Melinda French Gates Announces $100 Million Partnership To Advance Women's Health

To open today's summit, we have a conversation on one of the most underfunded and overlooked barriers to women's power, and that is women's health. Joining me is someone who I believe is one of the most transformational figures in our lifetime around creating an advancing opportunity for women. Melinda Gates has not only reshaped philanthropy, but with pivotal ventures, she's making investments in the ways and areas that allow us to really break down those systemic barriers to advance power and create opportunity. She also is doing that with some of the smartest and most innovative minds in the ecosystem, and joining her today is Regina Dugan, the CEO of Welcome Leap, which really works to accelerate scientific breakthroughs. So today, we're gonna hear an exciting announcement on the work that we're doing, they're doing together, and really understand how we can think about this issue differently. So with that, I would love to welcome them to the stage. Of course, thank you, Myra. So Melinda, I wanna start with you because through the work that you've done, you really have been thoughtful and strategic around targeting the barriers, the systemic barriers that really create the greatest challenges for women to progress. Can you talk about that in the context of women's health and women's power at a global level? Sure, well, first of all, thanks for having us, and thanks, everybody, for being here. I absolutely love this space, rainy day or sunny day, so I'm glad we could be together. You know, a woman can't do well in life if she's not healthy and well herself. And so, you know, a woman's trajectory in life, I believe, really starts with their health, to go on and get a good education, to continue their education, to get the paycheck they want, to raise the kids if they choose to be a mom, to participate in society, in government, in media, whatever they wanna do, they have to be well. And yet, we don't invest far enough money in women's health, and we're going to change that. Yay. And when you look at the statistics, they're staggering in terms of the types of illnesses or areas in which women's health has just been neglected, and as I said, overlooked. And Regina, you know so well that women bear a disproportionate burden of these many, many types of conditions. And if there's anyone who knows what it takes to drive change at scale and at speed, it is you, having done so across so many different arenas, at DARPA, First Women to Lead DARPA, at Silicon Valley, and that type of thinking is so critical right now. Can you share some more insights around how the scientific community has approached these issues, and what are the barriers that so need to be tackled at this moment in time? Yeah, well, for so long, the research community has treated women as if they're small men. Women are not small men. And to give you a sense of the gap that 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. We know, everyone in this room knows, women experience health challenges differently, disproportionately, and uniquely. And there are a lot of statistics, but let me put some of them in context. So you woke up this morning, you lifted your head off the pillow, you brushed your teeth, you got here, you're gonna go through the day, have dinner, brush your teeth, hopefully, put your head back on the pillow. In that period of time, we will have lost 3,600 babies to stillbirth. In that same period of time, in the US alone, 960 women will have received blood transfusions because they were menstruating. And across the world, 18,000 more cases of Alzheimer's will have arisen, 12,000 of them for women, two out of every three. Now, that's in one day we're talking about. These are not medical mysteries. These are problems that we have to solve. And what we have are not minor gaps in our knowledge. We have chasms in our knowledge that have been created and perpetuated by decades of underinvestment in research. So, as Melinda said, that's what we aim to change. It's not okay. We're gonna change it. And I think so many of us have either lived or experienced those dynamics, and when you think of it on a global scale, it's staggering where the gaps remain, but also where the opportunity exists. I'm really excited to have both of you here today because you're partnering to address these really critical issues and to create innovative models to be able to drive that type of change that both of you said is so urgent and needed. So, Melinda, can you share what you're announcing today? Sure. Between Regina's organization, Welcome Leap, and my organization, Pivotal Ventures, we're announcing $100 million to go towards women's health. Regina will explain to you the model because she has used this model before, and it is working, and she's even used it in a couple of areas already of women's health, but in this particular area, we are going to go after cardiovascular disease, which affects women differently than men, and then we're also going to look at autoimmune diseases, and we'll look at mental health. And why don't you explain, Regina, how this model works and why it won't be decades until we see some solutions? It's a great question, and Moira, you already talked about DARPA a little, so for those of you in the room who don't know it, DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, uses a model of innovation that has now been proven to deliver decades of breakthroughs, radical breakthroughs. It's probably the longest-standing track record of radical breakthroughs in human history. So I'll give you a sample. The ARPANET originally, now the internet. That was a big one. Miniaturized GPS, stealth technology, lasers, some of the early investments in mRNA vaccines. Those are the things I can think of off the top of my head. Now, we adapt that model for global health, and we've done it on global scale. Let me tell you what that looks like, and this is to Melinda's point about speed. All of our programs are three years time-boxed. Now, if you wanna get something done in three years, you've got to challenge everything. A normal research program may go from application through to selection and funding in a year, maybe a year and a half. We go from application to selection in 30 days. 30 days later, everyone's under contract. Most of them have funds to start, and we have a global kickoff meeting. Now, what that global kickoff meeting does is it establishes the network of global researchers who are now working together to solve a problem that they can't solve individually, and then we're using all of the best practices of agile and intermittent kinds of advances