Latest news with #2025StateofWomen'sHealth
Forbes
4 days ago
- Health
- Forbes
Why Women's Health Research Still Lags Behind
Woman chemist testing for gender differences. The gender gap in healthcare isn't just a question of equity—it's a question of evidence. For too long, women have been excluded from clinical trials, overlooked in preclinical research, and underserved by healthcare systems. The consequences are both deeply personal and widely systemic: Women are more likely to be misdiagnosed, experience adverse drug reactions, and face delays in care. 'It's like death by a thousand paper cuts,' said Alisa Wilson, managing director at Accenture, in a recent interview. 'We're tackling this problem piecemeal, when what's needed is a holistic overhaul across the entire healthcare ecosystem.' New research from Accenture and Springboard Enterprises, 2025 State of Women's Health, sheds light on just how pervasive these gaps are—and what it will take to close them. Bias starts early and compounds over time. Preclinical research—the scientific foundation for nearly all therapies—is still dominated by male models. Animal studies, cell lines, and early-phase drug testing frequently rely on male subjects, based on the outdated assumption that male data is 'universal.' The result? Research hypotheses, safety profiles, and drug mechanisms are skewed from the start. Source: Accenture and Springboard 2025 State of Women's Health That bias continues into clinical trials. Even when women are included, they are often underrepresented or excluded from subgroup analyses. Women made up only 29% of heart attack clinical trial participants, even though heart disease is the number one killer of women globally, according to Accenture's analysis of data from 2020 to 2024. Women also represent just 60% of autoimmune trial participants, even though they make up about 80% of people with autoimmune conditions. 'There's a clear lack of sex-specific data,' said Miranda Ewald, director of programs at Springboard. 'When women are included in research, their outcomes are often not analyzed separately. That makes it impossible to understand how diseases or treatments affect them differently.' Lack of sex-specific dosing, unequal access to optimal treatments and unique challenges to ... More medication contribute to women's poorer health outcomes Even before a clinical trial is an option, women face significant hurdles in getting a diagnosis. On average, it takes up to 7 years to be diagnosed with conditions like polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) or endometriosis. These delays are often dismissed as stress, aging, or psychosomatic symptoms. Despite biological differences, drug dosing rarely accounts for sex. Amani Bright, senior program manager at Springboard, emphasizes the importance of empathy in solving this problem. 'We need decision-makers—funders, policymakers, and healthcare systems—to understand how long and frustrating the patient journey is until they are diagnosed and treated correctly. Women are being left behind because their symptoms don't fit the outdated mold.' That frustration is not limited to patients. Healthcare innovators are also encountering barriers. 'Even with strong scientific validation, women's health startups still face real hurdles—like undefined regulatory pathways and unclear reimbursement models,' said Alice Zheng, partner at Foreground Capital. 'That slows everything down.' Despite these barriers, a new wave of innovators is reimagining how healthcare can better serve women. Companies are working to correct historical research bias by designing more inclusive clinical trials, often in partnership with patient advocacy groups and underrepresented communities. They're also thinking creatively about data collection. 'We're seeing startups use virtual consent tools and culturally sensitive materials to boost trial participation,' said Bright. 'And they're considering real-world factors like language, caregiving responsibilities, and transportation needs.' But to truly accelerate progress, innovators need more support from the healthcare establishment. 'When we worked with a major life sciences client, it took two years just to integrate sex-based thinking into their R&D pipeline,' said Wilson. 'They had never considered sex differences at the discovery stage. That's how deeply ingrained the male-default model is.' Emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, offer promise in shortening the research-to-treatment gap. 'We saw how fast COVID vaccines came to market when urgency and collaboration aligned,' said Wilson. 'AI can do the same for women's health if we commit to using high-quality, inclusive data.' However, there is a caveat here as well. AI models trained on biased datasets will only perpetuate the problem. 'To leverage AI effectively, we need to ensure that data is disaggregated by sex, race, and age,' said Wilson. 'Only then can we track adverse events accurately, tailor dosage by gender, and improve safety and efficacy for all patients.' Part of the problem, all interviewees agree, is definitional. When many people hear 'women's health,' they think of reproductive health—fertility, contraception, and menopause. Those areas deserve investment, but they are just one part of a much larger picture. 'The market opportunity is not just the uterus,' said Bright. 'Women's health includes cardiovascular, autoimmune, mental health, and cognitive aging—all areas where women are differently or disproportionately impacted.' Zheng echoed this: 'If we think women's health only means OB-GYN, we're missing the big picture. Breast cancer, for example, is often called a 'solved' disease—but for women with dense breast tissue, early screening is still inadequate.' Fixing the gender gap in medicine requires systemic change. That includes: Most importantly, it requires the healthcare system to see women not as a special case, but as a default patient. The women's health gap is not a niche issue—it's a symptom of centuries of systemic neglect that continues to hinder progress in women's health innovation. When women are misdiagnosed, overlooked, or excluded from research, the entire healthcare system suffers. 'We don't need another pilot program,' said Wilson. 'We need full-scale transformation—led by research, powered by investment, and centered on the real-life experiences of women.' Advancing women's health research and innovation starts with closing the data gap—and ultimately, closing the outcomes gap.
