Welcome again to a different episode of MedCity FemFwd, a podcast devoted to discussing the breakthroughs and challenges in girls’s well being. On this episode, we’re joined by Dr. Renee Wittemyer, vice chairman of program technique at Pivotal Ventures, and Dr. Regina Dugan, CEO of Wellcome Leap.
We focus on the organizations’ latest $100 million dedication to speed up girls’s well being analysis and what they hope to realize.
Right here is an AI-generated transcript of the episode.
Marissa Plescia: Welcome again to a different episode of MedCity Fem Ford. I’m Marissa Plescia, reporter from Med Metropolis Information. On this episode, we’re joined by Dr. Renee Wittemyer of Pivotal Ventures and Dr. Regina Dugan of Wellcome Leap to debate a latest $100 million dedication from the 2 organizations to advance girls’s well being analysis.
Marissa Plescia: Hello, Renee and Regina, thanks a lot for becoming a member of MedCity FemFwd.
Renee Wittemyer: Thanks, Marissa. Nice to be right here. Yeah, likewise.
Marissa Plescia: Yeah, after all. And perhaps simply to begin, um, Renee, perhaps beginning with you, are you able to simply inform um, us just a little bit extra about your self and the work that you just do at your group?
Renee Wittemyer: Positive. Sure. I work for Pivotal, which is a gaggle of organizations based by Melinda French Gates that’s centered on social progress.
And so I’m the VP of program technique, which means that I oversee our philanthropic, programmatic work. Um, just a little little bit of background about myself. I’m a social scientist. Um, I’ve labored in a whole lot of. Creating nations around the globe, listening to individuals’s tales, um, and actually working on the intersection of gender tech society for a lot of, a few years.
Um, got here to Pivotal about 9 years in the past and have been main all kinds of various methods for Melinda since then.
Marissa Plescia: Thanks, Renee and Regina, how about you?
Regina Dugan: I feel I’m the nerd within the group right here. I’m, I’m an engineer by coaching, however I’ve been doing work throughout many various disciplines. This newest at Welcome Leap in World Well being, um, from.
For a decade extra, a couple of decade now. Um, I’m at the moment the president and CEO of Welcome Leap, which is a corporation that was stood up by the welcome Belief within the uk with the aim of accelerating the variety of breakthroughs that we have now in human well being and doing so quicker. So, um, in 2018, the Welcome Belief checked out their a few years of labor in world well being and requested the query, has an excessive amount of of our work gotten too threat averse, too siloed, too sluggish, and is the way in which we fund the work, partly liable for that.
And they also created welcome leap in that spirit. We’ve been underway now for 5 years with I feel, actually good early outcomes to indicate.
Marissa Plescia: Yeah. That’s actually nice. Andina, bringing it again to you. You recognize, your two organizations simply, um, lately introduced a partnership, um, to commit 100 million {dollars} to Ladies’s well being analysis.
Um, are you able to inform us just a little bit about what you’re investing in and what you hope to realize on this partnership?
Regina Dugan: In fact. So the 100 million {dollars} partnership between Welcome Leap and Pivotal is devoted to 2 new packages to attempt to generate breakthroughs in areas of girls’s well being the place girls.
Actually are struggling, um, with both morbidity points or high quality of life points. The primary program that we intend to launch is on girls’s cardiovascular well being, cardiovascular well being, nonetheless heart problems, nonetheless the primary killer of girls. Um, and we nonetheless consider it as a males’s dis, a males’s illness.
That’s o clearly not the case. Um, the second program will probably be dedicated to both autoimmune or psychological well being points that disproportionately have an effect on girls. With these two new packages that may carry our complete funding to 250 million, we have now three ongoing packages. Um, 1 / 4 billion {dollars} invested in girls’s well being.
Marissa Plescia: Nice. Wow, that’s superior. Uh, Renee, is there something you’d like so as to add there?
Renee Wittemyer: I might say that, you realize, piv, we met most likely 18 months in the past, virtually, um, two years in the past, and simply have been so impressed with welcome LEAP’s strategy to r and d and desirous about breakthroughs. And for this subject, this has been a subject that Melinda has been centered on for a lot of many years.
Like that is a part of her profession and life’s work and. We’ve simply been desirous about what can we do within the house of girls’s well being to essentially speed up the timeline for change? And girls have suffered for too lengthy with out the perfect approaches. The fitting options to the persistent sicknesses that they face and all of this stuff that, that Reina described.
And so we actually needed to companion together with her to ship these breakthroughs in an accelerated timeline. And so that’s just like the crux of why we needed to companion with them, um, and why we’re so excited in regards to the partnership. You
Regina Dugan: know, I feel we shared, simply to echo that, Renee, we share an actual appreciation for the urgency of this, that the time for incrementalism is over.
