Women’s health remains underfunded, underdiagnosed and undervalued — but a panel at Nordic Life Science Days 2025 said the sector is finally starting to gain the attention it deserves.

Speaking at the Beyond the Gap: Advancing Women’s Health session, panellists Pekka Simula, partner at Innovestor, Sanna Brun Jensen, senior associate at the BioInnovation Institute (BII), and Eva Johnsson, chief medical officer at Gesynta Pharma, discussed how cultural change, scientific opportunity and economic rationale are aligning to make women’s health a focus for both investors and industry.

Simula opened by pointing to conditions such as endometriosis and menopause, which affect hundreds of millions of women yet remain poorly researched and treated. “Big pharma is only now starting to understand this — and it’s a huge opportunity,” he added, citing a McKinsey estimate that improving women’s health in the US alone could represent a $100 billion opportunity by 2030.

Brun Jensen described how BII’s Women’s Health Centre of Excellence, established with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, has already backed 18 start-ups worldwide:

“We started by asking where the innovation and unmet needs really are — and we found that women’s health is full of both,” she said. “We need diagnostics, better patient stratification and therapies specific to female biology.”

Johnsson said Gesynta’s work in endometriosis aims to address “a disease that affects one in ten women of reproductive age and still lacks adequate treatment”. She explained that Gesynta’s selective mPGES-1 inhibitor offers anti-inflammatory and pain-relieving effects without hormonal or opioid mechanisms — a much-needed alternative in a space long dominated by hormonal therapies.

The discussion also turned to the question of how to convince governments, policymakers and investors — still largely male-led — to prioritise women’s health. Simula said that while compassion and fairness are valid arguments, financial logic remains the most persuasive:

“The easiest way to get investment is to demonstrate economic value,” he said. “When you improve women’s health, you improve workforce participation, reduce healthcare costs and drive productivity. That’s a macroeconomic benefit.”

Brun Jensen agreed, noting that innovation ecosystems need to view women’s health not as a niche but as a mainstream growth opportunity. “We talk about diversity in leadership and boards — but we also need diversity in research and data,” she said. “If half the population is missing from the data, innovation will always be incomplete.”

The panellists highlighted the Nordics as a region where progress is accelerating. Johnsson said that openness to discussing female-specific conditions is higher than in many other regions, though barriers remain. “In some countries, women’s health is still treated as a hidden, ‘natural’ issue,” she said. “But younger generations are driving change — they don’t accept pain as normal.”

Brun Jensen said the cultural shift is visible even in the language used around female health:

“If men can comfortably talk about prostate cancer, they should also be able to say ‘endometriosis’ without blushing.”

She added that collaboration between Nordic hubs — such as BII’s Women’s Health Hub in Denmark and Women’s Health Hub Finland — will be key to sustaining momentum. Academic institutions, she said, must also rethink their approach to preclinical research. “It’s about rebuilding the whole value chain — from animal models to regulatory pathways.”

Johnsson concluded that momentum is finally building:

“Women’s health has tailwinds now. Awareness, funding and research focus are all moving in the right direction. We need to make sure we use this moment.”