WellTheory’s Post

There have been manifestos issued over the past 6 weeks. From the political parties and from charities. We’ve been asked at The Eve Appeal what our hopes and priorities are beyond the General Election. Well, here goes: We need a long term plan for women’s health alongside a national cancer plan. We need to look at the targets and commitments that have been made – including the goal to eliminate cervical cancer by 2040, and plot out how we are going to get there. Collaboration between patients, charities, clinicians and policy makers is critical to this. Building plans on expertise, evidence and a commitment to addressing health inequalities and inequities is vital to improving gynaecological healthcare. And lastly, we can’t look after women’s health without looking after the specialist staff who gynaecological healthcare depends upon. The GPs, the nurses, the pathologists, the gynaecologists, the surgeons, the oncologists, the colposcopists, the ultrasound specialists. And please don’t forget the community health practioners, the pelvic floor physios, the sexual health workers – and many other specialists who are all needed to provide excellent gynaecological health care. There is no high quality care if we don’t nurture, develop, adequately train and value the team that delivers it. #WomensHealth #GeneralElection

Did You Know? 📢 For many years, #women have been underrepresented in medical trials, leading to treatments that are not always tailored to their needs. Only 4.5% of medical research budgets are allocated to studying women's health. Creating significant gaps in diagnosis and treatment exist. 💔 1 in 3 women will suffer from #heartdisease, yet women are seven times more likely to be misdiagnosed during a heart attack compared to men. Women have different symptoms! 🧠 Women are twice as likely to develop #Alzheimer's disease compared to men. ⚕️ The prevalence of #autoimmunediseases is higher in women, and diagnosis can take between 4 to 10 years! 🌸 #Menopause is characterized by tens of different symptoms. Early diagnosis and treatment can significantly improve women's lives. As part of impact.51's initiative to raise awareness about #womenhealth, we have created a Women’s Health #EscapeRoom together with Quala Group which is currently showcased at the Ministry of Health. We aim to raise #awareness among women, medical teams, and policymakers. Our goal is to place women at the center of healthcare and integrate a gender perspective into medicine. The feedback we have received highlights the knowledge gap and the importance of women taking responsibility for their #health. It is equally important for medical teams, entrepreneurs, investors, and policymakers to understand and tailor responses to the unique physiological needs of women. Women make up #51% of the population. Women are not "small men." A  gender lens is required to adapt treatments and research to meet the unique needs of each woman. Women's health is not a niche – it is crucial and significant for everyone. Be part of the movement! Join us in #impacting women’s health! Try our escape room to learn more about the importance of women's health! Contact us if you want to bring the escape room to your organization and help raise #awareness in women’s health in an experiential way. Michal Lebenthal Andreson, LlB Aravah Kedar Tirosh Nicky Newfield Impact Nation Gila Tolub Shelly Bloch Sivan Sadan Inbal Zafir-Lavie Keren Leshem Miri Polachek Boaz Hermon Gal Yodfat #WomensHealth #Impact.51 #EscapeRoom #womenshealthmatters #GenderLens

