The Latest Trend? Healthier Women

How the intersection of healthcare, technology, and consumer is leading to a rise in innovation in women’s health.

Mind the gap — specifically the gender-equity health gap. For decades, modern medicine was built around the assumption that women were simply “smaller men.” Most clinical trials, even from the early phases of animal testing, were done almost exclusively with male participants. It wasn’t until 1993 that the National Institute of Health (NIH) mandated women and minorities to be included in clinical research. 

Even after the inclusion of women in clinical trials, gender disparities in healthcare have persisted, driven by gaps in research and scientific study, health data, care delivery, and funding. Within the context of a complicated, costly healthcare system, gaps in women’s health are also highly intertwined. Per the World Economic Forum, “the systematic lack of data into women’s unique biology, health and health outcomes has meant that their health and well-being has been virtually invisible in medical research, care provision, policy development and budget allocation.” A lack of research driven by insufficient public funding contributes to gaps in women’s health data, leading to worse care outcomes and making it harder to secure funding for women’s health issues and research.

The consequences of this gap can be severe. Women are twice as likely to experience adverse effects from medications and face greater skepticism about their pain, resulting in longer wait times and delays in hospital admissions compared to men. In 2024, McKinsey quantified the impact of these gaps in care, finding that, despite living longer than men on average, women spend 25% more of their lives in debilitating health.

Fortunately, as awareness has grown about the economic and societal impact of the gender health gap, so too has interest in women’s health innovations from both the public and private sectors. The Biden Administration awarded $810 million across the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), NIH, and Department of Defense, devoted to furthering women’s health research. However, as a caveat, some of this funding, like the ARPA-H, is uncertain under the new administration. In the private sector, there has been a wave of “FemTech” startups, a term coined in 2016 to describe the rise of technology-enabled, consumer-centric companies in the women’s health space. The number of VC deals in this space grew from under 15 in the early 2010s to a peak of around 175 in 2021 in the U.S. alone, per Pitchbook data. 

However, innovations in women’s health have not been without their setbacks. After the initial wave of excitement around FemTech, deal volume growth slowed as rising interest rates led to a tougher deal environment more broadly. VC investors began placing greater emphasis on profitability as capital costs rose and exit opportunities thinned. Digital health companies, many of whom operate with direct-to-consumer models, struggled in particular amid high customer acquisition costs and scalability concerns.

However, in the past year, women’s health has come back into focus as exciting new research, technological advancements, and startups have made headlines. To highlight a few, Oura is pioneering the advancement of data-driven insights on women’s health, using their wearables to track biometric and physiological changes through women’s cycles and major phases, such as pregnancy and perimenopause, to analyze short and long-term health effects. Evvy Health is using precision medical devices to explore connections between microbiome health and fertility. 

In telehealth, Maven, a virtual clinic care startup with a focus on women’s health and family-building, was the first U.S. women’s health company to reach “unicorn” status at a $1.7 billion valuation in October. Allara Health, founded by Rachel Blank (MBA ‘18), recently raised $26 million in Series B funding to expand its specialized chronic care management platform, which helps the one in three women who experience chronic hormonal conditions during their lifetime. 

Lastly, AI’s role in improving women’s health outcomes is still in early phases but has the potential to better optimize OB-GYNs and other providers’ time, improve patient communication, minimize biases in diagnosis, and accelerate research and data analysis. 

The resurgence of interest in women’s health is exciting, especially for someone like me who has looked back at my own personal health journey with new eyes after spending time in the space. However, in light of a number of struggles in digital health more broadly, I find myself asking: what in the women’s health movement has the risk of being “trendy,” and where are there sustainable innovations that will improve women’s health outcomes in the long run? It is important to consider both the areas of excitement and the ongoing structural barriers and risks associated with women’s health that will need to be mitigated for long-term success. 

Areas of Excitement

Key tailwinds driving activity in women’s health include: 

• The “consumerization” of healthcare: Patients have become increasingly discerning about key health decisions, seeking more affordable healthcare plans and more consumer-centric care providers where possible and accessible after years of rising costs, opaqueness, and complexity. For women, this means considering different coverage options for fertility, maternity and postpartum care (employer-sponsored plans or health savings accounts) and the ability to seek out telehealth solutions for specific health issues. 

