Women drive the majority of all healthcare spending, make up half of the global population, and are projected to control $34 trillion in US wealth by 2030. The industry meant to serve them has historically allocated 1 to 4% of its research budget to women-specific conditions. Here's what this contradiction actually means.
Women are the world's most influential healthcare consumers. They make approximately 80% of all household healthcare decisions. They spend more out-of-pocket on health than men. They utilize medical services more frequently. And by 2030, they are expected to control the majority of private wealth in the US.
They are the primary purchasers, the primary users, and the primary decision-makers in the world's largest industry. And the healthcare system that they finance with their spending has consistently relegated their health to a marginal issue.
This is not a matter of portrayal or perspective. It is a documented structural mismatch between who the healthcare market serves and who it was designed around. The consequences are evident in underfunded research, inadequately treated conditions, dismissed symptoms, and products developed for male biology and sold to female customers without scientific backing.
Women control 80% of healthcare spending and have historically received 1 to 4% of research investment focused on their specific biology. These numbers don't add up. And they never should.
The Numbers That Make the Contradiction Undeniable
A 2021 McKinsey analysis found that only 1% of global investment in health research and innovation was allocated to women-specific conditions beyond oncology. Another analysis found that overall, only 2% of healthcare research and development is dedicated to women-specific conditions.
The World Economic Forum and the McKinsey Health Institute estimated in 2024 that closing the health gap could contribute over a trillion dollars annually to the global economy by 2040. This is the economic value currently being left on the table because conditions specifically affecting women are not sufficiently researched and treated.
The venture capital market for women's health is growing rapidly: between 2020 and 2024, investments more than tripled. Nevertheless, this still only accounts for around 2.3% of total venture capital in healthcare.
According to McKinsey's analysis, companies focusing on erectile dysfunction attracted six times more investment between 2019 and 2023 than companies focusing on endometriosis. Endometriosis affects an estimated 190 million women worldwide.
This imbalance does not reflect the medical significance of the two conditions. It reflects which patients the industry was historically developed around.
Why Women's Pain Is Taken Less Seriously
The pattern extends beyond research funding into clinical practice.
Women report stronger, more frequent, and longer-lasting pain than men for a variety of conditions. Nevertheless, research shows that they are consistently treated for it less often. Their symptoms are more frequently classified as emotional or psychosomatic.
An analysis of the reimbursement structure in the US Medicare system revealed that in over 80% of cases, medical services for male-specific procedures were reimbursed at a higher rate than for female-specific procedures. On average, reimbursement was 28% higher, even though the procedures were not more complex.
The financial structure of the healthcare system thus contains a literal valuation of whose body is more important to treat.
Women are also more frequently dismissed by their doctors. A large-scale survey showed that women who felt heard by their practitioners had better health outcomes across several metrics. This is partly a finding about the value of good communication. And partly a finding about how expensive it is when women are not listened to. Because the women who felt dismissed had worse outcomes. This dismissal is not neutral. It has measurable health costs.
In October 2025, the discussion on The Diary of a CEO with Dr. Mary Claire Haver, Dr. Vonda Wright, Dr. Stacy Sims, and Dr. Natalie Crawford delivered one of the clearest public indictments of this failure ever heard in the media. The doctors very specifically described how women with serious symptoms were told it was stress, anxiety, or simply the price of being a woman.
Wright reported on women who came to her practice after years of other doctors dismissing their complaints. They had been told their lab values were normal, while they were experiencing symptoms that were anything but normal.
Haver described the transition into perimenopause as a zone of chaos that most women enter without guidance because medicine has never developed suitable tools to accompany them.
Crawford addressed the specific failure of the supplement and nutrition industry. The proteins, recovery products, and performance supplements that dominate the health market were developed and dosed based on research on male athletes and then repositioned for female customers, without female-specific research justifying the formula, dose, or timing of intake.
Sims has built her entire career on documenting precisely this gap in sports and nutritional science. For years, she has shown: women are not small men. Their hormone cycle fundamentally changes how their bodies respond to nutrition, training, stress, and supplementation throughout the month. And because this was never investigated, for decades there were poorer results, which were blamed on women as a lack of consistency or discipline.