What a week, what a year, and only 4 months in! From NYSE Women's Health Summit to our Women's Health PAC announcement, a lot is happening in #womenshealth! I've been so honored to be part of so many exciting events this year that are all about empowered women empowering women and the many men and women who are amplifying these efforts! 2024 is indeed the year of women's health! What started as a *moment* where women's health was finally acknowledged as needing dire attention, funding, regulatory reforms, and systemic change and a huge opportunity for outsized ROI for investors and the economy is now becoming a *movement* for change. (Thank you Women's Health Access Matters, McKinsey & Company and others for providing critical data!) Together, we can build this movement and transform it into a *mandate* for change. Join me, Jodi Neuhauser Candace McDonald and many other high-powered, determined leaders in making the first-ever, bipartisan Women's Health PAC a huge success! Our goal is to unite our collective financial and bipartisan political power to advance women's health. We will plan events; raise awareness; educate, engage and endorse politicians and candidates for office; and ensure women's health is understood and prioritized -- putting an end to gaslighting, ignorance, inaccessible care, and medical decision-making based on inaccurate/biased data. We need more leaders and #advocates to make this vision a reality, so please join us! ***Our launch event is on Tuesday, May 21 at 6pm in Washington, DC.*** If you want to come to this event and/or engage in this effort to ensure women's health is a priority in political campaigns and on the national agenda, please sign up here: https://lnkd.in/ep5PgH5Y and start following us Women's Health PAC! #maternalhealth | #heartdisease | #Alzheimers | #mentalhealth | #osteoporosis | #autoimmune conditions | #cancer #breastcancer #ovariancancer #cervicalcancer #HPV | #menopause | #ovarianhealth and many more conditions that solely, disproportionately and/or differently impact the health of women can all be addressed with our united voice! #WomensHealthMonth

Are we thrilled about the major new funding from The White House earmarked for women's health research? Yes, of course. But Midi CEO Joanna Strober joined forces with female founders Ellen Rudolph and Priya Abani to point out that women's health is in crisis. We need more than what the White House has promised to make real progress and help all women thrive. Women are widely underserved by healthcare, particularly in areas such as heart disease, autoimmune disease, and menopause. Read on to learn more about why digital health innovators are key to filling these and other care gaps, and how government institutions, venture capitalists, employers, payors, and health systems can support them.

"ARPA-H to launch big ideas with lightning speed, to give scientists the freedom to reach beyond the possible, to invest in the ideas that might have some financial risk, but could revolutionize our health. In November, President Biden launched the White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research. This work is informed by years of advocacy by people like Maria Shriver, and the initiative’s chair, Carolyn Mazure. We have a clear goal: to fundamentally change how our nation approaches and funds women’s health research. Research on women’s health has always been underfunded, many medical studies have focused on men and left women out, many of the medicine dosages, treatments, medical school textbooks, are based on men and their bodies – and that information doesn’t always apply to women. There are big gaps in research on diseases and conditions that only affect women, that disproportionately affect women, or that affect women and men differently. We’ve heard from so many researchers and doctors and women who are excited about this project. However, we’ve also heard that too many exciting discoveries for women’s health never leave the lab because they’re seen as “too risky” to invest in. Today, I am here to announce that ARPA-H is launching its first-ever “Sprint for Women’s Health.” Over the next year, ARPA-H will invest $100 million to fund life changing research."

Did You Know? 📢 For many years, #women have been underrepresented in medical trials, leading to treatments that are not always tailored to their needs. Only 4.5% of medical research budgets are allocated to studying women's health. Creating significant gaps in diagnosis and treatment exist. 💔 1 in 3 women will suffer from #heartdisease, yet women are seven times more likely to be misdiagnosed during a heart attack compared to men. Women have different symptoms! 🧠 Women are twice as likely to develop #Alzheimer's disease compared to men. ⚕️ The prevalence of #autoimmunediseases is higher in women, and diagnosis can take between 4 to 10 years! 🌸 #Menopause is characterized by tens of different symptoms. Early diagnosis and treatment can significantly improve women's lives. As part of impact.51's initiative to raise awareness about #womenhealth, we have created a Women’s Health #EscapeRoom together with Quala Group which is currently showcased at the Ministry of Health. We aim to raise #awareness among women, medical teams, and policymakers. Our goal is to place women at the center of healthcare and integrate a gender perspective into medicine. The feedback we have received highlights the knowledge gap and the importance of women taking responsibility for their #health. It is equally important for medical teams, entrepreneurs, investors, and policymakers to understand and tailor responses to the unique physiological needs of women. Women make up #51% of the population. Women are not "small men." A  gender lens is required to adapt treatments and research to meet the unique needs of each woman. Women's health is not a niche – it is crucial and significant for everyone. Be part of the movement! Join us in impacting women’s health! Try our escape room to learn more about the importance of women's health! Contact us if you want to bring the escape room to your organization and help raise awareness in women’s health in an experiential way. Michal Shalem Michal Lebenthal Andreson, LlB Aravah Kedar Tirosh Nicky Newfield Impact Nation Gila Tolub Shelly Bloch Sivan Sadan Inbal Zafir-Lavie Keren Leshem Miri Polachek Boaz Hermon Gal Yodfat #WomensHealth #Impact.51 #EscapeRoom #womenshealthmatters #GenderLens