Forbes
5 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
Funding women's health innovations is a massive economic opportunity.
Women's health now includes conditions that affect them exclusively, differently and ... More disproportionately. That includes everything from endometriosis and menopause to heart disease and Alzheimer's. Unprecedented advances in medical science mean women live longer, yet they die in poorer health than men. The reasons are structural and systemic. The health system continues to be shaped by outdated definitions, insufficient research, and lopsided funding, according to the recently released Accenture and Springboard Enterprises' 2025 State of Women's Health report. What is needed now is not just more lip service, but a realignment of investment priorities—private, public, and philanthropic—that recognizes the full spectrum of women's health. 'Women's health is still vastly misunderstood,' says Alice Zheng, MD, MBA, and a partner at Foreground Capital, a venture fund focused on women's health. 'There's opportunity in almost every place you look.' NIH funding and VC investments In 2024, healthtech startups raised $28.5 billion in venture capital. Of that, just $1.6 billion went to femtech, products and services focused on women's health. That's about 6% of the pie. Meanwhile, of the $43.7 billion in research grants distributed by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2023, only $3.5 billion—8%—was directed toward women's health. These gaps persist despite women comprising more than half of the U.S. population and 51% of medical school graduates. 'It all starts with awareness and funding,' says Alisa Wilson, managing director at Accenture. 'We need to stop tackling this piecemeal and instead take a holistic approach across the entire ecosystem—academia, biotech, pharma, providers, and investors.' Wilson stresses that funding isn't just about early-stage startups: It's the fuel that powers the entire pipeline from preclinical research through commercialization. Zheng agrees. 'You need funding at every step—academic research, company formation, clinical validation, and market access. If the capital doesn't flow at each of those stages, innovation stalls.' At the root of the underinvestment problem is a lingering misconception that women's health is synonymous with reproductive health. While areas like fertility, contraception, and menopause have received more attention in recent years, conditions that affect women differently or disproportionately—such as autoimmune disease, cardiovascular disease, and cognitive decline—are even more underfunded and under-researched. A study found that women make up 78% of autoimmune disease patients, yet most immunology research still centers on male biology. In cardiovascular research, women account for just 38% of participants in clinical trials, even though heart disease is the leading cause of death for women globally, more than all cancers combined. 'There's still this assumption that we can just extrapolate from male data,' says Wilson. 'But women have 51% more adverse events across all products, likely because dosing, efficacy, and safety haven't been adequately studied by sex. That's a business problem as much as a health one.' The irony is that addressing the women's health gap isn't just a social imperative—it's a massive economic opportunity. A McKinsey report estimated that closing the women's health gap could add $1 trillion to the global economy by 2040 through increased productivity, reduced healthcare costs, and better health outcomes. 'This is a long game,' says Wilson. 'Better data and earlier intervention can improve therapy adherence, reduce hospitalizations, and ultimately lower costs. For pharma, that means more patients staying on treatment longer. For insurers, it's fewer high-cost emergencies. Everyone wins.' The private market is starting to take notice. At Springboard Enterprises, which accelerates the success of women-led health companies, menopause has become one of the fastest-growing areas of deal flow. Investment in women's health-specific conditions tripled between 2019 and 2024. Funding for health conditions adjacent to women's health grew even more. 'We're also seeing interest grow in cardiovascular and autoimmune conditions, as investors recognize how deeply women are affected,' says Miranda Ewald, director of programs at Springboard. Yet significant white space remains. Zheng highlights cognitive health and postmenopausal aging as two critical areas where funding is urgently needed. 'There's an entire spectrum of women's health issues tied to hormonal changes—brain health, bone density, cardiovascular risks—but they've been largely ignored by research and investment communities.' Even when founders tackle these high-need areas, they face challenges in positioning their companies effectively. For years, women's health startups had to shoehorn their solutions into the narrow definitions of femtech or reproductive care to get investor attention. That's changing. 'We're starting to see a shift away from fertility as the dominant narrative,' says Ewald. 'In fact, many investors are now more interested in startups that have broader applications, like bone health technologies that started with women but can scale to serve all populations.' Still, the term 'women's health' itself remains a double-edged sword. 'Ironically, some generalist investors told us they're more likely to invest if a company doesn't brand itself as a women's health company—even if it clearly is,' says Zheng. 'That's how deep the bias runs.' Accenture and Springboard's framework aims to broaden the scope. Instead of viewing women's health as a niche, the report categorizes conditions into three buckets: those that are exclusive to women, differently experienced by women, and disproportionately affect women. That includes everything from endometriosis and menopause to heart disease and Alzheimer's. Accelerating innovation in women's health unlocks economic and health gains that benefit everyone—not just women. This broader lens reframes women's health as a systemic public health issue—one that affects not only women but also their families, workplaces, and economies. 'We need to stop asking why women's health matters,' says Wilson. 'The better question is, how much longer can we afford to ignore it?' It's time for funders—public, private, and philanthropic—to realign their priorities. The evidence is clear: women's health is not just about reproduction, and it's not just a women's issue. It's a societal one. Closing the funding gap could unlock better care, stronger economies, and longer, healthier lives for everyone. If we redefine women's health, we can shape a better healthier future for everyone.
