Digital health · Workplace reproductive care
Syrona Health
A UK employee benefit for reproductive and hormonal health, built by two Cambridge classmates whose first product was a home test for gynaecological cancer. Registered with the Care Quality Commission, never inspected, and filing micro-entity accounts in every year of its existence.
A cancer test the size of a pregnancy test
In March 2018 a Forbes reporter met two women who wanted to put cervical cancer screening in a bathroom cabinet. The device was comparable in size and appearance to a pregnancy test. It would sell for about £12, a price Chantelle Bell said over 65 per cent of women were willing to pay.
Anya Roy had a reason to care about early detection. She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in her early twenties, after almost a year of being told it was something else.
“All I can remember is feeling numb and once the news had sunk in, I felt as though my world was falling apart,” she told Forbes. She is in remission.
That test strip never reached a shelf. Eight years on the company sells something quite different.
The gap they kept pointing at
The pitch has always rested on delay. Femtech Insider reported in March 2021 that in the UK 58 per cent of people visit their GP more than ten times before getting an accurate endometriosis diagnosis. Startups Magazine put the average wait from first symptom to diagnosis at up to seven and a half years.
Stylist reported in December 2021 that just 2.1 per cent of publicly funded research in the UK is dedicated solely to reproductive health. Then the queue behind them grew: when Healix announced its partnership with Syrona in September 2024, the insurance trade press noted the England treatment waiting list stood at over 7.5 million in June 2024.
Two classmates and a masters course
Bell and Roy met in 2016 on the Bioscience Enterprise masters at Cambridge. Bell read Genetics at the University of Essex from 2012 to 2016 and worked at Philips in digital healthcare and consulting. Roy read Bioscience at Cambridge and had worked at Goldman Sachs and Illumina, per the company’s Y Combinator listing.
“So when Anya and I met in 2016, I knew there were big issues in women’s healthcare that had not been resolved,” Bell told Stylist. Her aunts and several cousins had uterine fibroids and had struggled to be taken seriously.
They incorporated SYRONA LIMITED on 19 January 2018 and have been directors ever since. The register of persons with significant control still lists only the two of them, each holding more than 25 per cent and not more than 50 per cent of the voting rights.
Three products in eight years
The first brand was Syrona Women. The legal name never moved: Companies House records no previous name for company 11159809, so the shift to Syrona Health was a rebrand, not a restructure.
By 2020 the product was a subscription test kit with online GPs attached. In March 2021 came SORA, an app for people living with endometriosis, with symptom tracking, a peer community and points exchangeable for products. Femtech Insider reported more than 3,000 users ahead of launch and described the company as pre-seed.
The third turn stuck. Syrona stopped selling to individuals and started selling to employers and insurers. On 1 March 2022 Y Combinator introduced it to the Winter 2022 batch as “an employee benefits solution tackling diversity and inclusion”. By September 2024 the healthcare trust provider Healix had put the platform inside its member portal, and Syrona had agreed a cancer pathway with Perci Health, a virtual cancer survivorship clinic.
What the regulator has said, and what it has not
This is what separates a wellbeing app from a clinical service. A UK organisation carrying on a regulated activity must be registered with the Care Quality Commission, and Syrona is. CQC registered Syrona Limited on 30 November 2020, provider ID 1-9036482848 and location ID 1-9192562898, for three regulated activities: maternity and midwifery services, treatment of disease, disorder or injury, and diagnostic and screening procedures. Chantelle Bell is the registered manager and Anya Roy the nominated individual.
Registration is permission to operate, not a verdict on quality. The entry carries the line “We have not inspected this service yet”, and no rating has appeared in almost six years.
The company names Dr Karolina Afors as chief medical officer. HCA Healthcare UK’s consultant profile lists her as BSc MBBS FRCOG, a member of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists since 2016, practising at the Whittington Hospital, with General Medical Council number 6148331. Syrona has not published registration details for the rest of its clinicians.
