Antonella Sturniolo-DePue Is Rewriting the Rules of Contraception

The story of Upsilon Health begins not in a lab or a boardroom, but in her grandmother's basement. Antonella Sturniolo-DePue was sorting through decades of archived clinical studies and prototype devices when she first held one of her grandfather's IUDs in her hands. Dr. Samuel Soichet had invented the Ypsilon, one of the first IUDs ever developed, and for nearly two decades, it had been used by women around the world. Her grandfather was gone before she was born, but his work had traveled further than most physicians' ever do.

She went in looking for family history. What she found changed the direction of her life.

"I was in awe of his dedication to improve the health of women worldwide," she says. At the time, Antonella was on a pre-medical track, drawn to the same field that had shaped her family's legacy. But as she moved deeper into research, talking with women about their experiences with current contraceptive options, something shifted. The gap between what existed and what women actually needed was not small.

What the Data Doesn't Capture

Antonella holds a Master of Public Health from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, with a focus on women's and reproductive health, health systems, and policy. She has worked with DKT International in Mexico, the Bloomberg American Health Initiative, and the United Nations. She co-instructs courses on health innovation at Harvard Medical School and serves as Director of Research Initiatives for Women's Health Access Matters. The credentials are considerable. But she is quick to say that the research that shaped Upsilon most wasn't found in any journal.

It came from conversations. Hundreds of them, accumulated over nearly a decade of working in reproductive health, with women who described copper toxicity, irregular bleeding, loss of libido, elevated cancer risk, and the particular exhaustion of being told that these things were simply part of the deal. Many had stopped using contraception altogether. Others were waiting, hoping something better would come.

"When you've sat across from hundreds of women," she says, "you learn that autonomy isn't an abstract concept. It's the difference between a woman controlling her own fertility and her contraceptive controlling her."

Those conversations are what moved her from observer to builder.

The Problem with "Good Enough"

The contraceptive landscape has not been static. New devices have come to market. Hormone doses have been adjusted. Copper configurations have been refined. But Antonella points to something that incremental innovation tends to obscure: the underlying mechanism hasn't changed.

"The market has essentially offered variations on the same theme," she says, "hormones that alter your body's natural chemistry, or metals that create hostile environments in your uterus."

The result is a system that measures success primarily by clinical efficacy while distributing the costs of that efficacy directly onto the people using the products. An IUD might be 99% effective at preventing pregnancy and still leave 20% of users with ovarian cysts, or significant rates of vulvovaginitis, or mood changes that are acknowledged and then set aside. Effective, technically, but not actually solving the problem.

"We've just shifted the burden," she says plainly.

What she also noticed was a shift in who was entering the space. Large pharmaceutical companies have historically driven contraceptive development, with a mandate oriented toward marginal improvement. The founders and researchers arriving now tend to have more personal stakes. They've lived the failure of the current market, or they've listened carefully to someone who has.

Designing Around the Body

The Upsilon IUD is hormone-free, copper-free, and Y-shaped, with a silicone covering designed to mirror the natural anatomy of the uterus. It comes in two sizes, one for women who have not carried a pregnancy and one for those who have, a design distinction that most existing devices don't make. The intention, from the first design decision to the last, was a device that works quietly.

"Women should expect a device that they forget is there," Antonella says, "not because they've grown numb to the side effects, but because there are none to feel."

That framing, comfort not as a bonus but as a baseline expectation, runs through everything Upsilon does. Device design, clinical trial structure, and how the company communicates about its product are all run through the same filter: does this give women more control over their bodies, or less?

What Comes Next

Antonella describes a fundamental reframing underway in reproductive health, one moving away from "effective despite the side effects" toward "effective without them." Women are asking for contraception designed around lived experience, not just clinical metrics. That demand is reshaping what founders in the space feel obligated to build.

Her grandfather spent his career trying to give women more options. She is spending hers trying to make those options actually work for them. The Ypsilon traveled the world for twenty years. Antonella is building what comes next.

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About Women at the Helm

Women at the Helm is an interview series celebrating the founders and leaders redefining what’s possible in women’s health. We spotlight the bold voices driving innovation in femtech—women who are building with purpose, leading with vision, and reshaping care for the better.