Jessica Federer, MPH ’08, remembers long being frustrated with how little medical research has been done on women and health issues that disproportionately affect women.
As chief digital officer at Bayer AG from 2014 to 2017, she saw that researchers had no clear answer to the question of why women experience adverse drug reactions nearly twice as often as men. And most studies didn’t collect information about women’s menstrual cycles or menopausal status. “Our industry had focused on treating men and women the same, treating them equally, not realizing that was the wrong goal,” she said.
This imbalance remains a problem throughout the health and medical system, she said. “Sex as a biological variable still isn’t well integrated,” she added.
Federer has been working to change that. She recently founded the Women’s Health Fund: a fund of funds to spur investment in medical innovations that would improve women’s health. A fund of funds invests in a portfolio of other funds, and the Women’s Health Fund plans to invest 80 percent of its capital in high-performing life sciences funds, and 20 percent in companies within the fund’s portfolios that are particularly promising. To get investment, the funds must have or agree to add women’s health as a focus area. The Women’s Health Fund uses the NIH definition for women’s health: health areas that are unique to women or that disproportionately or differently affect women.
The Women’s Health Fund invests in established funds with managers experienced in looking for companies with solid science behind them in different stages of developing pharmaceuticals, technologies, and diagnostics.
Supporters in founding the fund include the American Heart Association’s Go Red for Women Venture Fund, the Society for Women’s Health Research, 1843 Capital, Pontiva Healthcare Partners, Shaper Capital, the Society for Women’s Health Research, Women’s Health Access Matters, and Women’s Health Research at Yale.
Federer emphasizes that women’s health is a potentially huge market. Some common diseases, including Alzheimer’s, affect women disproportionately: women are twice as likely to develop the disease as men. Other common medical conditions affect only women. For example, about 10% of women of reproductive age have endometriosis, a chronic and often painful medical condition where tissue similar to the lining inside the uterus grows outside the uterus.
Federer aims to increase investment in women’s health to where pharmaceutical companies consistently bring more products to market for women and leading venture capitalists actively seek out women's health companies. She believes growing the market to that point would dramatically benefit public health.
“The public benefits when 51% of it has better care and better health through faster diagnostics, improved therapeutics, and appropriate care,” she said.
Federer has an extensive background in investment and health companies to draw on for her work with the fund. After she left Bayer, Federer moved into venture capital and served on Sage Therapeutics’ board. Federer currently serves on the board of Angelini Ventures and is an external advisor to McKinsey & Company. She started the Health of Women Investor Summit, an annual gathering that brings together investors in venture capital, private equity, foundations, endowments, and government. The fourth annual convening will take place in March at NASDAQ in New York.
Federer maintains strong ties with Yale and the School of Public Health. She serves on the Yale Institutional Review Board and is a member of a group that advises Dean Megan L. Ranney. She also serves on the advisory board of the Blavatnik Fund for Innovation at Yale. The fund helps advance promising early-stage life science research into important products. As an advisor, Federer has helped the fund’s director, Dr. Morag Grassie, PhD, decide which companies should get support. She and Grassie also worked together to organize the Health of Women Summit, which brought together researchers at Yale across medicine, public health, and engineering.
Federer “combines deep sector expertise with a powerful network of investors and thought leaders, and she has a rare ability to spot opportunities where women’s health innovation can truly advance,” Grassie said.
“By prioritizing women’s health, Jessica’s fund will ensure that the best research and innovations receive the support they deserve—accelerating the development of new solutions and helping to close longstanding gaps in care and investment,” Grassie added.
“I'm encouraged to see new investments in women's health research, an area that has long been overlooked despite its impact on half the population,” said Dr. Basmah Safdar, MD, director of Women’s Health Research at Yale and founding member of the advisory board for the Women’s Health Fund.