Caveat – any reference to female/ woman, is based on the biological and physiological characteristics of females and in no way covers gender or gender identifiers.
In the words of Beyoncé, girls run the world, so why doesn’t this translate to women’s health?
Despite representing a projected trillion-dollar market value, offering enormous financial opportunity for biopharmaceutical companies and investors alike, drug developers and financiers have been hesitant to capitalise innovation in this sector.
Fortunately, times are changing, and as Beyoncé prophesied female founders and funders are pioneering change. In this article, we’ll explore recent and future trends driving investment in the women’s health investment landscape.
Past and Present – Where Are the Women?
It’s well established that women have consistently been underrepresented throughout modern drug development history. The persistent exclusion of women in clinical trials and female cell/animal models on the bench has contributed to a gap in our understanding of sex-specific disease physiology across a wide array of therapeutic areas, leading to serious health complications, and a historical withdrawal of 8/10 US prescription drugs from market due to elevated health risks for women than men.
This gap extends beyond drug development and into the clinic, as gaps in clinician training on gender-specific disease presentation (e.g. heart disease symptoms) have contributed to misdiagnoses of women vs. men in non-reproductive disorders.
Representing 50% of the global population, women are perhaps the largest yet most neglected patient group on the planet. More female representation and more investment hold the keys to unlocking evidence and data gaps, hopefully closing this health disparity for future generations.
Funding Females – A Perceived Financial Burden?
Limited public and private financial investment in women’s health has hampered research progress.
In the public sector, analysis of US NIH research grants has shown that “funding of research (for diseases more frequently impacting women than men) is not aligned with burdens of disease” while in the private sector, bias favoring capitalisation of male-founded businesses by up to 50x their female counterparts, has led to challenges in fundraising and consistently discounted valuations of women’s health businesses vs. the broader healthcare landscape.
Despite this, the investment landscape is changing. Public sector initiatives are driving change on both sides of the pond, with Biden’s US administration announcing a $200M Presidential Memorandum on Women’s Health Research and a $110M R&D Sprint on Women’s Health Research. Meanwhile in the UK, the NHS has set out a £25M 10 year initiative to transform Women’s Health Hubs.
However, considering the substantial disparity in health equality due to this segment being long overlooked, the public sector cannot do it alone. Large pharma and private investors must provide the necessary financial resources to propel new innovations for women’s health to market.
The Now – Turning the Tide on Funding for Women’s Health
Per Silicon Valley Bank’s 2023 Women’s Health Report, from 2018-2023 women’s health deal counts were up 314% vs. 28% in the broader healthcare landscape, with biopharma emerging as the best-funded subsector with an average investment of $182M per quarter.
Female-run investors such as Emmeline Ventures, Coyote Ventures, and RH Capital are financing change, with funds specifically dedicated to advancing Women’s Health. In biopharma, investment in women’s health has led to groundbreaking developments, including Biogen and Sage Therapeutics’ pivotal approval of ZURZUVAE, the first and only oral treatment for postpartum depression, and Astellas’ VEOZAH for menopause-linked hot flashes, offering a first-in-class non-hormonal treatment to address an unmet need for the 60-80% of women experiencing these symptoms during menopause.
The Next – A Trillion Dollar Opportunity
Several top 20 pharma companies, such as J&J, Roche, and Pfizer, are dedicating resources to advance the education of and therapies for women’s health. Non-profits, such as WHAM (Women’s Health Access Matters) are also driving change, though, opportunity remains for (bio)pharma and investors to reap financial returns while pushing for cures to unrelenting diseases impacting women, including but not limited to:
Endometriosis: Impacting ~15% of reproductive-age women globally, endometriosis is a chronic, painful development and shedding of endometrial tissue, with an average 7 year diagnosis timeframe and a hefty annual US economic burden of $78–119Bn. Innovators, such as Hera Biotech, are pioneering diagnostics (MetriDxTM test – the first non-surgical test for endometriosis); however, with no cure, millions of women globally could both benefit from, and pay for, pharmacological intervention.
Alzheimer’s Disease (AD): Similarly, despite breakthrough approvals of Kisunla (Lilly) and Leqembi (Eisai and Biogen) for early AD, the lack of FDA-approved cure disproportionately impacts women, both as patients (2/3 of US patients are female) and caregivers (women more frequently, and for longer durations due to their longer life expectancy, experience caregiving burden vs. male counterparts). With only 12% of the NIH’s research funding dedicated to understanding AD’s physiological impact specifically in women, further investment may aid in closing this gender inequality, while providing significant financial opportunity for cure-developers as the US AD market size is expected to reach ~14M by 2060.
Taking Action
Developing new therapies and improving access to treatments will bridge health inequalities and elevate economies, while early, most likely female-funded movers, across an array of indications will likely benefit from the significant financial reward of bringing long-awaited therapies to market.
Solici’s call to action for pioneers in the women’s health landscape is as follows:
Act with confidence: in an evolving landscape, decision-making and resource prioritisation can be both challenging and isolating. Working with a trusted, expert, thought partner can both provide clarity on external catalyst events in new scenarios and provide an additional layer of support to inspire confident decisions.
Challenge assumptions: with multiple players moving into the women’s health landscape, differentiation will be key. Working with a partner to analyse every angle and assess your commercial context will challenge baseline assumptions to cement a landscape-shifting strategy.