When Jessica Federer, MPH, first encountered statistics about gender gaps in medical research during her tenure as Chief Digital Officer at Bayer, she saw more than a healthcare disparity. She recognized a massive untapped business opportunity.
"I only got involved in the women's health space a couple of years ago because I thought it was too solvable not to – this is a very fixable problem," Federer said in an exclusive interview with Cure.
Her mindset, honed during years of leading digital transformation across Bayer's global businesses, now drives her women's health investment strategy. She noted the sector is showing promising growth despite broader market challenges. While overall health tech funding fell 27 percent between 2022 and 2023, investments in women's health companies grew 5 percent, according to a recent Deloitte analysis.
The market opportunity for women's health is substantial. Conditions like endometriosis, which affects about 10 percent of women during their reproductive years, remain severely underfunded compared to conditions with similar prevalence, such as diabetes, which also impacts one in 10 individuals. Despite the similar rates of prevalence, endometriosis, an inflammatory chronic pain condition caused by uterine tissue growing outside of the uterus, is estimated to receive $29 million in NIH funding in fiscal year 2024. In contrast, diabetes is set to receive more than four times more from NIH: $1.23 billion.
“There's only a handful of drugs and treatments in development” for endometriosis, she said. “But the market size is huge. It's a 'next GLP-1,' if you find something that works. The financial business case is there.”
Federer’s approach focuses on high-potential areas, like brain health and autoimmune conditions, where new research reveals significant gender-based differences in disease presentation and treatment response. She sits on the board of Sage Therapeutics, which won approval from the FDA in August 2023 for its Zurzuvae (zuranolone), the first oral therapy for post-partum depression. These areas demonstrate how addressing unmet needs in women's health can unlock significant market value, she said.
For entrepreneurs and investors, Federer sees this as a pivotal moment. While women's health companies attracted just 2 percent of healthcare venture funding in 2023 according to Deloitte, increasing awareness of gender disparities and strong market fundamentals suggest this could change rapidly. The key, she believes, is reframing women's health not as a niche market, but as a critical component of healthcare innovation.
"I truly hope that we're not talking about women's health in three years, because the sex-based consideration is so built into everyone's research and protocols and companies and proposals that it becomes a default," Federer said.
