Tejal Somvanshi
Philanthropist Melinda French Gates has announced a major $100 million partnership to speed up research in long-neglected areas of women’s health. The joint effort between Pivotal, French Gates’ coalition of organizations, and Wellcome Leap, a U.S. nonprofit, will focus on three critical areas where women face serious health challenges: cardiovascular disease, autoimmune disorders, and mental health.
“A woman’s trajectory in life really starts with their health,” French Gates said at the 2025 Forbes Power Women’s Summit on September 10. “Whatever they want to do, they have to be well. And yet, we don’t invest far enough money into women’s health. We’re going to change that.”
The funding brings Wellcome Leap’s total investment in women’s health to $250 million as it works toward a larger $1 billion goal to transform health outcomes for women worldwide.
The harsh reality is that only 1% of global health research funding (excluding cancer) went to women’s health conditions in 2020. This gap has serious consequences – women spend about 25% more of their lives in poor health than men, averaging nine years of their lives in poor health.
Two new three-year programs will launch in 2026 using Leap’s accelerated research model. This approach is designed to deliver results in years rather than decades, modeled after the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
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“For so long, the research community has treated women as if they’re small men. Women are not small men,” said Regina Dugan, CEO of Wellcome Leap and former DARPA director, at the Forbes event. “And to give you a sense of the gap that creates, 99% of the studies on the biology of aging do not include a model for menopause. Now, how can that be? We’re 50% of the population.”
Wellcome Leap has already invested $150 million in three women’s health programs: one focused on reducing stillbirths, another aimed at cutting a woman’s lifetime risk of Alzheimer’s disease in half, and a third working to reduce diagnosis and treatment time for heavy menstrual bleeding.
Early results from the stillbirth program include a maternal blood test that shows more than 80% accuracy in predicting risk as early as 12 weeks of pregnancy.
“Women go into the doctor and they can’t find a solution or they aren’t listened to,” French Gates told ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “If we advance the research and the medicine, we can treat these women’s diseases.”
Experts estimate that closing the women’s health gap could add more than $1 trillion to the global economy annually by 2040.
This initiative builds on French Gates’ broader commitment to women’s health. Last year, she launched a $250 million “Action for Women’s Health” open call to fund organizations working to improve women’s health globally. This also follows her pledge of $1 billion to advance women’s rights after stepping down from the Gates Foundation in 2024 to focus on her own philanthropic efforts.
“We need to look at this broken status quo through new eyes and stop tolerating women’s pain and suffering,” French Gates said. “With Wellcome Leap’s proven model, we expect to see outcomes years – even decades – sooner than we would through other approaches.”
