WoW Women in FemTech I María Teresa Pérez Zaballos and Cristina Fernández Molina, founders of Endogene.bio
María Teresa Pérez Zaballos and Cristina Fernández Molina are the founders of endogene.bio, a precision medicine company addressing the historical underrepresentation of female biology in medical research. Its research platform enables the discovery of molecular biomarkers to improve patient diagnosis and stratification, as well as to enhance drug discovery processes using menstrual blood.
The company assists pharmaceutical firms in optimizing drug development and patient stratification for clinical trials. Its goal is to translate cutting-edge science into patient-centered diagnostics that can effectively reach the clinic.
Tell us a bit about your background and your projects so far.
Maria Teresa: I am a physicist by training. I have a PhD in Health Sciences and a Master’s in Bioscience Enterprise from the University of Cambridge. My career began at Merck KGaA, where I joined as an in-house consultant and worked on various oncology projects. I then moved to focus on innovation in women’s health as part of the Fertility Portfolio Expansion team.
I am now co-founder and CEO at endogene.bio - a company I co-founded in 2022. We are building a precision medicine platform that uses menstrual blood to study molecular markers of uterine health. Our goal is to develop non-invasive diagnostics and tools for patient stratification that can transform how we understand and treat diseases like endometriosis.
Cristina: I am a molecular biologist by background. I did my PhD and post-doc at Institut Pasteur, using different molecular biology tools, including DNA methylation, to study and stratify a rare heterogeneous disease of aging. I have 6 years of research experience, including the use of menstrual blood to characterise endometriosis.
I am now co-founder and Head of Operations at endogene.bio, where I currently lead the R&D development of our platform and products.
How did you get into this industry? Has it been an easy industry to get into or have you had many challenges?
Our entry into this field came through a combination of professional and personal experience, but also a strong scientific interest in female biology.
Women’s health has historically been underrepresented in research and funding, and the diagnostic journey for conditions like endometriosis is long and complex. Building a company in this area requires persistence, scientific rigour, and a strong sense of purpose. There are very good academic research centres working on female conditions; the issue that these face is the lack of continuous funding and opportunities for their students to then move into industry. That is why at endogene.bio, we have created a hub for all of these talented scientists to continue to develop their scientific interests in space, ensuring funding and translatability of their results into clinical applications.
We are lucky to be working with an incredibly talented team, so although it is a difficult industry, it is one we are determined to help advance to the level where oncology and immunology are today.
How long did it take you to be where you are now? What was the biggest obstacle? What are the challenges of being in the industry you are in?
It has taken several years of research and development to reach this point. The biggest obstacles have been twofold: first, the lack of existing large datasets to allow molecular understanding of diseases that primarily affect women; and second, the difficulty of conducting research in areas that have been neglected for decades. This means that a large portion of the work we do is prospective in terms of obtaining clinical samples and validating the different elements of the technology. This has cost implications, but it also leads to discoveries that are not just incremental innovation, but that yield scientific discoveries that can change how a disease is understood.
Our challenge as a company is to change that - to move women’s health from a symptom-based field to one grounded in molecular and personalised medicine.
What are your biggest achievements to date?
Our biggest achievement to date has been demonstrating that we have a robust platform to evaluate what happens in uterine health in a non-invasive way, with hiqh-quality data. We are showing that menstrual blood contains high-quality molecular information equivalent to what, in other therapeutic areas, can only be obtained through surgical biopsies. Can you imagine if in fields like oncology they could perform tissue biopsies monthly to check disease or drug response status? We can do this in uterine health and it will put development in our field at the forefront of science if we allocate the right resources to it. There is growing pharma interest and we are very happy to collaborate with them in maximising the readouts from it.
We have just publicised the results of our first clinical study validating our approach. This has also been a significant milestone for us. We’re proud of our collaborations with leading clinicians and institutions, such as Hospital Clínic de Barcelona and Hospital Universitario Insular de Gran Canaria, and of our partnership with the patient association ADAEC.
What are the projects you are currently working on?
We are currently working on improving our disease atlas and our platform by expanding the patient cohorts in our studies. We are also working beyond diagnostics by helping pharma better understand endometriosis biology and identify key patient populations for their drugs. Endometriosis is an umbrella term for a heterogeneous condition and we believe that no drug will cure them all. Stratification is key for drug development success in endometriosis.
Is the #WomenInTech movement important to you, and if so, why?
Yes, absolutely. Women’s health and women in tech are deeply connected. For a long time, female biology has been underrepresented in research and innovation. This has allowed non-science-backed solutions to proliferate in the market at pink premium prices. Supporting women in science and technology is key to correcting that imbalance.
At endogene.bio, many of us are women living with endometriosis ourselves. Turning our experiences into scientific progress is both empowering and necessary. We actively support any movement that helps increase female representation in research, leadership, and innovation.
What will be the key trends in your industry in the next five years and where do you see them heading?
Overall, the trend is toward making women’s health data and disease biology-driven, personalised, and accessible.
We hope to see a move away from symptom-based care toward understanding diseases at a biological level, in order to deliver truly effective treatments.
Non-invasive diagnostics will continue to be a major trend: methods that allow us to access detailed molecular information without surgery.
We also see a very positive trend of growing pharma interest in the space, with new players coming in. This will drive change and allow women’s health to play in the first league of drug development.
What is the most important piece of advice you could give to anyone who wants to start a career in this industry?
Be patient, focus on delivering results, and stay close to science. As a company, we’ve spent years working quietly before communicating our results externally because meaningful progress in health innovation must be grounded in evidence, not hype. Progress can be slow, but when you get it right, the impact is profound and specialist stakeholders appreciate it. But most of all, patients deserve it, especially in women’s health.
Who are three inspirational women in your respective industry you admire?
The person we admire the most in this industry is Dr. Veronica Alam, Clinical Development Director of Merck KGaA Fertility. She has been a mentor and an inspiration since we started in the industry. She is brilliant, kind and generous. The kind of person we aspire to be.
Cristina: I also deeply admire Nilufer Rahmioglu for her pioneering work on the genetic and epigenetic factors of endometriosis, and for her leadership in building global collaborations that are transforming research in the field. And Roser Vento-Tormo, whose outstanding scientific career has been dedicated to studying the uterus. She has developed one of the most comprehensive reference datasets of endometrial cells, including samples from endometriosis patients.
Maria Teresa: I also have deep respect for Kathrin Shoenburn. She is somebody with strong values, clear direction and who has been supporting women through her role as chairman for the HBA women in Pharma association in Europe. And, of course, Belen Garijo, CEO of Merck KGaA. A Spanish doctor by background, she has become one of the most powerful women in the world through hard work and not letting the status quo define how far she can go. While others talk she does. I look up to her determination, her courage and her ambition.
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