Midi Health is getting on the longevity train.
The menopause care company, launched in 2021, has helped 200,000 women get support and care to manage menopause and is the fastest-growing virtual health care company for women in midlife. But CEO Joanna Strober admits that many women left their appointments wanting more guidance: How much fiber should I be eating? What’s the proper combination of melatonin and magnesium to improve sleep? How do I prevent cognitive decline?
Now, Strober hopes to give them an answer—and appeal to younger women.
In an exclusive interview with Fortune, Strober shared the expansion plans for Midi Health with the launch of AgeWell, which she calls a “longevity roadmap grounded in women’s hormonal health” to improve women’s “strength” and “vitality.”
The “hot topic”
Four years since the launch, Strober recognizes that beyond seeking insurance-covered menopause-related care, women are eager to learn ways to optimize their health to help prevent heart disease and age-related diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s.
“When we started the company, we were very much a menopause company, and getting women access to the right medications,” Strober tells Fortune. “What we’ve learned is that the care gap is much, much bigger.” Women between the ages of 35 and 65 are “lost to medical care,” Strober says, and want to find ways to prevent disease and optimize their health rather than merely treat their symptoms.
As Strober grew her company, she wasn’t immune to the dialogue around longevity dominating the wellness sphere, centered on health optimization and living longer. The trend has amassed a loyal set of followers. The annual Global Wellness Summit identified longevity as a megatrend this year, illustrated by a growing interest in optimizing health through lifestyle, tests, and more to live longer and healthier before the onset of symptoms or illness. A recent report found investment in longevity companies doubled in 2024 from the year prior, to over $8 billion.
But women, who spend 25% longer living in poor health than men, according to a report from McKinsey & Company, need a different framework from many of the men at the forefront of the trend, Strober says.
“The hot topic is, ‘what is longevity?’ and it’s really been dominated by men who are doing kind of crazy things for living longer,” she says. “But what we have seen with our audience is that women need specific longevity help. They need specific protocols designed for women that are not about trying to live to 150 but trying to, as I say, be a healthy grandmother.”
Strober hopes AgeWell is her company’s missing ingredient.
“We wanted the women that we’re taking care of to be much more proactive in their health and to have a personalized approach for their long-term health,” says Strober, who has spent the last year facilitating training for the company’s over 400 clinicians in women’s longevity and prevention of age-related diseases like heart disease and dementia.
While patients can still book menopause care visits, they will also have the option to book an AgeWell visit. The program includes annual visits covered by insurance across the U.S., education on screening for chronic conditions, cognitive decline, and cancer, advanced bloodwork, optional genetic testing, treatments to help women achieve skin, hair, and weight goals, and personalized “longevity plans” from a clinician. Strober hopes the platform reaches those who, in their 30s, 40s, and 50s, are eager to feel their best in their 60s and 70s, she says.
“Lots of women in their 30s and 40s are like, ‘Am I in perimenopause? What should I be doing?’” she says. “You don’t have to wait until you are sure you’re in perimenopause before you start taking care of yourself.”
Women’s health has been historically underfunded, even in areas where women are at higher risk compared to men. More women die of heart disease than men, and more women suffer from chronic pain, although research has not been proportionally inclusive. What’s more, many popular longevity hacks, from supplements to intermittent fasting and cold plunges, do not have the same effect on women.
Midi Health has raised $103 million since its inception, and last year, comedian Amy Schumer, actor Connie Britton, and executives from the tech world, including at OpenAI and Meta, were among investors who helped secure $5 million in a fundraising event.
“You shouldn’t have to go to a $10,000 longevity clinic,” she says. “It feels to me like longevity has been taken by the rich people, and we really want access for all women.”
Women are eager to feel well for longer, and not live their last decades in poor health, Strober recognizes. And the stakes for quality of life feel high. Many middle-aged women today are sandwiched between caring for their child and an aging parent of their own.
“I dream of being that grandmother who can hang out with their kids and their grandkids.”