Proper? We want pressing advances in girls’s well being, um, in breakthroughs for girls’s well being. And exactly the way in which we do our work, I feel is the place we discover the match. We simply suppose it’s not okay. This underinvestment within the lack of progress, um, in advances for girls’s well being. We’ve simply gotta repair it.
Marissa Plescia: Yeah, very nicely stated.
Um, I additionally wanna comply with up on one thing you talked about about the way you’re beginning with, um, heart problems and autoimmune circumstances. Um, how did you go about selecting these areas to put money into?
Regina Dugan: Renee, do you wanna begin?
Renee Wittemyer: Positive. Um, so Regina talked about this, however you realize, girls, as you realize, Marissa, and have labored on this house for fairly some time.
Ladies expertise these well being points disproportionately and uniquely. And there’s simply little analysis on learn how to forestall, to diagnose, to deal with these circumstances. And so we’re actually involved in trying throughout. The, the lifespan of a girl. Um, and as Reina was saying, taking a look at areas the place girls experiences this stuff otherwise, like heart problems, it’s an area that presents otherwise in girls.
The signs are totally different than males. They expertise this due to biology of a girl’s physique or the, the concept girls. They’re experiencing well being points disproportionately, and that this stuff like autoimmune, autoimmune points are predominantly affecting girls. And in order that was actually on the crux of desirous about like, what are, how are girls experiencing this stuff otherwise, disproportionately and uniquely that solely have an effect on girls, um, reproductive well being, breast most cancers, endometriosis?
So these are the forms of issues in our thoughts that we’ve been desirous about, and it simply. We simply had this synergy with Regina and her imaginative and prescient of how she’s desirous about this. So it was like this stunning partnership.
Regina Dugan: Yeah, yeah. Thanks. We now have three ongoing packages, Marissa, and so a few of the dialog we had is what can be complimentary to these packages, and notably I feel Melinda and Renee very throughout the entire span of life for a girl.
So cardiovascular and autoimmune positively match that class. I feel, you realize, autoimmune expertise, 80% of the autoimmune instances are skilled by girls. Um, and there’s one thing basic there. Should you take a look at the quantity of vascular reworking that occurs throughout the course of a girl’s life, whether or not we’re speaking menstruation or being pregnant and even menopause, it’s not tough to think about.
That the vascular system, particularly cardiovascular well being, can be affected otherwise by all of that reworking throughout a girl’s lifespan. So cardiovascular is one other house the place we had been actually involved in pursuing new options and advances for girls.
Marissa Plescia: Yeah, very nicely stated. Um, one factor we’ve spoken about lots on this podcast, um.
Oftentimes girls’s well being is form of simply equated to being about reproductive well being. Um, and that’s the place a whole lot of the funding goes. Um, however what I feel is fascinating about this funding is that this, um, clearly targets different areas exterior of, um, reproductive well being. So is that a part of your pondering in any respect as nicely?
Perhaps Renee bringing it again to you.
Renee Wittemyer: I can say for Pivotal and Melinda, we’ve been desirous about well being and when wellbeing on this very expansive means in, you realize, throughout the lifespan of a girl and in addition together with each the psychological and bodily well being of girls and of their households. And so we have now been investing on this house actually desirous about.
What does that appear to be for philanthropy? What function can philanthropy play to catalyze new concepts, catalyze breakthroughs, um, actually help work on the bottom that’s occurring, not simply in reproductive well being, however seeing that as a part of the larger image, um, and a really holistic perspective in on that.
Regina Dugan: Yeah, I agree with that. You recognize, I feel a part of the way in which we give it some thought is also that for therefore lengthy analysis has handled girls as in the event that they’re small males, proper? Ladies should not small males, proper? So well being, if well being impacts them, um, otherwise, disproportionately and uniquely, as a result of their biology is totally different.
Simply to, I fairly often will discuss in regards to the how that manifests. I’ll simply provide you with an instance. 99% of the research on the biology of getting older don’t embody a mannequin for menopause. Now, that’s simply unacceptable. Half the inhabitants goes by means of this transition of life. So how can we not embody the results of menopause within the biology of getting older?
And there are numerous different examples that look identical to this. Heavy menstrual bleeding is a situation that impacts one in three girls, and if we had been bleeding from another a part of our physique to that stage, we might name an ambulance. Most ladies look forward to 5 years to get assist with heavy menstrual bleeding, and we have now only a few choices to supply them.
Both we are able to shut down the reproductive cycle or we are able to take away the reproductive organs for a situation that impacts. Extra girls, one out of three girls greater than these of their reproductive years who’re affected by bronchial asthma and diabetes. That’s simply not an appropriate stage of choices for them.
