As women’s health investment continues to bloom, autoimmune and inflammatory diseases (AIIDs) are an under-recognized opportunity. Despite an astonishing 75-80% of autoimmune patients being female, AIIDs are rarely included under the wide umbrella of women’s health. Even big healthcare systems have largely ignored AIIDs, especially in women. AIIDs remain a large, yet under-acknowledged driver of costs and patient suffering. For all these reasons, AIIDs should be a prime target for women’s health investors and startups.
Women’s health is more than just sexual, reproductive, and emotional health. It includes all conditions that disproportionately or differently affect women. Autoimmune diseases fit both these criteria. Given the current investment focus on women’s health, AIIDs are an obvious, yet overlooked target. By addressing a major health issue affecting 35 million women in the US alone1, we can improve the livelihood of women while addressing common co-morbidities.
Increasing Interest in Women’s Health
The issue of women’s health has grown increasingly visible. Globally there are drivers such as missing research and data, as well as a lack of sex and gender-specific care delivery systems. These have resulted in health disparities known as the global women’s health gap.
This care gap means that many women, especially those with chronic conditions, bear a heavy burden managing their own health. Most of that health burden falls on women that are of working and childbearing age. While AIIDs occasionally affect young girls, they tend to emerge at puberty and are further impacted by pregnancy and menopause. Interestingly, this has historically been an underrepresented population in research and treatment development. Working age coincides with childbearing age, and clinical trials have deliberately excluded pregnant women or women likely to become pregnant. Historically, incidences such as the thalidomide scandal of the 1950s have caused these exclusions.
Chronic Conditions
Chronic conditions are a large and growing component of women’s health burden. They impede women’s quality of life and critically affect their ability to work as well as bear and raise children. Many chronic conditions affect women disproportionately, including headache and mood disorders, osteoporosis, dementia, fibromyalgia, and myalgic encephalitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). The National Women’s Health Network highlights five in particular, three of which are or may be autoimmune diseases: rheumatoid arthritis (RA), lupus, and ME/CFS.
There are 35 million women in the US alone struggling with autoimmune disease. Thus, we can assume that they are also a contributor to the global women’s health burden. Despite this, there is a lack of data on incidence and prevalence of AIIDs. Autoimmune trials do not focus on women, even though they predominate in many diseases. More concerning, AIIDs are underfunded in the healthcare and digital health investment sectors and have yet to be addressed in the quickly growing FemTech market landscape. In fact, AIIDs are usually strikingly absent from conversations about women’s health altogether!
Actionable Interventions for Addressing AIIDs in Women’s Health
Research and Clinical Data
To start, there is a strong need for new research models to better understand women’s diseases and conditions. Current women’s health research focus is on sexual and reproductive health, as well as acute and deadly diseases. Research is much less focused on chronic conditions, even though they may lead to impaired quality of life, lifelong disability or even premature death.
Furthermore, much of the pre-existing epidemiological and clinical data used widely today fails to give a comprehensive view. For instance, the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) has provided prevalence data on chronic conditions, diseases, and risk factors in the United States since the 1960’s. However, among autoimmune diseases, NHANES only reports on rheumatoid arthritis. There are some 80-100 named autoimmune diseases. Given the tens of millions of women already affected and increasing prevalence, there is a stark lack of data.
Interestingly, an entire NIH report was released in May 2020. It represented a significant breakthrough in autoimmune research focus, calling for recommendations that would have major downstream implications. The report even proposed the creation of a National Autoimmune Institute to begin addressing the issue, but progress was never made. The report was welcome attention in the face of lacking research. However, it seems to have gone nowhere in terms of increasing awareness or funding to better understand AIIDs.
Additionally, many of identified research gaps still remain. A 2024 pre-publication report from the National Academies suggests that the NIH and other relevant research agencies should support further research into the biological and physiological pathways that impact chronic conditions such as autoimmune disease, including hormones and sex chromosomes.
