Women’s Health in Focus at Health Tech Forward
One of the keytopics discussed at Health Tech Forward was women’s health – an areathat has long been underfunded, under-researched, and often overlooked withinhealthcare systems, despite its significant impact on the functioning of entirehealthcare ecosystems.
The discussionswere grounded in data highlighting the scale of the problem and theconsequences of research gaps:
➡️In cardiovascular research, onlyaround one-third of participants are women, leading to significantdistortions in medical knowledge [1]
➡️Just 4% of funding for coronaryartery disease research is allocated to women-specific studies
➡️Women report on average 52%more adverse drug reactions than men
➡️ A landmark study in Denmark showed that womenare diagnosed later in over 700 diseases, with delays reaching up to 2.5years for cancer and 4.5 years for diabetes
➡️Accordint to Eurostat, in the EU, women live longer onaverage (around 84 years vs 78.7 years for men), yet the number ofhealthy life years (healthspan) is almost identical, meaning women spend alarger proportion of their lives in poor health
It was alsoemphasized that framing “women’s diseases” too narrowly is misleading – forexample, breast cancer, while most common in women, also affects men,and such cases are often diagnosed late due to lack of awareness andappropriately designed diagnostic pathways.
The conclusionsfrom the conference clearly indicate that improving research and care inwomen’s health has a direct positive impact on the entire healthcare system.There is also a strong need to move from a reactive model toward a moreinclusive, data-driven, and personalized approach to health.
At Health TechForward in Barcelona, Żaneta Kurszewska, representing AegisCapital, participated in discussions on the future of healthcareinnovation, with a particular focus on women’s health.
At the same time, AegisCapital is actively monitoring and analyzing this segment of the market,recognizing its strategic importance and the growing need for investment insolutions that close the gaps in research, diagnostics, and treatment. Women’shealth-focused healthtech remains one of the key areas of interest due to itsimpact on both patient quality of life and the overall efficiency of healthcaresystems.
[1]https://afry.com/en/insight/lack-biological-female-representation-in-medical-trials
