Innovation awarded at latest StarTech facilitates family planning - Persida's MenoPlan reveals menopause onset

According to some published data, for half of women in Europe who are older than 40 and who do not have children, the reason turned out to be that they thought they still had time to give birth, or did not know that menopause was right around the corner. It was precisely these worrying statistics and data that prompted the founders of the Belgrade bioinformatics company Persida to start creating a diagnostic test two years ago that would help women better plan their families, or tell us when they can expect menopause to occur.

- This is the MenoPlan diagnostic test that should predict the time of natural menopause. It was the idea of two ladies in our company who are co-founders and who had a realistic insight into the needs of today's women. Today, the age of childbirth is increasingly shifting, and awareness of menopause is quite low, even though it involves major changes on a hormonal and biological level. It is something that has been neglected and is not paid attention to until it starts. Menopause is certainly part of a natural process - it cannot be stopped or de facto postponed, but the perimenopause period can be shortened and menopause can be entered as healthily as possible, and knowing when menopause will begin can contribute to family planning - Nikola Stanojević, deputy director of Persida, a molecular biologist by training, says in an interview with eKapija.

This company recently entered the Startup Accelerated Development Support Program for this innovation at the fourth annual StarTech competition for supporting innovation and digital transformation of the economy, which includes training and mentoring. In the competition of more than 160 submitted projects, 12 companies won grants in the amount of USD 25,000 to 50,000, and Persida, along with 5 other companies, received this mentoring support.

According to eKapija's interviewee, MenoPlan is currently in the pilot phase, in cooperation with the Laboratory for Molecular Genetics of the Vinča Institute for Nuclear Sciences, and he expects that this test could be available on the Serbian market from the summer of 2025, through clinics with which Persida cooperates, through their website, and perhaps through some pharmacies.

- In general, the product is intended for all women, but our primary group are women who are career-oriented, who do not yet have a family or children, and for whom it serves as a tool for informed and educated family planning. The system is designed to be used at an earlier age, between the ages of 20 and 30, so that family planning can be done better and so that there is awareness of when menopause is coming - Stanojević tells eKapija.

The test, as he says, is done once in a lifetime.

- After thirty, there is certainly a greater probability of accurately predicting the onset of menopause because, in addition to genetics, we use some other data - family history, a questionnaire about current health, and as the moment of menopause approaches, some additional, hormonal tests can be used, all of which enter the system and increase the probability of prediction. However, it would be disappointing if users took the test late and realized that they were about to enter menopause - says our interviewee.

The test is genetically based, and it works by ordering a package and having it delivered to the ladies' home addresses.

- Then the user takes a swab from the inside of the cheek herself - and for this there is also a QR code that refers to a video instruction for taking a swab. This is packed in an envelope and sent to the address that is already printed on the envelope. This is then analyzed in the laboratory, and we collaborate in Serbia with the Vinča Institute for Nuclear Sciences - Molecular Genetics Laboratory, and they sequence the genes, and then the data comes to us. They are then analyzed with the help of our tool. Based on some algorithms and associations, the highest chances are calculated, or at what age the user will enter menopause. And these results are delivered via our platform, which also contains a lot of recommendations, educational content, regarding nutrition and lifestyle, or how you can contribute to a healthier entry into menopause - adds Stanojević.

Persida does not yet know for sure how much the test will cost when it appears on the market, but the assumption is, as Stanojević says, that it will be between EUR 300 and 400.

As our interviewee further states, clinics that deal with medically assisted reproduction (IVF) are very interested in this test, as it would be very important for the users to know how much time they still have to get pregnant, as well as how successful the procedure would be.

- Once the pilot project is completed, we plan to introduce the product to future users through these clinics as well – our interviewee adds.

MenoPlan is not the only innovative product of the Persida company. In the seven years of its existence, according to Stanojević, they have created a multitude of software and programs for analyzing various biomedical data, primarily genetics. MenoPlan is the most innovative of them and is currently the most widely used tool at Persida, but among the most important are also a tool for diagnostic visualization and interpretation of genetic data, which, when genes are sequenced, reveals a diagnosis or problem. There is also a tool for clinical management and monitoring patients during treatment or clinical trials.

And given that the Persida team is interdisciplinary - from molecular biologists, to bioinformaticians, mathematicians, etc., we can certainly expect more innovations in this area in the coming period.