Marissa Plescia: Yeah, some actually nice examples there.
Um, we’ve talked about this a bit, however perhaps, um, if we might simply go into just a little bit extra element about a few of the greatest challenges proper now, um, on the subject of advancing girls’s well being analysis that you just hope to handle with this partnership. Uha, perhaps beginning with you on that one.
Regina Dugan: I feel, and Renee has touched on this earlier than, look, I feel the work that we do at Welcome Lead is customized from the mannequin used on the Protection Superior Analysis Tasks Company, or darpa.
Now, many individuals should not aware of darpa, however their lives really know darpa. So DARPA has maybe the longest standing monitor document of radical, uh, breakthroughs in human historical past. For 60 plus years, the company has been liable for breakthroughs like. The web initially, the ANet, that was a giant one.
Micro electromechanical techniques, laser know-how, nonetheless know-how. There’s an entire listing, um, inclusive of a few of the foundational investments in mRNA vaccines. So this specific mannequin is pushed by a way of mission and urgency, and what we do is we conduct the entire work in a undertaking format. What which means is if you wish to get massive issues completed in three years, you must problem every part about what is usually completed.
And which means we, when it might sometimes take a 12 months plus to guage functions, we do it in 30 days. It’d take sometimes, uh, months to a 12 months to barter a contract. We do this in 30 days. We work globally. We now have a way of agile and iterative growth, at all times specializing in a aim. In 5 years, we’ve launched 14 packages.
We’re working in 30 nations, and I feel that is a part of what this partnership is recognizing that that sense of urgency within the conduct of the analysis is partly what’s so desperately wanted in girls’s well being analysis.
Marissa Plescia: Yeah. Renee, would you want so as to add something there?
Renee Wittemyer: Yeah, and I simply kinda reinforce the message that only for too lengthy we’ve been ready and ladies endure in silence and that’s simply not acceptable.
And we actually, actually on the, the timeline piece see such a possibility, however the concept of breakthroughs on a subject in three to 5 years, and I feel if you’re desirous about the challenges on this house, the challenges embody an absence of funding. There may be not sufficient funding or consideration to girls’s well being as an area that actually deserves its personal intentional strategy, agenda, technique, and funding.
And we see this as this chance to spark extra funding, extra partnership from philanthropists, from buyers, from the business leaders who share a imaginative and prescient for a more healthy, equitable future for girls. Um, and I feel that’s this chance is to usher in extra funding to this house, particularly on this atmosphere the place a whole lot of funding has been minimize for this subject.
Regina Dugan: Yeah, precisely. And let me provide you with a way. Marissa of what’s potential. So in certainly one of our early, the truth is, our first girls’s well being program at Welcome Leap, the Finish Utero program, which is targeted on lowering stillbirth and making advances in maternal care, you realize, we have now had, we, we haven’t had advances in maternal take care of a few hundred years, proper?
We nonetheless use principally the identical instruments that we used 100 years in the past. And but on the earth, each 16 seconds a baby is born nonetheless. 2 million infants. We lose a 12 months. Households tragedies related to that. Now we went very particularly after advances in maternal care with the aim of lowering, principally pointing to reductions in stillbirth by half.
And inside about two years, we had line of sight on a maternal blood check that would, with 80% predictive accuracy, inform us whether or not a being pregnant was in danger for fetal development restriction, preeclampsia, or gestational diabetes as early as 12 weeks within the being pregnant. Now we have now by no means had these form of instruments earlier than in maternal care.
That’s what’s potential utilizing this sort of strategy, focusing it on girls’s well being analysis and making use of the form of analysis and engagement urgency that’s wanted for these subjects.
Marissa Plescia: Yeah. Thanks a lot for sharing that. That’s, that’s a very nice instance. Um, Renee, bringing it again to you, you talked just a little bit about why you selected Welcome Leap as a companion.
Are you able to go into just a little bit extra element on that?
Renee Wittemyer: So I’ll simply zoom out just a little bit. So Pivotal has this mission to advance girls’s energy and affect, and we actually imagine that you just can’t have energy and affect should you don’t have your well being. And these two issues are inextricably linked. So once we take into consideration funding on this means, constructing on Melinda’s, you realize, many years of funding on this house and management on this house, we’ve been desirous about a pair.
Um, in 2024, we funded one thing known as the Motion for Ladies’s Well being, which was actually funding community-driven concepts, advocacy for coverage change, um, teams engaged on the bottom to help girls’s psychological and bodily well being. And that’s actually all about. Lifting up these concepts and options which are underfunded.
