🎉 Wrapping up 2023 With The FemTechnology Summit Reports!
📣 Financing Innovation In Women's Health, ESG Alignment for Women's Health, Redesigning Healthcare With Women In Mind ...
6 months ago we convened ground-breaking innovators in women’s health (femtech startups, researchers, clinicians, venture capitalists, the pharmaceutical industry) for the 2023 FemTechnology Summit at Roche Tower.
Our mission was to leverage a diversity of expertise and experiences to solve collective pain-points and catalyze change in women’s health, on topics like:
Financing Innovation In Women’s Health ; ESG alignment for women’s health; AI & the Gender Data Health Gap; Women Centric Cancer Care (and more!)
With that in mind, we’re thrilled to unveil the following outcomes:
👉 “Redesigning Healthcare with Women in Mind” - At Davos this year Kearney and FemTechnology will be launching an open letter to address gender inequity in healthcare:
We are actively looking for signatories of the open letter — more information can be found here, we hope you will join us in adding your name to the call to action!
👉 REPORT: ‘Financing Innovation in Women’s health : Catalyzing Change and Paving The Way for Future Breakthroughs’ by Catenion
In the words of First Lady Dr. Jill Biden: "Despite making up more than half of the population, women have been understudied and underrepresented in health research (…) Research on women’s health is drastically underfunded, leading to significant research gaps, with serious consequences for the health of women across the country."
👉Although Cardiovascular disease is the #1 killer of women in the US, only 1/3 of participants in clinical trials for new treatments for cardiovascular disease are female.
👉Although 2/3 of Alzheimer's patients are women, only 12% of Alzheimer's research centers on women.
What can we do?
📖 Develop a Business Case for governmental entities focusing on return on investing in Women’s Health research by healthcare savings and economic gains (e.g., working days gained).
📖 Break silos through a collaborative effort to direct existing and further funding, bridging gaps between basic and applied research in Women’s Health.
📖 Advocate for regulatory incentives through established consortia to promote development and innovation, learning from successful models in other therapeutic areas (e.g., orphan drugs and pediatrics)
—> FeMALE Project (of which we are a proud adviser) have been doing incredible work in this area — they even went to Brussels to talk to the European Parliament about the importance of investing in women’s health research!
📖 Engage in education efforts of regulators regarding the key challenges of drug developers in the field of Women’s Health and how a reward based incentive (e.g., longer exclusivity, accelerated development path,) could lead to more innovation for these patients with high unmet need.
👉REPORT: ‘ESG Alignment for Women’s Health’ by Deloitte
👉Did you know that women shoulder an $8.1 BILLION financial burden due to healthcare affordability inequities in areas like #IVF, #osteoporosis, and #childbirth?
So what are some opportunities to further women’s health using ESG frameworks?
Ranking of medical universities: Assessing the inclusion of women's health in medical education curricula through university rankings.
Reporting the amount of financial investment made by venture firms specifically in FemTech startups, indicating active financial contribution towards achieving health equity for women.
Tracking and reporting the number of initiatives implemented by organizations to raise awareness on women's health. The report can be part of the annual report.
Percentage of female leaders at the highest level of decision-making bodies within health care ecosystems including government, NGOs, and industry.
Some other 2023 highlights (from Boston to London to Basel to Lisbon) we:
👉Partnered With The Wyss Institute’s Women’s Health Catalyst at Harvard:
👉Held the 2nd Edition of the Imperial College FemTech Society’s FemTech Summit:
👉 Took Part In The First Gender Health Summit of the HBA (Healthcare Business Women’s Association) alongside Roche, Novartis, Merck, Takeda, Deloitte & Women’s Brain Project:
👉 Spoke at WebSummit on how the stories we tell (or don’t tell) shapes the technology we develop.
Still reading? Wow — look at you! That’s all we have for you this time … but we promise we’ll be back VERY soon with the rest of the reports & more exciting launches in 2024!
If you’re interested in finding out more our work, partnering with us, have feedback, would like to be otherwise engaged in our initiatives or you will be in Davos this year and would like to meet in person — we’d love it if you’d reach out to us at: oriana@femtechnology.org.
Until next time!