The rise of Femtech and a focus on women's care

What you probably already know: The medical establishment has long neglected women’s health — women didn’t even participate in NIH clinical trials until 1993. The World Economic Forum says women’s health represents a $1 trillion opportunity for the global economy by 2040 with potential multi-generational benefits: “It seems staggering that women’s health, which has long been underrepresented and underinvested in, is so often described as being a niche space.” That’s rapidly changing, something consulting firm McKinsey & Co. calls “the dawn of the Femtech revolution,” a phrase coined by entrepreneur Ida Tin in 2016. In the past two years alone, several major health systems across the United States have opened research and treatment centers specifically to treat women, with an emphasis on preventive care and early detection of disease.

Why it matters: When Cleveland Clinic launched its Women’s Comprehensive Health and Research Center in April 2024 — with funding from Maria Shriver — it noted that more than 63 million women across the United States were 50 years of age or older, and approximately 6,000 women enter menopause each day. “This is a place for women at every stage of life,” Shriver said, “where they will be seen, get the research they need and care they deserve, from their brains to their bones.” Rochester Regional Health’s Women’s Health & Wellness Center opened its own state-of-the-art space in March of last year. “Women have unique health care needs,” Executive Medical Director Elizabeth Bostock, M.D., said. “They can present with different symptoms, respond to treatments in a different way.”

What it means: Other major health systems planning or opening women’s clinics include Novant Health in South Carolina; NYC Health + Hospitals/South Brooklyn Health; Lehigh Valley Health Network; Columbia Memorial Health in Albany, New York; and Loretto Hospital in Chicago. M3 Global Research notes that the rise of female-focused health care paves the way for a holistic approach to women’s health, acknowledging that it focuses on care at every stage of life, not just reproduction or cancer. Women’s health receives a scant 5% of global health care research and development funding, and only 1% of that goes toward all women-specific health conditions other than cancer.

What happens next: Digital health company Galen Growth, in a paper outlining Femtech’s future challenges, noted that investment in global Femtech has grown more than three times the past decade, but still represents a tiny amount of overall funding. “Femtech faces a sobering truth: There remains a profound mismatch between the solutions currently available and the complex health care needs of women.” Women themselves are starting to take the reins: Ellen Rudolph, CEO and cofounder of WellTheory, a California company that recently raised $14 million to fight autoimmune disease, said, “We’re showing what happens when women build, back and lead in health care. It feels like we’re building the system we’ve always deserved to see.”