All the manifestos have been published and we head to vote on the 4th July. Spending on the NHS is a proposed priority for most parties as well as a high concern (ahead of inflation) for the public (IPSOS, May 2024). A group of professional and patient experts have distilled the recommendations from major UK reports, inquiries, and strategies from the last 10 years and created a shortlist of 15 key “asks” around women’s health. These include ensuring women’s engagement throughout the process of policy creation, action on gender-based violence and health inequalities, coordinated healthcare for women through health hubs, and assessment of the economic impact of policies on women. These asks – all fundamental to improving women’s healthcare – were then scored across the manifestos for strengths and weaknesses regarding their inclusion (or not). There was little to choose from between major parties’ coverage of women’s health in their manifestos. All scored 8-9/30, except for Reform which scored 0. At Eve, we know that women’s health is stalled by a number of issues including a lack of investment in research, inadequate inclusion of women in clinical trials, minimisation of symptoms like abnormal bleeding, a lack of services tailored to specific audiences with different needs and under investment in public and community health. The expert analysis of all the manifestos through the lens of women’s health identified two issues as being of key concern—inclusion of women in clinical research and trials, and preconception healthcare. These did not feature in any manifestos. Other issues relevant to gynaecological cancer prevention, such as ensuring policy is built in consultation with women, tackling the 600,000 (and growing) NHS gynaecology waiting lists, and establishing women’s health hubs, were considered by none or only one of the three major parties, showing that there is a real risk that women’s health in the UK could fall down the policy agenda. We need a long-term plan for women’s health alongside a national cancer plan. You can read our CEO, Athena Lamnisos's, blog here: https://bit.ly/3VHFzJW #Election #VotesForWomen #Voting #WomensHealth #Manifestos #PartyManifestos #GynaeHealth

This is ambitious (and overdue). What’s your favorite part? I’m torn: standardizing data to improve research on women’s health, increasing innovation in women’s health through investment in businesses, or creating a comprehensive research agenda on menopause? All of it. We need to create high-quality data, we need to coordinate research to efficiently fill knowledge gaps, and we need to get basic research out of the lab and into clinical practice and usable tools to empower women. I’m encouraged by the robustness of this plan (and a little skeptical that the politics and funding will bear out my optimism). But, let’s not wait and see. As they say, LFG! https://lnkd.in/gNzgMTBb #womenshealth #healthtech #menopause #research

Check out this panel on innovation in women's health

#Health and the role of government. Thank you for boosting funding for #womenshealth research. When women are healthier, everyone benefits. #lovedones #families #communities #workforce #entrepreneurs 50% vs 4% Women are 50% of the population. But get just 4% of R&D spending. #math That means 96% of biopharma R&D spending goes to men's diseases? 🤔. Prostate cancer alone gets 3% of R&D spending. Fyi. Less than 10% of biotech’s top leaders are women. #decisionmakers 🙋🏽♀️Yes, additional investment, funding and support is greatly needed! h/t FemTech Focus xxx "4% of all biopharma research and development spending goes toward female-specific conditions. (note 14)" Sources: https://lnkd.in/grM6r_ib (14) New drug therapy approvals 2022, FDA, January 2023; Women's health care comes out of the shadows, Forbes, April 12, 2018 --- https://lnkd.in/ggDFdMww