2025年女性健康创新报告

Published April 2, 2025 2024 was the biggest year for women’s health investment yet.Andit’s probably even bigger than we think. If gaps in care are causing women’s health outcomes to be worse,or if major diseases are predominantly affecting women, thenthoseare women’s health issues, even if women aren’t exclusivelyaffected. Core women’s health investment reached a new high of $2.6B in2024. But when you include funding for adjacent diseases wherewomen are affected differently or disproportionately, the investmentamount grows to $10.7B. That data isn’t included in what’sgenerally considered to be women’s health, but maybe it should be. Increased awareness has brought increased growth. Investment inwomen’s health has more than tripled since 2020, creating newsegments for personalized medicine.Startups are finding thatserving historically underserved or disadvantaged populationsin healthcare can boost the bottom line, aid in retention andplay a vital role in improving and maintaining patient health. Startups are finding thatserving historicallyunderserved ordisadvantaged populationsin healthcare can boost thebottom line, aid in retentionand play a vital role inimproving and maintainingpatient health.” In our 2023Innovation in Women’s Healthreport, we examinedthe powerful reasons women’s health became a focus forhealthcare innovation and discussed two waves of women’s healthinvestment. With all that upside, women’s health startups face a difficultclimate. In the depressed markets of the last few years, no one wasexpected to find exits. In 2025, the pressure to exit is gettingstronger, and investors are increasingly apprehensive about fundinglate-stage companies with no exit in sight. Similar companies withinitial public offerings (IPOs) in 2021 and 2022 are showingperformances that don’t make anyone eager to test the waters. M&Ais more common than IPOs, but activity there is slowing too. Asinvestments and attention to the space continue to develop, it couldbe a dangerous mistake to underestimate the value in women’shealth. More recently, the emergence of fertility and maternal apps broughta new wave of investment and conversation. In the next wave,funding was focused on solutions for the unique conditionsaffecting women. Exciting innovation is still happening in thosespaces. Startups are tackling issues like menopause andperimenopause, maternal health, pregnancy risk analysis andfertility. Now we’re in a new stage. New clinical research is driving awareness of how deeplyinterconnected women’s health is to the rest of healthcare.We’re learning more about the causes and biological drivers behindconditions that affect women differently and disproportionately. Jackie SpencerHead of Relationship Management forLife Science & Healthcare Bankingjspencer@svb.com 04Growing Women’s Health 09Fundraising and Investment 13Spotlight: Precision Medicine andPersonalized Health 17Exits We hurt ourselves by saying, ‘There hasn’t been women’s health M&A.’The truth is, there are a lot of companies that just aren’t callingthemselves ‘women’s health.’We just need to start using thoseas comps. When we do it that way, there are actually a lot of similarcompanies that are acquired.” Maria TolerFounding and Managing Partner We define women’s health ashealthtech1, biopharma, diagnostics(Dx)/toolsandmedical devicecompanies that address care needs for women and individuals with femalebiologies. Diseases that affect women fall into three categories: diseases that are unique to women, diseases that affect women differently and diseases that affect womendisproportionately.2 Conditions That Are Unique To Women3 Lack of culturallycompetentcare providers Systemic racism thatimpacts the health and well-being ofwomenof color In this report, wefocus on women’shealth-specificnumbers, but thebreadth ofinvestment thattouches women’shealth indications isfar higher. Is investment in women’s health issues even bigger thanwe think? Women are more likely to die following a heartattack and have a higher risk of death or hospitalizationafter coronary bypass surgery. Eighty percent ofrheumatoid arthritis patients and 90% of lupus patients arewomen. Two-thirds of Alzheimer’s patients are women, andwomen are nearly twice as likely as men to be diagnosedwith major depressive disorder or to seek treatment forbehavioral health needs. Startups in these spaces usuallydon’t define themselves as women’s health … but aren’tthey? Keeping these areas of investment distinct from theidea of “women’s health startups” doesn’t justunderstate where money is flowing.Investors we spoketo were consistent in reporting that a lack of exits,comparable investments and profitable business modelsmake women’s health harder to invest in. Properly definingthe breadth of women’s health and understanding just howdeeply interwoven it is into the healthcare startupecosystem can help reveal the realcomparablesand valuepropositions startups are bringing to the table. Unfo