Menopause Care Revolution: The Alloy Health Story | HFYH #135

**Monica Molenaar** (0:00)
It begins with my incontinence, peeing in my pants.

**Dr. Vonda Wright** (0:02)
I'm so glad you're so authentic, because 80% of women have difficulty with stress incontinence.

**Monica Molenaar** (0:08)
At a certain point after six months of not sleeping and gaining 20 pounds and feeling kind of like a shell of myself, I had a much older neighbor. She really recognized right away what I was saying, what I was going through, and she directed me to somebody who got me a prescription for HRT, which helped the first night.

**Dr. Vonda Wright** (0:26)
Oh my God. Hi, I'm Dr. Vonda Wright, and this is HOT For Your Health. Join us for conversations on the bleeding edge of science, health and culture as we bring you tech innovators, thought leaders and the movers and shakers who are transforming science fiction into your new health reality.
Welcome back to HOT For Your Health, where every week I bring you change makers, innovators, really exciting people. And this week, I'm bringing you two women, founders, innovators, who I feel like I've known forever. I've probably known for a couple of years, and their work has helped me tremendously. And we'll talk about that today. Co-founders and co-CEOs of Alloy Health, Anne Fulenwider and Monica Molenaar. How are you, ladies?

**Anne Fulenwider** (1:22)
Great. Thanks, Vonda, for having us.

**Dr. Vonda Wright** (1:24)
Thank you for coming on today. So I say that I've known you forever, because I feel like within the women's health, starting really with our own menopause journeys and now morphing into the whole health of a woman, we've been in the trenches together since women started rising. Why did you two come into this space from your previous careers?

**Monica Molenaar** (1:51)
Well, it really started with my health journey, which actually launched me into being an entrepreneur in the first place. I had my ovaries removed when I was 40, so earlier than most, going into menopause. And I had them removed prophylactically because I was diagnosed with the BRCA gene. I come from a long line of breast cancer and ovarian cancer. And I realized firsthand how hard it is to find good information, let alone treatment. And I knew what the issue was when I went into menopause. But nobody ever talked to me about menopause. It was only fertility. And I had no idea that I was going into this new phase and needed some help and support. And I really couldn't get it. It took me five years and five doctors in really starting Alloy to get my own treatment under control. And that experience is really why Alloy exists, so that no woman has to feel alone or uninformed again the way that I did.
We really feel like we're not just building a company, we're kind of fixing a broken system one woman at a time for ourselves and everybody else that we know.

**Dr. Vonda Wright** (2:54)
I love that approach. And are you saying to me that you went in for surgery and you came out and no one immediately offered to put a patch on you? Is that what you're saying?

**Monica Molenaar** (3:05)
That is what I'm saying. I am saying that for six months, I did not have a patch on me. And I really, I mean, the fact that I'm still married, that my kids talk to me, that I wasn't able to go to work again, you know, is really sort of a miracle. Like I needed to, obviously, and I was very young and I didn't have any support or anyone else that I knew who was in menopause. I didn't even know how to kind of express the words. And I was lucky enough at a certain point after six months of not sleeping and gaining 20 pounds and feeling kind of like a shell of myself, I had a much older neighbor or much older. She was 15 years older, but somebody who was in menopause, 55 at the time when I was 40 And she really recognized right away what I was saying, what I was going through. And she directed me to somebody who got me a prescription for HRT, which helped the first night. I mean, it really turned my life around immediately. But it was what I was prescribed at the time was compounded. It wasn't covered by my insurance. It was, and I entered sort of this, my OB said, don't take that. So I entered kind of the vortex of misinformation and lack of clarity around menopause and what the real treatments are. And that really activated me to kind of one, keep searching, but also to cut the noise out of this for other women and to really create something that is, provides credible information, provides actionable, the ability for you to actually take action and speak directly with a doctor and have care from a doctor over a long period of time, the same doctor who can follow you through and can really sort of help you manage the menopause and also direct access to the prescription treatments that are necessary in menopause or necessary for, and really safe and effective for most women. Because I knew from my own personal experience that at every step along that chain, there's a massive sort of drop off out of the system. You don't get good information. You go to a doctor who is unwilling or unable to help you, or you go to the pharmacist and either, first of all, you read the black box warning about estrogen that says like, you're going to die if you take this. Or the pharmacist, which also happened to me, the pharmacist said, you shouldn't take this, you're going to get breast cancer.