Women’s health gap in 2026: From data deficiency to investment innovation

AMONG the many headaches facing global healthcare policymakers, one is more literal than the others: migraines.

Migraines affect women three times as often as men, yet one study found that just 4 per cent of clinical trials into them published results that distinguished the impact between sexes.

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 women.

The world’s female population spends 25 per cent 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 per cent of research and innovation investment in healthcare is directed towards female-specific conditions beyond oncology, even though conditions such as endometriosis, menopause and severe premenstrual syndrome account for 14 per cent of the women’s health gap.

For context, diabetes contributes 2 per cent of the gap but receives 12.5 per cent of total funding. In aggregate, this 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 US$1 invested in women’s health is estimated to yield US$3 in economic growth. So why does the inequality exist?

Data gap

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. Many pharmaceuticals were therefore calibrated to male physiology.

For instance, combined asthma inhalers perform 20 per cent worse in women.

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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.

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 are moving beyond symptomatic management to biological intervention.

The hard-science wave is most visible in oncology, where innovations such as 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 in-vitro fertilisation 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 see private companies helping 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.

“Fem-tech” sector

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.

Flo Health became Europe’s first fem-tech unicorn – a company valued at more than US$1 billion – after securing a large investment from private equity.

The company’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.

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 per cent at early stages and 52 per cent 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 also the rare chance to reduce a historic health inequity and generate meaningful social and economic returns.

Consider this: Between 2019 and 2023, erectile dysfunction startups attracted investments totalling more than US$1 billion, while endometriosis companies – which are trying to alleviate a condition that affects one in 10 women of reproductive age – received just US$44 million.

If investment can solve one, it shouldn’t be so hard to solve the other.

The writer is principal (thematic health), Pictet Alternative Advisors