What Happens When the Market Finally Takes Women Seriously
The research group Women's Health Access Matters (WHAM) has quantified what investments in women's health actually yield.
Research into just four conditions disproportionately affecting women: Alzheimer's, coronary artery disease, lung cancer, and rheumatoid arthritis, generated approximately $14 billion in economic returns from a $350 million investment.
This is a return that the investment industry in healthcare has historically not capitalized on. Because they haven't looked for it. Because women's health was classified as a niche before anyone did the math.
Now the math has been done. The Gates Foundation has pledged $2.5 billion by 2030, specifically for women's health research areas that have been underfunded for half a century. The World Economic Forum has established the Global Alliance for Women's Health with over 120 member organizations. And McKinsey estimates an annual potential of $50 billion for US healthcare systems alone if the gap in preventative care for women is closed.
The economic case no longer needs to be made. It has been made. What is now emerging is the infrastructure to act on it.
The economic case for investing in women's health is clearly proven. What is now emerging is the infrastructure to act on it. This is exactly where we stand.
What This Means for the Supplements You Take
The supplement industry is less regulated than the pharmaceutical industry. Therefore, the research gap that has already shaped drug development is even more pronounced here.
Most formulas on the market were developed from studies on male subjects, often male athletes, and then sold to women, without data on dosage, timing, and interactions for female physiology.
The hormone cycle changes throughout the month how women metabolize nutrients, how they respond to stimulants, how they recover from exercise, and how their bodies react to administered active ingredients. A formula developed without female subjects cannot reflect this. The packaging was adapted to appeal to women. The science has not followed.
Developing a product for women, instead of marketing a men's product to women, means taking female biology as the basis for development and not as a target group segment. It means utilizing research on female subjects, considering interactions with the hormone cycle, and honestly stating what the evidence specifically proves for women and what has merely been adopted from male data.
The first human NMN study specifically conducted with women, Yoshino et al. (2021), measured results directly relevant to female metabolic health at a specific life stage. This precision is not a marketing decision. It is what it concretely means to take biology seriously.
Women are the most important consumers in healthcare, the most important decision-makers for their families, and the most important funders of an industry that has historically developed around someone else.
This is changing. Research is growing, investments are coming, and the debate has reached a scale where it can no longer be dismissed as a niche topic. The question now is whether the products offered to women in the meantime keep pace with science or whether they continue to rely on assumptions never tested on a female body.
Sources
- McKinsey Health Institute. (2022). Unlocking opportunities in women's healthcare. https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/healthcare/our-insights/unlocking-opportunities-in-womens-healthcare
- McKinsey Health Institute & World Economic Forum. (2024). Closing the women's health gap: A $1 trillion opportunity. https://www.mckinsey.com/mhi/our-insights/closing-the-womens-health-gap-a-1-trillion-dollar-opportunity-to-improve-lives-and-economies
- McKinsey Health Institute & World Economic Forum. (2025). Blueprint to close the women's health gap. https://www.mckinsey.com/mhi/our-insights/blueprint-to-close-the-womens-health-gap
- Women's Health Access Matters. (2026). The business case for accelerating women's health investment. https://whamnow.org/blog-post/womens-health-is-a-360b-market-heres-the-data-to-prove-it/
- Gates Foundation. (2025). Gates Foundation announces catalytic funding to spark new era of women-centered research. https://www.gatesfoundation.org/ideas/media-center/press-releases/2025/08/womens-health-funding-commitment
- Haver, M. C., Wright, V., Sims, S., & Crawford, N. (2025, October 16). Hormone & fertility experts: We've been lied to about women's health. The Diary of a CEO.
- Criado Perez, C. (2019). Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men. Penguin Random House.
- Yoshino, M., Yoshino, J., Kayser, B. D., et al. (2021). Nicotinamide mononucleotide increases muscle insulin sensitivity in prediabetic women. Science, 372(6547), 1224–1229. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abe9985