to track our progress towards a goal. Now, what that has allowed us to do is in five years, we've launched 12 programs. We're working in 30 countries. Three of our programs are devoted to women's health, and with this partnership with Melinda, we can expand our work. Our total investment then in women's health research will exceed $250 million, a quarter of a billion. And, Regina, and I really encourage you all all to spend time learning more about the work that you're spearheading, because it really defies what we think is possible, right? And you talked about the sense of urgency to address these needs, given just how long it has taken for anyone to actually look at women's health through a serious lens and bring it to market in ways that can impact all of our lives here today. Melinda, when we think about these issues and this opportunity to accelerate progress around women's health, can you share your insights around how more broadly what that result will look like, or how we should think about it more deeply as it relates to the impact and opportunity economically around the world in terms of underdeveloped countries and the like? Well, when you think about it today, and we think about women, they live nine years of their lives more than a man not feeling well, in pain and suffering or having some medical condition. And I'm not talking just end of life. I'm talking about their most productive years. And that just shouldn't be. And so if women can be well, and they can do the job they wanna do, they can take on what they wanna take, they can be with family and friends and loved ones, it benefits their family, it benefits their community, and it benefits society. And I believe that women should be in any space they wanna be, using their voice, their decision making, and their resources. And so if we want, for instance, more women in our legislatures, more women in our Congress, more women in our state houses to make good policy, they need to be well to be able to do it. And that is one of the barriers we are going to break down. And when I think about women's health, and I think about how did we get to this point, a little bit, you have to go back and say, well, for no ill reason, if you go back 80 years ago, it was mostly men in medicine. It was mostly male scientists. Women now have come up, thank goodness, in the scientists. We're graduating more female doctors than ever before, slightly more even than men. And so what does that mean, though? It also means we have to get funding in to fund women's research. Only a tiny, tiny fraction of the global health research has gone towards women. And most of that has gone towards breast cancer or a bit of reproductive health. And yet women have holistic lives, right? We go through lots of conditions. And so it's time now we step up with our resources as a world and do what's right for women. Regina, with the work you're doing, again, to really put these issues at the forefront and to create progress at meaningful scale in a matter of years, how do you think about the work that you're doing as a model or a catalyst to be able to drive this change in such an urgent and powerful way? Yeah, well, the type of research that we do, use-inspired research, is often an accelerant in an entire ecosystem. So we have elements of basic research that we draw from, always to do our work. We're always intersecting that with a compelling, with a bold objective that we can also test and measure. We do that at scale, and that then unlocks future investments that allow us to do all of the clinical trials, all of the work that's needed to get it to women who need it. So it's part of this breakthrough engine that we have is really part of the necessary urgency that we need to create to accelerate progress. Melinda, how do we do that from your perspective? You're really looking at it from the scientific community in terms of how you could bring these things to market, but Melinda, you mentioned that the global stakeholders, many people don't necessarily focus on women's health in the systematic and strategic way that it needs to be looked at. You are in rooms and conversations of people who have the opportunity to drive those levers of change. Is there resistance or is it a lack of education? How do you frame it in a way that allows them to unlock, not just the dollars, but to really change the perception around why this needs to be at the forefront? Well, when I meet with, for instance, prime ministers and presidents, or finance ministers in different countries who often hold the purse strings, it's not at all difficult to make the economic argument. And in fact, they're seeing that around the world, if they're a low-income country, they would like to grow to middle income. If they're middle income, they'd like to grow to high income. And when they look at the economic models, no country has, first of all, ever made that transition without making sure that women could time and space the births of their children, not one country. And they can look at models around the world, like South Korea, and see it went from a low income to a high income. Well, how did it do that? It invested in its women, because women are half the population. And when women do well, their families do well, they can be educated, their communities do well, and their society does well. And so, if for whatever reason, they don't see the humanitarian argument, okay, they'll see the economic argument. And so, that door has cracked open further and further and further, and we just need to walk right through it. And I would add that I often see some stutter-stepping, right, those who are in the late stage say, our pipeline is dry, we haven't done enough research. Those who would invest in research say, well, nobody's ever done a big exit, right? And so, we have to break through that, that's part of what Melinda and I are trying to do here. We've got to get the research done so that we open up the possibilities for scaling to the kinds of solutions women need. And I want to dig deeper on that. Help us understand within the scientific community where the bottlenecks are, or where the lack of understanding or appreciation of just how fundamental these challenges are in women's health. What does that actually look like when you're in a room of peers, and how do you, Melinda talked about sort of how she makes the case to be able to drive these other stakeholders. What do you say to those in the scientific community? Well, you know, I think we've been tremendously encouraged that when we launch a program, we actually have a flood of researchers come to. So it's a bit like Melinda said, when you crack open the door, what