Women’s health is a $1 trillion opportunity that demands greater investment

Investing in women’s health enables us to unlock better outcomes, increase productivity and secure longer lives for half the world's population. It therefore seems staggering that women’s health, which has long been underrepresented and underinvested in, is so often described as being a niche space.

At the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting 2025 in Davos, conversations around women’s health steadily gained momentum throughout the week, building on successes from previous years. For example, the Forum’s private session on 'Prioritizing Women’s Health: Committing to a Better and More Prosperous Future' or even an event we hosted on the sidelines of the official Forum programme at Goals House on ‘Healthcare: Building Sustainable Futures through Automation & AI’, where women’s health featured heavily.

During the women’s health events at Davos that I was fortunate enough to be a part of, there was a central thread: women’s health may finally be gaining recognition, but recognition alone will not drive change; investment will.

The barriers that women face globally are especially prominent in healthcare, where underinvestment continues to be a serious challenge. Despite comprising 49.7% of the world’s population and being the primary caretakers for their families, women’s health receives just 5% of global healthcare research and development (R&D) funding.

Speaking of R&D, women were only required to be included in US clinical trials as recently as 1993, resulting in women experiencing twice the rate of adverse events in approved drugs as men. Issues like these contribute to poorer healthcare outcomes for women, despite the average working woman in the US spending 18% more on healthcare costs than a man.

Women’s health is not just a moral or social issue; it’s an economic one. As a McKinsey report states, women’s health represents a $1 trillion annual opportunity for the global economy by 2040, with the potential to deliver multigenerational benefits – from improved healthcare outcomes to increased workforce participation and enhanced economic growth.

Immediate steps are needed to counter outdated perceptions that restrict capital allocation and hinder businesses in this space from scaling and innovating.

One of the most exciting developments in healthcare today is artificial intelligence (AI), which promises significant benefits for women’s health. AI is already transforming diagnostics, treatment and access to care, tackling long-standing research and delivery gaps.

It enables earlier and more accurate detection of conditions such as breast and ovarian cancer and personalized reproductive health treatments, and helps close the gender data gap to improve female-specific medical research.

For example, Solis Mammography has been actively integrating AI into its diagnostic and operational workflow, aiming to enhance breast cancer screening accuracy, efficiency and the patient experience. AI-powered virtual assistants and telehealth also expand healthcare access, particularly in underserved regions.

However, realizing AI’s full potential in women’s health will require more investment – not just in innovation in AI solutions and the infrastructure required to support their growth, but also in the quality of data (specifically, unbiased women’s health data) made available to train these AI systems.

While venture capital investment has fuelled early-stage innovation in women’s health, later-stage capital remains scarce. As such, many promising businesses struggle to scale, leaving critical gaps in care, access and innovation.

This is precisely where long-term investors such as Mubadala can make a difference. With the scale and investment horizon to deploy capital across the cycle, investors focus on backing companies at every growth stage to ensure a long-term, global impact while making attractive, sustainable financial returns.

At Mubadala, our private equity team, which I co-lead, is striving to play a more significant role in providing later-stage capital to help businesses with proven track records, talented management teams and strong secular tailwinds to scale and expand their reach to more patients.

For example, our healthcare team made its first investment into the Indian market last year by acquiring a stake in Manipal Health Enterprises (Manipal). Manipal, one of India’s leading healthcare networks, offers affordable, high-quality healthcare through its multispecialty and tertiary care network.

Serving approximately 7 million patients annually, Manipal operates 37 hospitals nationwide and employs more than 5,000 doctors, making it the largest hospital chain in India, by bed count. Manipal’s extensive service offering includes women’s health options from fertility and gynaecological care to maternity services delivered through their network.

Women’s health has already gained significant attention from private equity players, emerging as an attractive investment theme due to its growing market potential, the increasing number of investable assets and evidence of strong financial returns.

In recent years, private equity players have been quite active in areas such as fertility clinics and services, specialized pharmaceuticals focused on contraceptives and infertility, and IVF medtech.

M&A activity in women’s health has largely been driven by private equity-led consolidation, particularly in services, with more than $80 billion of invested capital and more than 300 buyout deals across various subsegments in the past four years alone, according to proprietary research we conducted into women’s health alongside a consulting partner. These deals have delivered an estimated median return of ~2.0x multiple on invested capital (MOIC) over 4-5 years, in line with the broader private equity industry.

While private equity investment activity in women’s health has focused largely on opportunities linked to female reproductive health, we also see a much larger universe of opportunities beyond that.

Pharmaceutical companies are increasingly aware of conditions that uniquely, differently or disproportionately affect women, such as cardiovascular disease (which often presents differently in women), osteoporosis (which disproportionately affects women post-menopause) and autoimmune disorders (which are far more common in women). There’s also growing focus on conditions unique to women, like endometriosis and PCOS, which have long been under-researched and undertreated.

More women’s health companies, across pharmaceuticals and services, are tackling a multitude of issues related to menopause. There is also growing interest in women-exclusive wellness centres. For example, M42, a Mubadala company and the largest healthcare provider in the Middle East, recently launched the Laha Wellness Hub, a dedicated women’s preventive health clinic focused on menopause, fertility and comprehensive health education.

Last but not least, although private equity and private capital more broadly are important sources of investment, this is just one piece of a much larger puzzle. If we are to unlock the necessary funding to bridge the women’s health gap, we need a concerted effort from policy-makers, healthcare providers, non-government actors and investors.

Policy-makers should implement tax and other economic incentives for companies investing in women's health. Healthcare providers need to integrate gender-specific data into their research and treatment protocols, while investors should recognize the immense value and returns that come from investing in women's health initiatives and actively engage with the opportunities available.

Each of us has a role to play and the time to act is now. Together, we can build a healthier, more equitable and inclusive future for women’s health.