• Technological innovations: Wearable devices and telehealth platforms have enabled data-driven insights, addressing the gap in women’s health data. At the same time, AI has the potential to revolutionize diagnosis, improve provider productivity, accelerate research, and provide more personalized, tailored healthcare support for women. Outside of consumer tech, there are promising advancements in biotech exploring new therapeutics for previously hard to diagnose and treat conditions, like endometriosis. 

• Growing awareness and demand: Growing awareness of the gender health gap, backed by science and an outcry for better solutions, has driven both ideation and investment within women’s health. There has been a dramatic increase in the number of startups around women’s health as well as a greater strategic focus among digital health incumbents to specifically target women’s health issues. There has also been increased public support and private deal activity in the space. 

• Success stories and case studies: To drive private investment, especially among a broader swath of VC investors, it is helpful to have demonstrated models of success within a category. While deal activity has increased over the past decade, women’s health startups still receive less funding. According to Deloitte, only ~2% of the $42 billion in VC funding went towards health innovation in 2023. The successful IPO of a company like Maven could provide the demonstrated success story to make women’s health a more attractive category for VC more broadly. 

Areas of Caution

Key risk areas challenging both operators and investors include:

• Regulation: While the Biden administration pledged nearly $1 billion in funding towards women’s health research, the new administration has been more selective about what women’s issues it is willing to support. The Trump administration issued an executive order unwinding two major reproductive policies from the Biden administration and leaving reproductive rights to state determination. Weeks later, the Trump administration also issued an executive order pledging expanded access to IVF. The regulatory environment remains highly uncertain, which creates significant risk, particularly for companies that rely heavily on Medicaid and/or Medicare reimbursement.   

• D2C health models: Many women’s health startups have pursued digitally-enabled consumer health models, which present challenges and potential risks. In its worst form, telehealth can devolve into a dangerous territory of misdiagnosis to drive revenue, as evidenced by Done’s overprescription of ADHD. Even if they are categorized as direct-to-consumer (D2C), all solutions and products should be clinician-backed and ethical. In addition, there are scalability issues within the healthcare system under a pure D2C model. Those who have had success tend to have a path towards coverage under employer-sponsored healthcare plans or Medicare. 

• Fragmentation and lack of coordination: Targeted women’s health solutions need to work in coordination with other healthcare providers to provide better health outcomes. Patient data needs to be understood in the context of their broader health history, alongside existing providers. If needs are registered in a silo, patients’ health will be in jeopardy. 

• Stigma and censorship: Despite recent advancements, women’s health remains a taboo subject. Social media sites have been known to take down advertisements on women’s health, flagging them as inappropriate content. This makes it harder for D2C companies in particular to reach customers. 

• Data security: With the rise of technology, there are data privacy risks. These are further compounded given ongoing regulatory uncertainty following the overturn of Roe v. Wade. How consumer data is protected by companies will be paramount for patients. 

Where does women’s health go from here? What do you need to believe?

In many ways, the focus on women’s health is more important than ever. In spite of the challenges, or potentially because of them (as Plato said, “necessity is the motherhood of invention”), there are many reasons to be excited for the future of women’s health.

Ultimately, a focus on women’s health is a focus on better healthcare for all. Investing in scalable, clinician-backed platforms that target women specifically may be needed in the near-term, but any solution should also fit into a broader health ecosystem in the long-run. Per a report by Deloitte, women make up nearly 60% of the paid workforce, account for 65% of the unpaid workforce, and are more likely to serve as the key decision maker regarding medical decisions for their family. We should invest and build companies that make more women healthier. As the saying could go, healthier women means a healthier society.

Meredith Nolan (MBA ’26) is originally from outside of Washington, D.C. She graduated from the University of Virginia with a BS degree in Commerce in 2020. Prior to the HBS MBA, Meredith worked in private equity in San Francisco on TPG’s Consumer team.