January 2025
Choice launches spin-off company Certain
💕 Super proud to mention that we just launched our website 💕
www.certain.care
Certain provides a minimal invasive valve solution that is easily placed in the female urethra for women experiencing moderate to severe stress urinary incontinence 💦 .
1/3 of all adult female experience some type of SUI and are currently relying on pads or surgery... This needs to change!
March-July 2024
Choice selected as winner of Start-up TechLeap Batch 6!
Leonie van de Kamer: “I am very proud to be part of this 6th batch of the Techleap Pole Position program with Choice - Female Proconception ! Last Tuesday was the wrap up of an intense 3-month period where Peter Van De Graaf, Joerg Stroetzel and I learned what it takes to get from a start up to a scale up🚀. We were challenged to have a crystal clear vision on our “Big Hairy Audacious Goal” - Fertily Freedom for all women. And this brought us to many new insights, because why only stick to “proconception” as we can also be a potential frontrunner in obtaining and measuring hormonal variables that influence women life’s on a day to day basis but also in the road to more insight in menopause, endometriosis and many other women’s diseases🎗️.
For now, we focus on our first horizon of change: bringing Choice ONE as a minimal invasive sterilization technique to the market. Replacing an invasive surgery with a simple outpatient procedure of approximately 30 minutes, similar to IUD placement. No hormones, no chemicals, no discipline and no diminished sexual pleasure - just a sphincter where nature will never give you one: in your fallopian tubes. We develop an intrinsic ability of the body to being protected from pregnancy and only take action when you want a child👶🏼.
The ride is bumpy and exciting, currently we are raising our seed-series of €3M to get Choice ONE Sterlization to the EU market in 2027/2028.
Techleap has provided us the insights we needed, gave us the best coaches and mentors Anke Huiskes and Susanne K. Schorsch and we are honored to receive the prize of the company with the best growth over this 3-month period🍾. A special thanks to Sjaak Vink Lech Bakhuizen van den Brink Sigrid Ploegér and Annemieke Wisse for their efforts and support!
I also want to thank our fellow companies for this amazing journey Spatium Medical ATRO Medical BV Sensius Loop Robots IMcoMET DigiBio STIL Sensible Healthcare Systems.
We cannot wait to see what the future brings us💥!”
May 2023
Inside human fallopian tubes
What we did with the sheep & cow fallopian tubes, we repeated inside human fallopian tubes. Marlies Bongers & Bas Veersema, our gynaecologists from our Board of Advice went inside two just removed uterusses. We learned a lot, but unfortunately after the session our images were corrupted #$@!!. The ampulla, where fertilization takes place & so we have all began, looks pretty similar as the previous video of a sheep's ampulla. We will do this again!
December 2024
Choice features in Podcast “Hormonen in Balans”
🇳🇱 In Dutch only!
🎙️ Samen met Marlies Bongers was ik te gast in de Podcast: Hormonen in Balans van Bonna van Ooijen.
Wij spraken over het vrouwelijk lichaam, anticonceptie, hormonen en veel meer! 🙏 Welke taboe's moeten doorbroken worden?
💕 Hoe zou ideale anticonceptie eruit kunnen zien?
🎓 Welke rol heeft de samenleving, het onderwijs en ouders in het doorbreken van taboes en keuzes voor meisjes?
Natuurlijk kwam Choice - Female Proconception aan bod, het bedrijf waar ik zo trots op ben! Wij willen namelijk vooruit, nieuwe & betere anticonceptie naar de markt brengen. Hierover bespreek ik onder andere:
📢 Wat komt hier bij kijken?
🥼 Welke onderzoeken zijn er nodig om zo een innovatie verder te brengen?
💰 En wat hebben wij nodig om dit verder te brengen?
Luister de podcast nu op Spotify: https://lnkd.in/e2m4mxjM
March 2024
First 1:1 prototype!
🔥 We proudly present you our first 1:1 prototype of Choice - inside this duct there is a working valve! The axles hold the valve and detent together in the duct and they will now be welded and shortened.
May 2023
Inside bovine/sheep fallopian tubes
With our newly developed tools we are exploring where all of us began...Together with the UMC professors Bas Veersema (Gynaecology) & Peter Vos (Veterinary Medicine) we looked inside cow & sheep fallopian tubes (this is a sheep). Human fallopian tubes to follow soon.
