Stanford-founded startup develops wearable for continuous hormone monitoring
Clair, a startup founded by Stanford graduates, is developing a wearable hormone-tracking device to improve how women access and understand their hormonal health.
The company, started by Jenny Duan B.S. ’25, and Abhinav Agarwal B.S. ’24 M.S. ’25, is focused on creating a research-backed, privacy-first product to support women of all ages in understanding the implications of their hormone levels on a day-to-day basis.
Duan and Agarwal met last spring and began working on Clair shortly after. Over the past six months, they have been developing the technology and refining the company’s mission and trajectory.
Clair is designed to address several gaps in the current healthcare system. Women remain underrepresented in medical research and clinical trials, leading to limited data and slower progress in understanding women’s health conditions. Through Clair, Duan and Agarwal aim to close these gaps by building technology that provides continuous, noninvasive hormone insights.
According to Clair advisor and Stanford Medicine professor Brindha Bavan B.A. ’10 M.D. ’15 M.A. ’22, hormone tracking in the reproductive healthcare space “improves our understanding of the function of and communication between the brain’s pituitary gland and ovaries or testes.”
Hormonal health is often narrowly associated with fertility or reproduction, but it also has a significant impact on mental health, metabolism, energy levels and overall wellbeing.
According to Bavan, hormone tracking can “provide insight into menstrual cycle patterns and can aid with both diagnosing and assessing treatment for [various] conditions.”
“[Clair enables] patients [to] gain insight into their personal hormone fluctuations over different time periods,” Bavan said, “and share this information at healthcare visits to better understand and correlate any medical issues they are facing and avoid repeat blood draws.”
Clair’s origins is an example of how students’ academic experiences can evolve into real-world innovation. Duan’s interest in women’s health and technology began as a Stanford undergraduat. She enjoyed attending speaker events centered on women’s health, and at TreeHacks in 2024, she built apps focused on endometriosis, a condition where cells similar to the lining of the uterus grow outside of the uterus.
Duan added that a junior year course, Philanthropy for Sustainable Development (POLISCI 236) was particularly influential. “It was this class that sparked my interest in building a solution in [the women’s healthcare] space,” Duan said.
The wearable device, which looks like a bracelet worn on your wrist, will connect to a mobile app, allowing all data processing to occur directly on the user’s phone rather than in external data centers. This approach is intended to protect user privacy as Clair aims to limit third-party access to sensitive health information.
“The device connects with an app so all of the processing happens on the app itself, not in a data center like other devices. This is especially important given… the current political climate around data privacy,” Argarwal said.
Clair also distinguishes itself by pursuing a clinically driven development process. While many consumer health wearables are not FDA approved, Duan and Agarwal plan to seek FDA approval for Clair and position it as a medically credible device rather than solely a lifestyle product. As part of this effort, the company is planning to launch a clinical trial at Stanford Medicine this spring.
Duan emphasized the importance of taking initiative while in university. “Stanford is one of the places with the best resources to go forth and try something new and choose a path that aligns with your mission and vision for the world,” she said.
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