Panel, Conference Presentation
Connecting the Dots for Women's Health: Innovation, Access, & Care | Future of Health Summit 2024
Milken InstituteRuth Reader, Sandra Brooks, Trish Costello, Jenica Patterson, Ana Maria Ramirez, Tammy Sun
- ARPA-H expects $113 million in funding obligated for the next two years regardless of political shifts, with a mandate for program managers to pursue creative ideas over a three-to-six-year horizon and to pilot innovations and reduce market entry barriers via ARPANET-H within two years.
- Specific R&D awards aim to reach the market within 24 months, including an Alzheimer's treatment combining novel drug targets, focused ultrasound, and debris removal, while a three-day diagnostic transition for endometriosis seeks to replace invasive methods.
- The implementation of new clinical discoveries into practice is expected to continue taking years despite efforts to shorten the timeline, with public-private partnerships deemed necessary to de-risk innovations for private sector scaling.
- Maternity care outlooks indicate that expanding IVF access through employer sponsorship and achieving financial equity will occur in the next few years, alongside the mainstream integration of IVF driven by bipartisan consensus, though the mainstreaming of abortion care is not expected for four years.
- The first male daily contraceptive is projected to become reversible within either 30 or 90 days based on current research, while venture capital in women's health is expected to continue growing from a 300% increase since 2018, despite representing only a small fraction of total healthcare VC.
- Approximately 150+ venture-ready companies are anticipated to face funding shortages regarding manufacturing and ecosystem development, even as stakeholder engagement remains critical to ensure health interventions are not tokenized.
- Workplace benefits covering the continuum from preconception through menopause are expected to drive accelerated investment, while the healthcare standard of care is projected to shift toward deep personalization rather than a singular model.
- Regulatory frameworks for health data outside HIPAA are expected to evolve with uncertain trajectories, necessitating extreme caution in consumer data collection to avoid stigma or legal repercussions related to abortion.
- Genetics is expected to become a more prominent tool for identifying risk, and women are projected to continue demanding more from providers as culture shifts toward openness regarding issues like menopause and maternal mortality.
- Fragmentation of women's health into silos regarding reproductive and abortion care is not expected to resolve into a unified mainstream setting soon, and incentive structures require mitigation to prevent pushing women into IVF prematurely.
- Training for culturally humble primary care OB-GYNs is expected to improve care delivery and allow for selective specialization, while patients are expected to utilize their own health data in new ways, though the first male daily contraceptive reversal timeline remains contingent on research progress.