Despite government efforts to prop up biopharma and med-tech research toward creating women’s health products, companies must eventually reach out to the private markets to bring their inventions to the next stage of development. Anna Zornosa-Heymann, a women’s health investor, serves as a part-time contractor with the U.S. NIH’s SEED (Small business Education & Entrepreneurial Development) office, where she helps companies move from government to external funding. Government funds are “excellent to pay for research … but those funds don’t allow you to build a first-class team and to develop a sales apparatus,” she told BioWorld.

While women make up half the world’s population and own two out of every five businesses, there are substantial knowledge gaps about conditions affecting their health – mostly due to decades of research excluding women from clinical trials and investment decisions.

At the BioFuture 2024 conference held in New York in November, Seema Kumar, the CEO of Cure, described women’s health as something that has been directed at the “bikini area.” That “bikini” bias extended to both diseases and their causes – women’s health covered the breasts and reproductive system, and its causes were hormonal. Both concepts are far too narrow.

It’s difficult to fathom that the health of half the world’s population is underserved. But it’s a hard truth. There are many conditions that disproportionately impact women. Other conditions and diseases affect women in different ways than men. Decades of research excluding women from clinical trials and investment decisions in male-dominated board rooms have ignored these facts. Though an increasing number of women are now managing investments and driving the research, it’s all still woefully behind. In BioWorld’s new report, Healing the health divide, we’ve highlighted the disparities.

Six main cell types form glioblastomas, the most aggressive brain cancer due to its high rate of recurrence. Of these six, quiescent cancer stem cells are responsible for resistance to therapy and the reappearance of the tumor, according to a study that identified the six groups and highlighted the importance of these stem cells for the design of more effective therapies.

More than two years since emerging from stealth, Vesalius Therapeutics Inc. signed its first major pharma deal with GSK plc. Worth up to $650 million and possibly more if an option is exercised, the multitarget alliance aims to discover and develop novel treatments for Parkinson’s disease and another neurodegenerative indication.