Women’s health sometimes is still discussed as an emerging category. But a new report from the biotech company AOA Dx shows exactly how mature this category is—and how much room there still is for growth.
Between 2000 and 2024, there were 272 publicly announced exits of women’s health companies—totaling $91.5 billion in disclosed exit value. That’s by a broader definition of women’s health than is sometimes used to categorize startups; not just reproductive health, but also hormonal health, oncology, autoimmune disease, and more. A limited definition of what qualifies as “women’s health” has influenced how investors and other decision-makers view the category; this report aims to make clear how expansive the potential is.
“Legacy misclassification—particularly in oncology, diagnostics, and chronic disease—caused many women’s health exits to be tracked outside the category, understating its historical scale and creating pricing inefficiencies for investors,” the report says.
About half of all those exits took place during a rapid period of acceleration over the past five years, for a total value of $48.2 billion. Twenty-three transactions exceeded $1 billion. In 2024 alone, women’s health exits reached $21.4 billion in value—a milestone year for the category.
Biopharma, diagnostic, and device companies drove 80% of value, with diagnostics in the lead. Diagnostics and devices demonstrated the highest capital efficiency too, far beyond reproductive health. A $18.3 billion deal by Blackstone and TPG to take women’s health diagnostics company Hologic private in 2025 (not included in this data set) is the largest women’s health transaction on record.
More than 90% of these exits were through strategic buyers, not on the markets—contributing to the quieter nature of success in this field. (Although a major IPO is expected soon from women’s health business Maven.) The two segments showing the most growth right now are gynecologic oncology diagnostics and menopause and midlife health, which the report’s authors call “similar to fertility 10 years ago.” Fertility preservation comes in third. The most significant successes are often for companies addressing conditions with large, underserved disease burdens. Right now those look like Alzheimer’s treatments for women, GLP-1 efforts focused on women, and companies addressing cardiac disease.
Explore the full report here.
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
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