Women and girls make up 49 percent of the world’s population, and although they live longer than men, they spend 25 percent more of their lives in poor health or with disability.

Nevertheless, investment in women’s health remains disproportionately low and narrowly focused on only a few therapeutic areas, Euronews reports. Women’s health accounts for just six percent of total private healthcare investment, while companies fully focused on women’s health attract less than one percent, according to a new report by the World Economic Forum (WEF) and Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

“Gender equality has advanced, but the gap between health outcomes for men and women remains significant,” wrote Trish Stroman of BCG and Shyam Bishen of the WEF in the report.

In medical technology, the gap is even wider. An analysis by international financial firm Alantra showed that in 2023, companies working in women’s health received only two percent of the USD 41.2 billion (EUR 35.1 billion) in venture capital funding for health tech.

A BCG study found that proper screening and improved quality of care for women in the United States — focusing on just four conditions: menopause, osteoporosis, Alzheimer’s disease, and cardiovascular disease — could unlock more than USD 100 billion (EUR 85 billion) in market value.

Limited investment, combined with research design, clinical data gaps, and barriers to access to care, continues to entrench this disparity. “The result is not only a public health shortfall, but also a market inefficiency of historic proportions,” the report states.

Many diseases affect women differently and disproportionately. Women experience gender-specific conditions such as endometriosis, menopause, polycystic ovary syndrome, and certain types of cancer.

Altogether, women lose about 75 million healthy life years annually, equivalent to losing one week of good health per woman each year, according to the report.

Five gender-specific conditions — endometriosis, maternal health, premenstrual syndrome (PMS), menopause, and cervical cancer — account for 14 percent of the female disease burden, yet have received less than one percent of relevant research funding in recent years.

The report identifies a strong evidence base as the key driver capable of fueling innovation and investment.

To realize the full potential of women’s health, targeted, cross-sector leadership will be required. Identifying evidence-based investment opportunities demands a deeper understanding of women’s health conditions — which in turn requires studying and analyzing them through clinical trials.

In practice, however, this is far from simple.

Despite regulatory requirements and policy initiatives, women remain systematically underrepresented in clinical trials across major disease categories.