For decades, women’s health was underfunded and poorly understood.
Women weren’t required to be included in NIH research until 1993, according to its Office of Research on Women’s Health. And the American Heart Association did not establish that women’s symptoms of heart disease differed from men’s until 1999.
“Our current healthcare system is largely built for and by men,” Neel Shah, chief medical officer of Maven Clinic, a telehealth service for women and families, told Healthcare Brew.
Symptoms of conditions like perimenopause and menopause were dismissed as a “normal part of aging,” Joanna Strober, founder and CEO of Midi Health, a virtual care clinic for women in midlife, told Healthcare Brew.
But over the last 25 years, the landscape has shifted. In 2006, for instance, the FDA approved the first vaccine against HPV, which can cause cervical cancer.
Though problems remain, industry executives like Strober and Shah told Healthcare Brew that younger women’s advocacy and openness has helped turn the tides and increase research and investment in women’s care.
“When your eyes are failing, they don’t say, ‘Oh, it’s a normal part of aging.’ They give you contacts or they give you glasses,” Strober told Healthcare Brew. “I’m really proud of younger women who are saying, ‘Actually, no, it’s not OK. I don’t want to suffer.’”
A market ready to boom
Despite affecting billions around the world, women’s sexual and reproductive health issues receive far less funding and attention than men’s.
A 2024 report from the World Economic Forum in conjunction with the nonprofit McKinsey Health Institute found from 2019–2023, startups addressing endometriosis raised $44 million worldwide while those targeting erectile dysfunction pulled in $1.24 billion—six times more.
But investors are increasingly realizing women’s health is an untapped market opportunity, particularly in the digital realm.
According to a 2024 analysis from the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions, US venture capital investments in women’s health tech companies peaked in 2021 with $629 million and 39 deals.
Investments altogether fell in 2022, but in 2023, women’s health was once again going strong with $481 million and 21 deals.
Midi Health, founded in 2021, served 100,000 women in 2024 and raised $63 million in a Series B round, according to PitchBook. Maven, founded in 2014 and valued at $1.7 billion, announced it had secured $125 million in Series F funding in October 2024.
“Women’s health has been under-resourced and under-investigated, and now there’s a big opportunity in the marketplace to serve half the population that has been underserved in the past,” Strober said.
Further disruption ahead
Some women’s health companies are pushing the digital model even further.
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Unlike Midi and Maven, which take insurance and provide telehealth consultations before prescribing treatment, Well Health’s Wisp—launched in 2018—operates on a direct-to-consumer, cash-only basis. Patients fill out an online symptom survey, receive a diagnosis for conditions like UTIs or bacterial vaginosis, and have medications shipped to their door or pharmacy. Some can even do it without a telehealth visit, though the site notes medical providers can follow up by phone or chat.
The tradeoff? Providers on the platform need to refer out for complex cases—like signs of a serious infection—but it’s fast and consumers are on board, Wisp CEO Monica Cepak told Healthcare Brew.
“Women are much more empowered today to take control over their health through diagnostics and telemedicine,” Cepak said.
In August 2024, Well announced in a press release that Wisp had served 1 million+ patients and had a revenue run rate of over $78 million.
Zooming out
But hurdles remain. Women’s health accounted for just 2% of $41.2 billion in healthcare venture funding in 2023, according to Deloitte’s analysis.
Women’s health also gets less research funding. A 2021 article in the Journal of Women’s Health found that only one of 12 diseases that primarily impact men—liver cancer—got too little NIH funding with respect to disease burden in 2019, but 14 of 23 diseases that primarily impact women were underfunded.
Plus, services like fertility treatments remain costly and undercovered by insurance, per KFF research, and thus inaccessible to many. In 2024, an average in vitro fertilization (IVF) cycle costs between $15,000 and $30,000, according to GoodRx.
“When it comes to women’s health, we’ve made real strides,” Shah said. “Of course, we have such a long way to go.”
But he and other startup leaders are confident change will continue as investors catch on. McKinsey and the World Health Economic Forum projected menopause medication has a market potential of $120 billion–$230 billion globally. Treatments for endometriosis, which affects an estimated 190 million women worldwide, according to the report, have a market potential of $180 billion–$220 billion.
“We’re proving that this can be a big market,” Strober said.
This is one of the stories of our Quarter Century Project, which highlights the various ways industry has changed over the last 25 years. Check back each month for new pieces in this series and explore our timeline featuring the ongoing series.