However, some progress has still been made. Current progress includes the recent opening of the Office of Autoimmune Disease Research from the NIH Office of Research on Women’s Health (ORWH). The office was opened in order to encourage more research and innovation regarding the disproportionate effects of autoimmune disease in women.
The Role of Investors
Another essential intervention is investor attention. This means not only directing more investment in AIID research and development (R&D), but also in innovative care delivery solutions for women. In recent years, private equity and venture capital (VC) investors have paid increasing attention to investing in women’s health, particularly in the digital sector. Yet autoimmune disease continues to go unnoticed.
The McKinsey Health Institute suggests that with proper investment in research, data, and care delivery, addressing the women’s health gap could be equivalent to 137 million women taking full-time positions by 2040, resulting in a one trillion dollar growth in the global economy. This report from McKinsey details more. Addressing chronic diseases in women may also help with the drop in birthrates.
In particular, autoimmune diseases offer an attractive opportunity for investment. We’ve provided evidence that autoimmune diseases are just as much of a women’s health condition as other conditions already included in FemTech. In the world of women’s health investment, autoimmune diseases are an untapped opportunity.
Importantly, women with autoimmune disease are a target market eager to benefit from addressing complex patient journeys, caused by a combination of siloed specialties and poor care coordination. Such improvements in care coordination and delivery will benefit not only women with autoimmune diseases, but the growing population of patients with chronic disease overall.
Unmet Needs are Open Opportunities
Women with AIIDs comprise a population of 35 million in the US alone, yet their market opportunity continues to go unnoticed. Given the current lack of autoimmune-focused solutions, investments and startups are welcomed and encouraged. Addressing the issue of siloed specialties and coordinating care among providers may all be enabled by digital technologies, as can other aspects of care, including virtual-first. Treating AIIDs as a critical investment target means advancing health outcomes for many more women, with potential for wider improved health outcomes.
Check out our third and final part of this post, where we further discuss the evolving FemTech industry landscape and where AIIDs may find their place.
Authors: DrBonnie360, Ellen M. Martin, & Sydney Hahn
We approach these thought leadership posts from our multi-lens perspectives.
- DrBonnie360: Digital health consultant, clinical dentist, Wall Street analyst, patient & advocate.
- Ellen M. Martin: Consultant, editor, life science finance/IR/marcomm, autoimmune caretaker.
- Sydney Hahn: Digital health equity research intern, Human Biology & Society and Mathematical Biology Undergraduate Student at UCLA.
Strategic Consulting & Professional Services
We provide professional consulting services to investment, emerging, and established companies. Our work bridges silos and fills gaps to help our clients improve care for AIID patients and reduce costs. Informed by patient and caretaker perspectives, we urge investors & clients to integrate the best of digital, conventional, and functional medicine into AIID care delivery.
- We help our clients leverage digital innovations into V1C for AIID patients.
- Our subject matter expertise includes: oral health, microbiome, autoimmune patient journeys, competitive landscape analysis, strategic positioning & messaging, digital health, and self-hacking.
- We have decades of experience in finance, marketing, and communications for dozens of healthcare and life sciences organizations, emerging and established.
- Our backgrounds include clinical dentistry, osteology, biotech IR/PR, marcomm, content creation, strategic consulting, and autoimmune advocacy.
Contact us to help you map your market landscape and better understand patients’ unmet needs. Also, we can help you clarify and articulate your company’s market position and differentiators. Long before COVID-19, we were facilitating virtual sessions. We also create compelling content: articles, blog posts, collateral, e-books, web copy, and white papers. Our Autoimmune Connect/DrBonnie360 website showcases our own content.
- Feldman, Bonnie, et al. “Autoimmune Incidence & Prevalence.” Autoimmune Connect, 30 Jan. 2024, drbonnie360.com/2023/10/03/autoimmune-incidence-and-prevalence/.
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