The health and tech industries are failing to capitalise on a $360bn “ghost market” in women’s health, according to a new report.
According to the Galen Growth research, femtech global venture funding reached $2.2bn in 2024, but few digital health ventures are addressing the most common health concerns that impact women, such as cardiovascular disease (CVD).
Instead, companies typically focus on areas that exclusively impact women, such as gynaecology, the report found.
As highlighted in the report, CVD is chronically underdiagnosed and undertreated in women due to gender bias in symptom recognition and research.
In May this year, British medical experts raised concerns about the underrepresentation of women in clinical studies, with male-only trials outnumbering female-focused research by 67 per cent.
Galen Growth founder and CEO Julien de Salaberry said that for femtech to ‘fully realise its impact,’ the market should redirect its efforts from consumer apps to ‘integrated, reimbursable solutions in mainstream health systems.’
He added: “Femtech is no longer a fringe movement – it’s an essential component of public health and economic equity.”
However, the report presented a broadly positive outlook of the femtech digital health ecosystem, which has more than tripled in the number of ventures, significantly outpacing the average growth across the broader digital health sector.
In 2024, partnerships between femtech ventures and healthcare providers accounted for 23 per cent of all collaborations, making providers the leading partnership vertical of the year.
However, femtech founders face barriers in establishing their technologies onto the marketplace, the report found.
The research revealed that that 71 per cent of ventures younger than six years old had secured a Series A round while 15 per cent have become inactive after six years.
This mirrors research from earlier this year in which the lack of exits in women’s health raised concerns about the sector’s potential.
However, de Salaberry said: “With nearly half of the global workforce made up of women, the return on investment in women’s health isn’t just moral – it’s macroeconomic.
“Femtech isn’t a trend. It’s infrastructure.”
Half of the women surveyed in a recent global study said that healthcare companies are not meeting their needs, once again highlighting a multimillion dollar opportunity in female-focused healthcare products.
The survey of over 11,ooo women across 12 countries revealed that 41 per cent believe that they are being let down by healthcare companies that are not catering to the specific health concerns of women.
Similarly, those surveyed said that medical treatment or interactions with health insurers are insufficient.
The Innovate Her report, conducted by Boston Consulting Group (BGC), explored healthcare, financial services, and consumer products, noting this is a “significant missed opportunity by companies that provide these services, given that women manage US$32tn in global spending and are projected to control 75 per cent of discretionary spending.”
