What I Learned at the 2025 HBS Women’s Health Summit
Earlier this month I had the opportunity to attend the second annual Harvard Business School Women’s Health Summit, bringing together founders, investors, clinicians, and thought leaders who are shaping the future of women’s health. It was nothing short of incredible to see the room packed, feel the vibrant energy and witness such insightful conversations.
One of my favorite panels was “Funding Women’s Health” featuring women from organizations like In Women’s Health, Kidron Capital, NFX, Wyss Institute and Spark. The discussion highlighted that while the societal benefits of women’s health innovation are significant, the economic ones are equally compelling and represent one of the largest untapped growth markets in healthcare. Here are my three takeaways:
- Women’s Health is a Business Opportunity
- Pharma is a Sleeping Giant
- Reimbursement is a Structural Barrier
Women’s Health is a Business Opportunit
Women’s health must be framed not as “social impact” but as the high growth, high-return business that it is. According to the World Economic Forum and the McKinsey Health Institute, the women’s health gap results in women living 25% more of their lives in poor health compared to men. Closing that gap is a macro-economic opportunity that would:
- Unlock 75 million disability-adjusted life years annually
- Add $1 trillion to global GDP every year by 2040
- Deliver the equivalent of seven healthy days per year for every woman
Some firms understand this deeply and are building their entire investment thesis around it. Kidron Capital, for example, explicitly focuses on: “untapped and lucrative blue-ocean opportunities in women’s health.” A market this large, this underserved, and this scientifically rich is not philanthropy. It’s smart investing.
Pharma is a Sleeping Giant
A question raised during the panel was whether the “women’s health” label itself holds founders back. One speaker shared a telling example: a venture capital firm rejected funding a preeclampsia therapy until the founder reframed it as a cardiac drug. Only then did the investment committee say yes.
But even when the science is strong and the positioning is strategic, many women’s health companies still struggle to secure the growth funding required to move from preclinical to clinical development. Historically, late-stage investors hesitated because they couldn’t see clear buyers or reliable comparables. Growth equity decisions rely heavily on knowing who will acquire this and what the precedent deals look like. Pharmaceutical companies control the largest pools of capital in healthcare and shape the exit landscape. So without pharma meaningfully participating, exits feel unpredictable for investors.
This is why pharma was described as the sleeping giant, and speakers hinted to a new era. Big pharma is increasingly scouting for startups tackling women’s health problems. The giant might be waking up.
NFX: Women’s Health 2.0: Beyond Fertility
Reimbursement is a Structural Barrier
One of the most striking statistics shared during the panel came from recent research: for anatomically similar procedures, 75% of the time the reimbursement rate is at least 30% higher for men than for women. (Fitzgerald et al., 2024).
Reimbursement is how doctors, hospitals, and health-tech companies get paid by insurance for the care they deliver. If there is no reimbursement, then:
- Clinicians aren’t compensated for offering the service
- Hospitals won’t adopt the innovation
- Patients pay out of pocket (or go without)
- Investors see no path to revenue
- Startups can’t scale or survive
Panelists emphasized, a women’s health innovation cannot succeed if the system pays more for treating men than women for the same medical effort. Reimbursement inequity becomes adoption inequity, which ultimately becomes access inequity.
Fixing this barrier is not optional. It is foundational.
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The panel closed on a powerful reminder that structural change in women’s health won’t come from any single technology or company, but from coalitions.
Progress begins with conversations, like the ones had at the HBS Women’s Health Summit but also conversations with people outside the women’s-health eco chamber to educate and build a broader base of informed advocates. This kind of grassroots momentum, when paired with institutional coordination, is key to accelerating drug development and reshaping standard of care.
Today, platforms like 51& are beginning to operationalize that model. The organization describes itself as a “member-driven network that unites voices, dollars, and voting power to rebuild the foundation for a system that was never designed for us”. As its founder put it:
“Being a woman is the original pre-existing condition, yet we’ve learned from billion-dollar membership models that collective power can reshape entire industries. We’re creating the connective tissue—community, funding, and coordinated influence—so women aren’t left to navigate a broken system alone.”
It will require patients, funders, researchers, clinicians, industry partners, and policymakers to align. The room that day showed what that alignment can look like and now it’s time to extend it beyond the conference walls. Because women’s health is not a niche. It is a growth engine and an investment opportunity ready to scale.
