Our mission
We believe you should feel supported, inside and out.
We’re out to redesign every unloved product that gets inserted into our lady parts. With each device, we aim to turn an embarrassed, “I have what?” into a confident, “Pssh, I’ve got that.”
Our team
CEO
Kaitlin Maier
COO
Ariana Sopher
CTO
Meegan Daigler
CMO
Paul Hanissian, MD
Our story
2015 THE MEET CUTE
Ari, Kaitlin, and Meegan met at engineering school. In their final year, they created an independent study on engineering in gynecology instruments. Through their final course, they met Paul, an experienced urogynecologist who introduced them to prolapse (which they had never heard of) and pessaries (which they definitely had never heard of).
It was immediately clear that the pessary was ripe for redesign. Though they earned just a B+ in the class (admittedly, that first design was not very good), the idea was sticky.
2019 THE MONTAGE
After gaining a few years of work experience, the team came back together and was awarded their first NIH grant in 2019.
Between 2019 and 2023, over 50 different versions of the Reia pessary were iterated on to get to the one you see today. The team conducted mechanical, biocompatibility, and clinical testing. Hundreds of women and healthcare practitioners gave us feedback not only on the pessary and applicator, but on the color, instructions, and packaging.
2024 THE HAPPILY EVER AFTER
In June 2024, the FDA gave us their blessing to start sales. A happy ending, which, like all rom-coms, is just the beginning.
So many people helped get this pessary into the world.
To our friends who bought our merch and built us financial models, our manufacturers who explained (and reexplained) their processes, our advisors who navigated us through the NIH and FDA, and our moms who bravely faced the chance of getting prolapse back before pessaries were cute and collapsible, thank you.
But the biggest thank you goes to all the women who told us their stories and gave us feedback over many, many years. We could not have gotten here without you.