The Business of Women's Health
How women’s health became medicine’s biggest blind spot and investors’ next opportunity.
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In 1993, the U.S. Congress passed a law requiring women to be included in clinical trials. It sounds absurdly recent, doesn’t it?
For most of modern medical history, drugs were tested on men and dosed for men even when prescribed to women.
That exclusion wasn’t rooted in malice. It was convenience dressed up as science. Researchers believed male bodies were the “standard,” less complicated by hormones, pregnancies, or cycles. Women were “variables”. Easier to exclude than to understand.
And so they did.
For decades, cardiology data was drawn from men. Pain medication was calibrated to male thresholds. Even crash-test dummies - the ones that determined seatbelt safety - were modelled on the average male torso.
Women became an afterthought in the systems designed to protect them. And that oversight cost lives.
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The Hidden Economy of the Body
What we call a health gap is, at its core, a capital gap.
Every missed diagnosis, every mis-prescribed drug, every underfunded innovation represents value lost not just to women but to entire economies.
Women make 80% of healthcare decisions, control trillions in spending power, and serve as the unpaid shock absorbers of every economic crisis. Yet less than 2% of venture capital flows into women’s health innovation.
It’s not that the market is small. It’s that the lens has been too narrow.
For decades, we have optimized for diseases men die from and not the conditions women live with. Endometriosis, menopause, autoimmune disorders, chronic pain, mental load. We have poured capital into male biomarkers of success; muscle, testosterone, longevity while ignoring the health infrastructure that sustains families, workforces, and nations.
That is not empathy work. That is inefficiency. A market failure hiding in plain sight.
The Paradox
Our economies depend on women’s health yet treat it as peripheral.
We build billion-dollar industries on women’s unpaid labour as caregivers, consumers, and patients, and then call their needs “specialty care.” We design data systems that price women’s bodies out of the model, then wonder why the outcomes don’t add up.
The result is an invisible subsidy: women carry the costs, in time, in health, in opportunity so that the system can stay solvent.
When you trace the money, the pattern becomes clear: what gets measured gets funded, and what gets funded defines the future.
For too long, women’s health hasn’t been measured as an economic engine. It’s been framed as empathy work, not capital work.
That’s the blind spot. And it’s costing all of us.
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A Different Kind of Alliance
That’s why we built FemmeHealth Alliance.
Not as another network. Not as a movement for one gender. But as a bridge between the capital markets that move billions and the innovators redesigning care for half the population.
We are investors, analysts, founders, clinicians, and policy leaders who see what’s coming: a demographic and scientific inflection point that will reshape the global health economy. By 2030, women over 40 may be one of the most financially influential demographic in history. Longevity tech, precision diagnostics, hormone science, and digital health are converging. The old boundaries between “women’s health” and “mainstream medicine” are collapsing.
But none of it will matter if capital keeps defaulting to the familiar.
FemmeHealth Alliance exists to make the case with data, with rigor and with conviction that investing in women’s health isn’t a feel-good idea. It’s a growth thesis. An alpha source hiding behind social bias.
The Work Ahead
Our goal is simple: to make women’s health investable, measurable, and mainstream. To do that, we are convening voices across finance, science, and innovation.
We are mapping where capital flows and where it gets stuck.
We are spotlighting the breakthroughs rethinking diagnostics, digital therapeutics, and drug delivery.
And we are equipping investors with the playbook to back them not as charity, but as conviction plays in a trillion-dollar transformation.
This is where investors and innovators meet. This is where markets catch up to biology. This is where we stop calling women’s health “emerging” and start calling it inevitable.
The Invitation
On October 23, we begin.
Our first webinar, The Business of Women’s Health, will open this conversation as a catalyst. We’ll unpack the economic case, the science, and the path forward for investors, founders, and partners ready to help close the blind spot.
You don’t have to work in healthcare to have a stake in this. If you believe that healthier women mean stronger families, better economies, and smarter capital allocation, this conversation is for you.
Because when women’s health is overlooked, everyone loses. And when it’s funded, everyone wins.
Join us.
Be part of the first step toward building the system we all deserve.
P.S. Membership for the FemmeHealth Alliance, a new non-profit platform to connect capital, science, and policy for women’s health is now open. If you’d like to be among the first to join, link here.
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This essay is part of my ongoing series on the billion-dollar blind spot in women’s health, wealth, and capital. You can subscribe to receive new essays every Sunday and join the conversation shaping the future of investing
To go deeper, pre-order my upcoming book The Billion Dollar Blind Spot to learn why women’s health is the future of healthcare investing.
Join Our Network
Are you building or backing credible, under-the-radar solutions in women’s health?
We want to hear from you. Reach out privately or reply to this post. FHV curates brands and breakthroughs that deserve broader attention in the women’s health ecosystem.
I write weekly at FemmeHealth Ventures about capital, care, and the future of overlooked markets. If you are building, backing, or allocating in this space, I’d love to connect.
Disclaimer & Disclosure
This content is for informational and educational purposes only. It does not constitute financial, investment, legal, or medical advice, or an offer to buy or sell any securities. Opinions expressed are those of the author and may not reflect the views of affiliated organisations. Readers should seek professional advice tailored to their individual circumstances before making investment decisions. Investing involves risk, including potential loss of principal. Past performance does not guarantee future results.
Thanks so much for beating this drum for equity in all things related to women's health care. Equity includes funding, as you keep reminding us, and I stand with you. I signed up to get early access to your book - can't wait for that!
Excellent piece! 🙏🏽