Teal Health is a San Francisco women's health company behind the Teal Wand, the first and only FDA-authorized at-home self-collection device for cervical cancer screening. Founded by Stanford physician-researcher Dr. Avnesh Thakor and CEO Kara Egan, the company pairs a comfortable, tampon-like self-collection device with a women's telehealth platform so people with a cervix can screen for HPV at home and skip the stirrups. The device uses the same clinically validated Roche cobas HPV test that providers use in-clinic, detecting cervical precancer 96% of the time, and shipped nationwide to all 50 states after winning FDA authorization in May 2025.
Kara Egan is the co-founder and CEO of Teal Health, the San Francisco-based company behind the Teal Wand - the first and only FDA-authorized at-home self-collection device for cervical cancer screening in the United States. A Stanford engineer-turned-Wharton MBA, Kara spent years as a venture capital investor at Emergence Capital and .406 Ventures before betting on a product she believed could remake an 80-year-old medical process. Backed by $23M from investors including Emerson Collective, Serena Ventures, and Forerunner, Teal Health has rapidly expanded nationwide with a device that studies show is just as accurate as in-clinic screening and preferred by 94% of women who tried it.