MIND THE GAP: WHY THE NEED FOR WOMEN’S HEALTH INNOVATION OUTPACES VENTURE CAPITAL INVESTMENT AND PATHS TO CLOSE THE DIVIDE

Abstract

Innovation has transformed modern health—but not equally for women. Women benefit less from medical technology than men, in part because women’s health innovations receive disproportionately little investment. This contributes to a persistent population-health gap: women spend about 25% more of their lives in poor health than men, despite living longer. This disparity is reflected in outcomes, including up to 2x higher underdiagnosis rates and delays of 7+ years for conditions such as endometriosis, decades long delays in fetal monitoring technologies, and interventions that disadvantage women. Venture capital (VC) investors heavily influence which technologies reach patients, yet only about 2% of healthcare venture funding targets women’s health, despite women representing more than half the population. Despite this gap, neither public health nor business literature examines how cognitive bias shapes VC investments in women’s health technology. This project examines how cognitive bias and structural features of VC decision-making contribute to this disparity and identifies strategies to increase investment in women’s health innovation. Combining a multidisciplinary literature review, and 18 semi-structured interviews with investors, clinicians, and entrepreneurs, it delivers the first analysis of how cognitive bias shapes venture capital investment in the women’s health category beyond founder or investor gender. Rather than operating solely at the individual level, these biases influence how the category itself is perceived, evaluated, and prioritized by investors. The analysis identifies previously unexamined mechanisms that suppress investment in women’s health innovation. These include the “invisible patient,” whose needs are not represented in investment decision-making; the dampening effect of Medicaid-associated markets on venture capital interest; and weak OBGYN demand for innovation, shaped by prior negative experiences with legacy technologies. Together, these factors reveal how cognitive bias and market signals interact to systematically undervalue women’s health opportunities, even when clinical need and population scale are substantial. Closing this investment gap requires pairing cognitive-bias interventions with innovations that overcome structural barriers. Together, these approaches can realign incentives, expand investment willingness, and accelerate equitable access to medical innovation. It concludes by developing a prioritization of actionable strategies informed by the research findings, and a concrete fetal monitoring case example