal is based in California.

“The idea was, let’s pick a state, let’s get in-network, let’s make it easier for women to have access, and then we’ll expand from there,” says Kara Egan, CEO and co-founder of the four-year-old startup. With California insurance coverage for the device now secured from Aetna, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Cigna and United HealthCare, Egan expects to "roll out our next state within months” and has set a goal to be in all 50 states by year’s end.

Part of Teal’s marketing mission is educational in nature, Egan notes, “making sure women understand that they now have this option.... It ends up being more like a public service announcement.”

Walsh says that Teal’s marketing will thus strive to be “authentic,” preferring for instance word-of-mouth that can reach “trusted, smaller audiences” and “micro-influencers” who are trusted medical people rather than “sending out 100 kits to large influencers.”

Teal’s pop-ups and other events will be either self-hosted or sponsored, Walsh says, but the company is still “trying to figure out who we want to partner with and who can match our brand and our message.”

Egan cites “general confusion about cervical cancer screening in general. …We talk to lots of women all day long about their Pap smears and cervical cancer screenings, and they’re not aware the two are the same.”  

Doctors, Egan says, “still call it the Pap smear because that’s what a woman is used to hearing."

But, she continues, most doctors now incorporate traditional Pap smears, around since the 1940s, with Teal-type testing for the HPV virus, now known to cause most cervical cancers.

Nonetheless, Teal’s major clinical trial, titled “Self-Cerv,” compared the Teal Wand’s self-collected vaginal samples directly against “a clinician-collected sample using a speculum and brush.” That study, done last year with more than 600 women across 16 testing sites, found Teal resulting in 96% accuracy vs. doctor-collected samples, and 94% of women preferring it over in-person screening.

“Every woman who’s experienced a Pap smear or an office cervical cancer screening doesn't like it,” Egan declares. “It’s violating, it’s uncomfortable.”

As further evidence, consider a side-by-side comparison of the in-office speculum versus the Teal Wand:

That may be part of the reason that, while colorectal cancer screenings and breast cancer screenings have rebounded from COVID-era plunges, cervical cancer screenings have not. As a result, Egan notes, “one in four women are currently behind on their screenings, and this is a totally preventable cancer if done through screening.”

The Teal Wand could help correct the situation.

More than just the Wand itself, Teal has developed what Egan calls a “whole telehealth platform.” It involves getting a prescription from Teal’s doctor network, as well as ongoing communication about what to expect when the testing kit arrives, how to send it to a lab for testing, what the results  mean, and next steps whether the test is negative or positive.

Test results come from a collaboration with Roche, one of three pharma companies (the others being Abbott and BD) that offer such services for cervical cancer screenings. “It’s the same test used by doctors,” says Egan, “with the same accuracy, just comfortably and privately collected at home.”

Teal is open to working with more doctors and healthcare systems, and possibly with retail pharmacies down the road, she adds. 

The Teal Wand is indicated for women aged 25-65, which is the American Cancer Society’s recommended age ranged for regular cervical cancer screenings.

Egan points out, as well, that while vaccines against HPV are now available, the most vaccinated part of the population are 11- 17-year-olds, and only 50% of them in any case; that most 25- 65-year-olds have not been vaccinated; and that “even if you are vaccinated, you are still supposed to get screened regularly.”