September 2024
Choice receives US NIH Subsidy
We are super excited to announce that the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) will support Choice in the preclinical testing of the device 🙌 . Soon we will start with the finalization of the protocol & tests are expected to start end of this year.
NIH employs five broad decision criteria in its funding policy. First, ensure the highest quality of scientific research by employing an arduous peer review process. Second, seize opportunities that have the greatest potential to yield new knowledge and that will lead to better prevention and treatment of disease. Third, maintain a diverse research portfolio in order to capitalize on major discoveries in a variety of fields such as cell biology, genetics, physics, engineering, and computer science. Fourth, address public health needs according to the disease burden (e.g., prevalence and mortality). And fifth, construct and support the scientific infrastructure (e.g., well-equipped laboratories and safe research facilities) necessary to conduct research (source: NIH).
We are honoured to be chosen on the basis of these requirements. The NIH has one of the proudest records in medical research. We are ready to add to that 💥 !
September 2024
Choice visits Women’s Health Innovation Summit in Boston
Peter and Leonie visited Boston - THE medtech capital of the USA to join the RVO innovation mission for Women’s Health. During the 3 day event and the 2 day innovation mission we learned a lot about investors, other companies in the FemTech space and about the opportunities within the USA.
Leonie presented Choice during the innovation pitches, which was a real great opportunity!
February 2024
Choice visits LSI’24 Los Angeles
LSI: “It’s Women’s Health Awareness Month, and we’re highlighting a new women’s health company each day in May. Today we’re highlighting Choice - Female Proconception, led by CEO Peter Van De Graaf.
Choice has developed small, implantable, wirelessly controlled valves as a contraceptive. Placed in a short, outpatient procedure, without the need for surgery, Choice valves open or close the fallopian tubes.
Outside of the short moments when the valves are opened or closed, the Choice system contains no active electronics. The Choice system also contains no batteries. Choice works as a reversible sterilization system. It simply blocks the tubes, unless a woman decides otherwise. It contains no hormones or other active chemical components.
Visit our website to watch Peter’s recent presentation and learn more about how Choice is developing a hormone-free female contraceptive.”
Januari 2023
CHOICE obtains ISO13485 Certificate
We are happy to announce that we successfully passed our first ISO 13485 audit. This will lead to a ISO certification expected Q1 2023. This is an important step for Choice as this ISO certificate will help us grow within the medical device business (work together with suppliers and eventually customers) and will help the company to maintain a solid and respected quality management system from design and development stages until post-marketing.
May 2024
Choice First in Human
Milestone alert 💥 !
Today we kicked off our First in Women studies at the Maxima Medical Center Eindhoven. Our KOLs Marlies Bongers Peggy Geomini and 🏴Bas Veersema introduced the smallest endoscope in the world (1,1mm - developed by us!) in the tuba of a women succesfully. We learned a lot from this session and are excited to continue with the technological development and continuation of the studies!
📸 In the picture you see our endoscope in blue, the vision comes from a standard hysteroscope camera and you see the opening of the tuba (this opens up under pressure of saline).
September 2023
Choice at LSI Barcelona '23
Our Co-Founder & CCA Leonie van de Kamer starring at the LSI Event in Barcelona last September!
In the picture she is showing the world's smallest endoscope developed together with OptaSensor GmbH to enhance placement of the Choice devices in the fallopian tubes and to prevent adverse events during placement.
December 2022
Choice discussed with Egyptian female students
Peter van de Graaf presented Choice to some 100 female students at Sohag University, followed by a lively discussion. Overall outcome was that most students considered Choice excellent contraception for themselves and Egypt in general, as we have found elsewhere. We must reach the poor, whose needs are highest because of their large families, leading to rapid population increase in Egypt. For this Choice will need social workers for outreach, and, most important, Choice needs to be affordable.
With regard to cultural issues: the family planning decisions are not an individual decision, but take place within the (extended) family, and because sterilization is religiously contentious it should not be labelled "reversible sterilization".
Thanks a bundle to Sohag University, Laila El-Sayed & my brother in law Samir Khalifa for making this extraordinary and interesting session possible.