What is proven, and what is still claimed
| Evidence | What the record shows | Source type |
|---|---|---|
| Corporate registration | SYRONA LIMITED, 11159809, incorporated 19 January 2018, active. Office moved Saffron Walden to Braintree in 2019, to Newcastle upon Tyne in 2023. No charges registered. | Public record |
| Filed accounts | Micro company accounts for every year end from 30 June 2018 to 30 June 2025. GOV.UK sets the micro-entity test at any two of turnover £1m or less, £500,000 or less on the balance sheet, 10 employees or less. | Public record |
| Care Quality Commission | Registered 30 November 2020 for three regulated activities. Registered manager Chantelle Elizabeth Bell, nominated individual Ananya Roy. No inspection, no rating. | Public record |
| Public grants | Two closed UKRI projects: 10016298, menopause digital therapeutics, SBRI, £49,946 offered; 10019624, endometriosis app evaluation, Innovate UK, £20,817 offered on a £29,739 project. | Public record |
| Clinical evidence | No registered trial, no FDA submission, no PubMed paper attributable to the company. | Not found |
| Chief medical officer | Dr Karolina Afors, listed by HCA Healthcare UK as BSc MBBS FRCOG with GMC number 6148331. | Independent |
| Named employer customers | Five website testimonials, one identifying the speaker’s organisation, the benefits consultancy Advo. No employer named with contract detail or user numbers. | Not found |
| Device status | The security page lists “Class I Medical Device - UKCA & CE Mark” beside ISO 27001 and CQC registration. No MHRA device entry was located. | Company-stated |
| Size and money raised | Cambridge Judge gives founded 2019, £2.6 million raised, 11 to 50 employees. Tracxn gives founded 2018, $575K over three rounds, 7 employees in 2026, 5 at the entity in 2024. The incorporation date and accounts regime support the second set. | Claims disagree |
Read plainly: a small, founder-controlled company with a real registration and two small public grants, selling through intermediaries rather than a named roster of employers. The registration is the strongest fact here, and the missing inspection after nearly six years is the widest hole in it. Nothing on the record settles how many people use the service or what it earns.
What to watch
- A first CQC inspection and rating.
- Accounts to 30 June 2026, due 31 March 2027, and whether they leave the micro-entity regime.
- Any new statement of capital. The last was filed in February 2022.
- A named employer customer with a headcount attached, rather than a channel partner.
- Whether the Class I device claim is matched by a locatable MHRA registration.
- Anthony Powis left the board on 7 July 2025, leaving the founders as the only directors.
In their words
“All I can remember is feeling numb and once the news had sunk in, I felt as though my world was falling apart,”
Anya Roy, on her ovarian cancer diagnosis, Forbes, 2018 · Independent
“But this is not a substitute to visit the GP and we always encourage women to do so if they’re ever in doubt,”
Anya Roy, Cambridge Judge Business School, 2018 · Independent
“We’re hoping to raise between half a million to a million pounds pre-seed.”
Anya Roy, Startups Magazine, 2020 · Independent
“Too many women have bad experiences getting help with gynecological issues because of the way our healthcare systems are set up”
Anya Roy, Femtech Insider, 2021 · Independent
“Being backed by Y Combinator was great for our team to help us grow the product and brand.”
Chantelle Bell, Women of Wearables, 2022 · Interview
“We’ve definitely heard racist, sexist, misogynistic comments in the past few years, but having said that there are also lots of good people out there too.”
Chantelle Bell and Anya Roy, The Stack World, 2023 · Interview
“My own struggles with gynaecological health inspired Syrona’s mission, highlighting the crucial need for swift access to high-quality, culturally sensitive healthcare.”
Anya Roy, Healix partnership coverage, 2024 · Company release
“Our partnership with Syrona comes at an important time for workers across the UK, as access to healthcare for a range of conditions is becoming increasingly challenging.”
Ian Talbot, CEO of Healix Health, 2024 · Partner release
Related companies
Sources
- Public recordOverview, filing history, officers, PSC and charges, SYRONA LIMITED 11159809
- Public recordSyrona Limited registration details, provider 1-9036482848
- Public recordProjects 10016298 and 10019624
- Public recordMicro-entity accounts thresholds
- IndependentTwo Women Are Building A Pregnancy Test-Like Device To Spot Cervical Cancer
- IndependentVenturing forth: Syrona Women
- IndependentLet’s normalise talking about female health
- IndependentSyrona Health launches SORA
- IndependentHow we built a business that addresses the gender health gap
- InterviewWoW Woman in FemTech: Chantelle Bell
- InterviewMeet The Founders Demystifying Gynaecological Care
- IndependentHealix partners with Syrona to support businesses
- IndependentSyrona Health and Perci Health collaborate to aid UK cancer challenge
- IndependentMs Karolina Afors consultant profile with GMC number
- IndependentSyrona Health company profile
- CompanyHome, about, employee benefits, news and security pages
- CompanyY Combinator listing and W22 announcement posts
Profile researched and written by Healthcare Discovery. Last updated September 29, 2026.
