Women’s health investment: from data deficiency to investment innovation

Addressing the data deficit in women’s health

This is only one small but illustrative window into a much wider issue: the disparity in healthcare research, funding and ultimately products for men and for women. The world’s female population thus spends 25% more of their lives in poor health than men do, according to the World Economic Forum and McKinsey Health Institute. This gap costs the global economy the equivalent of 75 million healthy years lost annually, with the burden falling most heavily during women’s prime working years from ages 20 to 60.

Despite this, only 1% of research and innovation investment in healthcare is directed towards female-specific conditions beyond oncology, even though such conditions like endometriosis, menopause, and severe premenstrual syndrome account for 14% of the women’s health gap. For context, diabetes contributes 2% of the gap but receives 12.5% of total funding. In aggregate, this all means delayed diagnoses – women are diagnosed four years later on average than men for the same diseases – and treatments that work less effectively for them.

The reason for the gulf is not economic: every $1 invested in women’s health is estimated to yield $3 in economic growth. So why does the inequality exist? One key driver is simply a lack of data. Historically, medical research defaulted to the ‘average male’ as the standard, systematically excluding women from clinical trials until the early 1990s, and many pharmaceuticals were therefore calibrated to male physiology. For instance, combined asthma inhalers perform 20% worse in women. Even today, women remain underrepresented in studies for conditions that disproportionately affect them, such as cardiovascular disease and autoimmune disorders. When women are included, results are rarely analysed by sex, as seen with the migraine example.

The role of private equity in women’s health

This data gap feeds into a research and innovation gap – but this is where we as private equity investors can make a difference, putting money directly into companies dedicated to women’s needs. Importantly, the investment landscape for women’s health is transforming from being focused on ‘lifestyle’ concerns to drive more hard science across biotech, pharmaceuticals, and medical devices.

Taking biotech and pharma first, investors are increasingly targeting conditions unique to female biology, and moreover are moving beyond symptomatic management to biological intervention. The hard science wave is most visible in oncology, where innovations like Antibody Drug Conjugates (ADCs) – a more selective form of chemotherapy which targets tumours more precisely by binding to cancer cells and then only releasing their cytotoxic payload from inside those cells – and immuno-oncology are redefining standards of care. Danish company Genmab has for example developed a potential blockbuster ADC for a resistant form of ovarian cancer.

Reproductive health is also benefiting from genuine scientific breakthroughs, with several private European companies pushing beyond IVF process improvements to discover biological fertility enhancements. Freya Biosciences, also based in Denmark, is developing microbial immunotherapies that address immunological drivers of infertility in women. Spain’s Oxolife is working on a non-hormonal drug designed to improve embryo implantation rates, targeting a critical failure point in assisted reproduction.

Alongside this progress in scientific research, we are seeing private companies help to close the care delivery gap in women’s health – tackling the diagnostic delays, fragmented provider networks, and lack of specialised clinicians that cause so much harm.

For instance, the ‘fem-tech’ sector is maturing from simple period-tracking applications into integrated, virtual-first clinical providers. These platforms address the access gap by decoupling specialised care from geography, offering more comprehensive support for complex conditions that general practitioners often overlook. Indeed, Flo Health became Europe’s first fem-tech unicorn – a company valued at more than $1 billion – after securing a large investment from private equity. Flo’s evolution from a passive tracker to a proactive health super-app, offering personalised insights and clearer ‘symptom-to-doctor’ pathways for women, demonstrates the scalability of data-driven user engagement.

The challenges and opportunities in women’s health investment

Yet despite this promise, investors in this space must consider the risks too. Women’s health companies in biopharma have historically faced a median valuation discount of 41% at early stages and 52% at late stages compared to the broader healthcare sector. Friction with health insurers is a growing concern, as payers become wary of adopting standalone digital solutions. Regulatory hurdles, particularly for novel treatments, create binary success/failure outcomes tied to approval processes. Talent constraints, especially in reproductive endocrinology, pose challenges as well.

As private equity investors, we believe the greatest opportunities lie at the intersection of biological innovation and scalable care delivery. This spans areas such as menopause therapeutics, endometriosis diagnostics, oncology breakthroughs, and hybrid fertility models. These investments offer not only compelling financial potential, but the rare chance to reduce a historic health inequity and so generate meaningful social and economic returns.

Consider this: between 2019 and 2023, erectile dysfunction startups attracted investments totalling more than $1 billion, while endometriosis companies – which are trying to alleviate a condition that affects one in ten women of reproductive age – received just $44 million. If investment can solve one, it shouldn’t be so hard to solve the other.