The Impact of Investing in Women’s Health
Baird's Takeaways from the Health of Women Investor Summit 2025
Sasha Kelemen, Women’s Health Lead in Baird’s Global Healthcare group, recently attended and moderated a panel at the Health of Women Investor Summit 2025. The summit, held at the New York Stock Exchange, underscored the growing recognition of women's health as a significant investment opportunity. The event brought together investors, industry leaders and experts to discuss the historical underinvestment in this sector and the potential for substantial returns and positive impact.
The discussions illuminated one overarching takeaway: women's health investments are outperforming other sectors and are poised for continued momentum.
Here are Baird's additional insights from the event:
- Untapped Potential: The summit highlighted the vast, untapped potential within women's health. Lucy Perez, Senior Partner at McKinsey, noted the full picture of women's health is only beginning to emerge, exemplified by the fact that the first comprehensive image of a pregnant woman's brain was captured just last year in 2024.
- Economic Impact: McKinsey estimates that addressing women's health could lead to trillions of dollars in incremental annual GDP by 2040 as it would have a direct correlation to reducing absenteeism. Their analysis suggests that gaining just seven days of good health per year for women equates to more than a full year over a lifetime, demonstrating the profound economic implications of investing in women’s health.
- Prevalent Conditions: The summit addressed several critical women's health conditions, including:
- Cardiovascular disease, the number one killer of women
- Migraines, which affect twice as many women as men
- Alzheimer’s disease, where two-thirds of all patients are women
- Asthma, where prevalence is 9% greater in women yet inhalers are 38% less effective
- Endometriosis, which effects one out of every 10 women but typically takes 7-10 years to be diagnosed
- Innovation in Action: The summit showcased incredible innovation, such as the discovery that breast arterial calcification (BAC), often incidentally found in mammograms, is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, demonstrating the transformative potential of new technologies.
- Exits and M&A: Baird's own Sasha Kelemen moderated a panel focused on M&A and Exits in Women's Health, and noting, “M&A is the magic flywheel that drives hard ROI and attractive returns back to shareholders”
The Health of Women Investor Summit 2025 made it clear investing in women's health is not only a moral imperative but also a sound financial strategy, with the potential for both significant financial returns and positive societal impact. As Mark Cuban reminded us, "It's just good business".
Interested in learning more about these topics? Connect with Baird’s Global Healthcare Investment Banking Group to learn more.