you find is that there is so much latent energy in the system, it just kind of explodes. And it's actually a bit the reverse, right? It's not as if people don't understand, I think, and particularly many women in research have argued for a long time, we need to get some of this research done. And when we launch a program, a new $50 million program in say, cardiovascular health for women, or we talk about heavy menstrual bleeding, we talk about these kinds of images, these kinds of problems, these kinds of challenges, what we find is that the research community does respond, and they do it on a global basis. So we're actually quite encouraged that we will have the kinds of breakthroughs that we need for women, not in decades, but in years. Which is amazing, because when we talk about in the scientific community and health, truly it is sort of oftentimes things that we don't believe we may even see in our own lifetime. And so the matter, the idea that it can be brought to years is truly extraordinary. One of the things though I love about the work that you all are doing, and also I think what speaks to the summit is it does require stakeholders from a number of different arenas to come together. Melinda, what is your call to action? What is your message to stakeholders in policy and business and the like, who can be greater contributors to this effort? First and foremost in terms of just understanding how fundamental it is, but also to really support and help accelerate what both of you have talked about. Let me start just briefly with a quick story. There was a scientist inside of our foundation. I worked at our foundation for 25 years. He and I respected each other greatly. He had two daughters, and whenever I would talk about women's power in the world, and why it was so important, he would sort of dismiss me. And when he went to retire, he said, oh my gosh, Melinda, I made a huge mistake. I launched my two daughters in the world. My wife and I got them well-educated. We launched them out to their careers. And all of a sudden, they hit these barriers. One of them hit a health barrier. One of them hit a barrier of work. And he said, I just didn't see it. I didn't see it. And what I'm seeing is that men are waking up to this as well, for their wives, their sisters, their daughters. And so what I say to everybody is we want healthy families. We want our family members to be healthy. It's good for all of us. And so I say to policymakers, let's get off the sidelines. Let's do the right thing. NIH, 8% of all NIH funding in 2023, only 8% went to women's health, 8%. So, okay, that's an artifact from the past. But what I say to people is we can do something now. Let's do something. So what I would say to all of you in this room and to policymakers and anybody who cares about this issue is say it loud, say it often. Your health matters. Your daughter's health matters. If you can contribute some money to this cause, do. Amplify it on social media. When we all say we're not getting what we deserve or I go into the health system and I go into the very best place, they can't diagnose my chronic condition. Wow, that's a problem. And so we can all use our voices on this cause. Yeah, the time for incrementalism is over. I love that. Women have waited long enough. Okay, we've waited long enough. Yeah. So help us understand, you two announced this partnership today. Regina, you said you can create these types of breakthroughs in years, not decades, three to five years. So when we are sitting here together, call it sort of a 2030, looking ahead, what does real success look like to you? What gives you the confidence that the gap can be closed and a few areas where you really feel like that you're working on, where you really feel like we can see differently? Yeah. So here's what I see as possible in the next three to five years. A maternal blood test that can predict the risk factors for stillbirth. We're talking fetal growth restriction, preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, with 80% accuracy as early as 12 weeks in the pregnancy. Let's start there. Now imagine that same blood test in the hands of doctors and community health workers all across the world, from the U.S. to Uganda, and together with other advances, we could save a million babies from stillbirth a year. Okay? So that's a start. Imagine a woman who has heavy menstrual bleeding. She is diagnosed and treated not in five years, but in five months. Imagine that we have lowered the risk for Alzheimer's for 330 million women globally. That's what's possible. Now, I will tell you that I know we can do it because I have personally been with teams that are ambitious, that are motivated, that are emotionally engaged, that feel a sense of urgency, that when given the right conditions and the right investments, they can make the seemingly impossible possible. I have seen it so many times in my life, and I know we can do it here. Now, it will also take a coalition of leaders, as we've talked about, to scale the investment to the level that women deserve. I know this, Pivotal knows this, Melinda knows this. All of you know it. So as I said, we've got to stop with the incrementalism. We've got to move forward boldly and make it happen. I know we can do it. And part of the reason Regine is talking about these three specific things is she already launched these funds some time ago, so they're already in the research phase. So now we're launching a new fund to go after other women's diseases, and I think there will be future funds. The sooner we get on the science, the sooner we're gonna have solutions for everybody. Exactly. What Melinda said is true. Part of the reason we can envisage that is because we've started. I don't think it's coincidental that we have a female-led organization. When we did our first women's health program, we weren't asking anyone if that would be appropriate. We just did it. We didn't think anything of it. Of course we would run a program in women's health, and this is part of what Melinda and I, I think, see as one of the strengths of our partnership. Well, it's just a reminder of when you have women at seats of power and opportunity, what can truly happen. So I think all of us walk away from this conversation inspired and optimistic, and the idea that some of the breakthroughs that you all are helping to spearhead can impact our lives and have an impact on our health and wellness and those around us and around the world is extraordinary. You don't hear that very often in health. So Regina and Melinda, thank you so much, and I'm excited to have you in three to five years to see all of the progress that's been made. Thank you.