Womens Health Investment Outlook 2026

Executive summary Women’s health represents a large and undercapitalized opportunity in global healthcare. Despite women and girls representing nearly half the world’s population, women’s health has captured just 6% of private healthcare investment. The fundamentals are strong, but funding remains limited and narrowly focused, historically confined to reproductive and maternal health. This narrow focus has overlooked major areas of unmet need and opportunity across high-burden, high-prevalence conditions that affect women uniquely, differently and disproportionately, such as cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, menopause and Alzheimer’s. The potential is considerable: a recent analysis by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) estimates that effectively addressing these four therapeutic areas for women in the United States could unlock a $100 billion-plus market opportunity by 2030.1 Unfortunately, limited investment and the resulting lack of products and services that meet the needs of women and girls exacerbate health disparities. Women may live longer than men, yet spend 25% more of their lives in poor health or with a disability,2 an imbalance that erodes well-being and workforce participation. To quantify private investment flows in women’s healthcare (including conditions that affect women uniquely, differently and disproportionately) over the past five years, this report introduces the Women’s Health Investment Index.Women’s health receives only 6% of private healthcare investment – a striking imbalance that underscores both the magnitude of the gap and the scale of the opportunity. Women’s Health Investment Outlook 4