As senior vice president of product and innovation at Perelel Health, Martin-Biggers said her career path was shaped in part by frustration with the limitations of traditional nutrition counseling.
“I would tell people what to do with it, counsel people and then no one would do it,” she said, noting that patients often lacked “the tools to do it,” access or support at home.
That led her to research nutrition education and behavior change before moving into the consumer products industry.
“I just need to go straight to the source,” she recalled. “How can I actually influence the food and the products and the marketing that’s coming out?”
Today, Martin-Biggers applies that perspective to women’s health, where she believes innovation should start with the problem rather than the latest trend.
“There could be a tendency to start with like, ‘Well, what’s the trend?’” she said. Instead, her team first looks at the need, the science, biological rationale and where research gaps remain.
While areas including menstrual health, fertility, pregnancy and menopause are receiving increased attention, she said the industry still needs to better understand the nuances of women’s physiology while also considering behavioral and environmental factors.
“The way that women approach the world with careers, with caregiving, we have different psychological needs than men,” she said.
Reflecting on her path, Martin-Biggers said her approach comes back to the same principle that has guided her career: “I’ve kind of followed my intellectual curiosity along the way.”