We’ve additionally funded, uh, 12 world leaders who’re every overseeing $20 million for revolutionary work in girls’s well being and wellbeing around the globe from Nigeria we have now, or world leaders in the US. Um, after which we see this as a part of a very give attention to innovation. And this concept that, you realize, we have now these current options, however what doesn’t exist And actually with the ability to companion Witha to look out into the long run and picture a unique future.
That’s the reason we actually had been involved in what this strategy was. Her particular, um, methodology of how they do it and the rigor of their. Um, technique and agenda. So that’s form of the, the crux of why we partnered with them.
Marissa Plescia: Yeah, nicely stated. And citing, bringing it again to you. Um, on the flip facet, why did you cho select to companion with Pivotal Ventures?
Regina Dugan: Properly, I feel we share a way that it, it’s time girls, girls have waited lengthy sufficient and we, we positively have to make advances throughout the board in care. However as Renee stated. We now have chasms, um, of gaps in our understanding of girls’s well being, and that’s the results of many years of underinvestment in analysis dedicated to the advances they should stay wholesome and productive lives.
And we’ve simply bought to alter that, proper? We, it’s not about creating breakthroughs for girls shouldn’t be a matter of likelihood. It’s a matter of selection. So we’re selecting to speculate accordingly.
Marissa Plescia: Yeah. Yeah. And going off of that, you realize, I actually simply have one que one final query for the each of you. Um, how will you monitor the success of this funding?
And do you’ve any plans for future funding? Uh, Ragina, I’ll carry that again to you.
Regina Dugan: I imply, we have now, as Renee talked about, we have now a whole lot of rigor in how we conduct the packages. It’s a really excessive contact course of. It’s greatest at school, agile, iterative, at all times monitoring in the direction of a aim, however with, on the similar time the form of threat urge for food wanted to generate the form of breakthroughs that we’re speaking about right here.
So once we give it some thought, we, we really begin each program with the top aim in thoughts. So if we don’t have a way. Of what impression we’re attempting to create with, um, a daring aim that can also be testable and measurable. We don’t begin. So what we’re doing by means of the conduct of this system is we’re watching and monitoring and doing the changes wanted to get to the top aim.
So, um, keep tuned for the specifics on cardiovascular and autoimmune, however I may give you a way from the prior packages of what that appears like. So, within the case of utero, can we generate, can, can we generate the advances essential to indicate we might cut back nonetheless bursts by half? Within the case of our program dedicated to Alzheimer’s, can we cut back Alzheimer’s threat for girls for 330 million girls globally?
Can we cut back their threat by half in order that it isn’t true that two out of each three of our Alzheimer’s sufferers are girls? The chance is double that for girls as it’s for males. And within the case of our missed important signal, uh, program, which is dedicated to heavy menstrual bleeding, can we really get prognosis and remedy?
From 5 years down to 5 months. So it’s these sorts of actions that we’re monitoring in the direction of the aim of every of these packages.
Marissa Plescia: Nice. Uh, Renee, would you want so as to add one thing there?
Renee Wittemyer: I might say that for us, monitoring success is a imply, it is a daring imaginative and prescient. This has not been tried earlier than, and it’s, do we have now a breakthrough on these subjects in three to 5 years?
Do we have now people who find themselves seeing and form of carry, coming collectively as funders round this imaginative and prescient? And I might additionally say success is. Lifting up somebody like, uh, Ragina by way of her management and, and imaginative and prescient and sh and shining a lightweight on that for others as a result of that’s how we companion and we see philanthropy is taking these investments in leaders that we actually imagine in.
And we share their imaginative and prescient, we share their values, and we need to help them and again them. And that’s an instance of girls’s energy and affect. Andina embodies that in spades. Um, and so a part of it’s actually simply shining a lightweight on that along with these concepts that we’re gonna have these breakthroughs.
That’s success. And in addition, should you don’t have the breakthrough, we have now put, we have now invested on this house, we took an opportunity. That’s the function of philanthropy, is to make a wager, could take a giant wager on one thing you imagine in, and that’s how philanthropy can push progress and social progress for all.
Regina Dugan: Properly, Renee, I’ll let you know that I’m humbled and grateful on your confidence in me personally and in addition in Welcome Leap, and I feel, uh, Renee is appropriate.
You recognize, once we are taking these massive swings, half half, not each program goes to achieve success, however even when we have now success in a restricted variety of them, we’ll change the long run for girls.
Marissa Plescia: Yeah, that’s such an effective way to take a look at it. Um, nicely this has been such an fascinating dialog. Thanks each a lot for becoming a member of and better of luck in your partnership and your dedication.
Actually respect it.
Regina Dugan: Thank
Renee Wittemyer: you a lot.
Regina Dugan: Thanks.
