Women’s Health Week Europe 2025 brought 400 investors, innovators, corporates, clinicians, and policymakers together at the beautiful Barbican Centre in London for three days of big thinking and real partnership-building.

This was my first Women’s Health Week, and over a month later, the conversations are still shaping how we think about scale, innovation, and the future of women’s health. Here are 5 of my favourite takeaways that stayed with us long after the doors closed at the Barbican.

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1. Responsible AI will define the next decade of women’s health innovation.

Across sessions spanning diagnostics, drug development, and clinical support tools, one message came through with absolute clarity: we are past the AI hype cycle.

Clinicians, technologists, and regulators agreed that the opportunity for AI in women’s health is enormous, from streamlining diagnostic tests to improving the personalisation of care. However, these models must be built responsibly. That means diverse datasets, clinically validated algorithms, and a rigorous approach to safety and bias.

The takeaway

AI won’t fix the women’s health gap alone. But with the right foundations, it can close some of the most damaging blind spots.

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2. Women’s health isn’t underperforming… it’s underfunded. And that is starting to shift.

In one of the most attended investment panels of the week, leaders from Octopus Ventures, Cross Border Impact Ventures, the BritishBusiness Bank, THENA Capital and Sie Ventures highlighted a powerful trend: women’s health is outperforming across multiple VC portfolios, and LPs are beginning to take notice.

Medtech exits are strengthening, tech bio and diagnostics are attracting serious follow-on rounds, and major global institutions (from theWhite House to the Gates Foundation) have made landmark funding commitments.

The takeaway

This is no longer a niche. It’s a high-growth category…and Europe is beginning to build the capital stack needed to scale it.

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3. System redesign can improve outcomes faster than breakthrough technology.

One of the biggest lessons of the week came from panels exploring health systems, policy, and service design.

Evidence from UK Women’s Health Hubs showed how reorganising care pathways,  without a major structural overhaul, can dramatically reduce pressure on primary care, shorten time to diagnosis, and improve patient experience.

The takeaway

Innovation isn’t always about invention.Sometimes it’s about redesigning the system so that existing tools finally work.

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4. Women’s sport is accelerating visibility, research, and innovation.

From menstrual tracking to pelvic floor health and injury prevention, elite sport is becoming an unexpected catalyst for women’s health progress.

Athletes and performance teams are driving research partnerships, generating sex-specific data, and demanding tools tailored to female physiology, with spillover benefits for the general population.

Our partnership with Manchester City FC was one of my highlights of our 2025 event, demonstrating the synergy between our missions.

The takeaway

As Managing Director, Charlotte O’Neil put it on stage;

‍“Sport is where women’s health becomes impossible to ignore.”

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5. Partnership is the multiplier. Events like this are the stage.

Across every discussion, whether focused on AI safety, reimbursement pathways, diagnostic validation, or commercialisation, one theme repeated itself:
no one scales alone.

The founders achieving the greatest impact are the ones building early partnerships with investors, clinicians, academics, health systems, and corporates.

The investors performing strongest are the ones adding strategic value, not just capital.
And the organisations moving fastest are the ones building together, not in silos.

The takeaway

Partnership isn’t a side conversation anymore, it’s the engine of the women’s health economy. Which is why we’re so proud to be where partnerships happen in women’s health.

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Looking Ahead to New York

So, London 2025 is behind us…. what’s next? The Women’sHealth Week team are working hard on our next meetings, and I’m so excited to confirm these conversations will continue at Women’s Health Week USA 2026, where we’ll explore The Era of Scale: what it takes for women’s health innovations to move from early traction to widespread adoption, commercial success, and global impact.

We’ll see you in New York on May 13–14, if you’d like to get involved or here more about what we have planned this year, you can register your interest here: https://www.womenshealthweek.com/usa/brochure-preview