The latest industry buzz
One of the mostly talked about insights coming out of JPM last week was the report issued by AOA Dx entitled Follow the Exits: Why Women’s Health is a Smart Bet in Healthcare.
Women’s health has already arrived
What I found particularly powerful about the report was the reframing of the market opportunity. The now infamous 2024 McKinsey report published in collaboration with WEF argued that addressing women’s health could boost the global economy by $1 Trillion. It was an exciting number but a little abstract.
What I like about the AOA report is that it argues that we’ve already arrived.
AOA’s analysis is straightforward and compelling – when viewed through an analysis of 272 exits, women’s health is “not a nascent opportunity. It is a substantial, established segment of healthcare with a long track record of value creation.”
There is even more opportunity ahead
Another major takeaway for me is that 76% of those exits have been focused on the 5% of health issues that exclusively affect women, e.g. reproductive and gynecologic health. Women’s Health Access Matters (WHAM) has broadened the definition of women’s health:
When defined in this way, by extension, the market opportunity broadens as well; imagine what is possible when we target innovation in the remaining 95% of conditions.
What does it all mean?
For me there are so many exciting implications of this research:
Founders have a more complete picture of how success is achieved – in what categories (e.g diagnostics), and how (e.g. M&A, not IPO).
Investors have new insights by category, and longitudinal data that affirms the benefit of making the right investments in this space.
Patients can see that – while the road is long – change is coming in such a way that our female children will experience a range of innovative products and care delivery services we can’t even fully imagine today.
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