Sistapedia® & Women's Health Innovation Summit - Boston 2024

By Dr Terrence Stevenson

General Reproductive Health

Tue, 01 Oct 2024

Women’s Health and Innovation Summit (WHIS) – Boston 2024

Earlier this month I attended the WHIS in Boston. The summit was over three days and packed full of new ideas, and innovative solutions to problems in women’s health.

Sources of information on the key problems in Women’s Health:

• Closing the Women’s Health Gap: McKinsey Insight Report 2024;
• Gates Foundation, Women’s Health Innovation Opportunity Map 2023;
• White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research 2023.

Some problem examples:

• • Endometrioses is on the rise and very difficult to detect and diagnose, leaving many women in excruciating pain from unknow sources. It is estimated that the world market for solutions is in excess of $250B giving an indication of the size of this problem.

Fortunately, many of the innovations being developed by start-up companies are targeting this area. Solutions include MRI image resolutions < 5mm with some reports of the possibility of < 1mm. The current state of the art is resolutions > 5mm.

Another approach is an injectable substance that results in the enhanced image of tumours allowing < 1mm image resolution.

Unfortunately the FDA approval process of treatments results in long lead times getting solutions to market; typically a > 5-year process.

• • Unexplained deaths in childbirth and in the post-natal period by minority races such as, African Americans, Asians and Latin Americans. The data is not very rich in this area, but the lesson being learned is that each woman can have unique treatment / care requirements, and that a one approach fits all is not appropriate.
  • Women are more likely to die from a heart attack than a man; they are often misdiagnosed and discharged from hospital only to die shortly after. The observation here is that women are getting the same treatment as men despite their very different physiology.
  • Women are 80% more likely to suffer from an auto immune disease, such as, diabetes than a man.
  • Women in general throughout their lives suffer 25% more debilitating illness than men, with PMS being a major contributor. A common myth is that because women generally live longer, then they are healthier than men; the data indicates this myth is false.

Some non-health related causes to the lack of action in addressing health issues associated with women, are as follows:

• There is a significant lack of representation of women in industry at middle and upper management levels, in companies dealing with specific women’s health issues.
• Only about 2% of Venture Capital companies have been investing in companies / start-ups involving women led companies addressing women specific health issues.
• It is only since 2018 that we have started to see women founders in predominantly women led companies, addressing women’s health issues.
• A glaring anomaly is that women led start-up companies are 68% more successful than start-up companies led by men.
• To confuse this issue even further women are 51% of the US population; women are responsible for 80% of a family’s financial decisions and the global women’s health market is in the trillions of dollars.
• Research on the human body is primarily based on the male anatomy and then applied to women. Incredible as this sounds it is true. I recently read Bill Bryson’s book, The Human Body, which also revealed this anomaly.
• For every $1 invested in women’s health, $3 is generated in the economy.

A great outcome for me was the confirmation of the importance of Sistapedia® in addressing many of the issues highlighted in the following reports:

• Closing the Women’s Health Gap: McKinsey Insight Report 2024;

Gates Foundation, Women’s Health Innovation Opportunity Map 2023;

• White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research 2023.

Sistapedia® addresses the equity and access to information and resource issues in the above reports, as follows:

• Allows all women (Sistas) free access to information and resources relating to women’s health, through the Sistapedia.com website;
• Provides a trusted environment for all women wishing to be verified for free at Sistapedia.com;

Note: Sistas choosing not to be verified are still permitted access to information and resources, but will lack credibility to other Sistas and Providers / Specialist / Health Care Practitioners.

• Provides verified sources of information from Service and Product suppliers, as well as Medical Specialist and Health Care Practitioners.

So following this summit we need to get the message of Sistapedia® out there and start addressing the issues raised.