Alice Zheng, partner at women's health-focused venture capital firm Foreground Capital, sat down with MobiHealthNews to discuss women's health funding in 2025–and the changing investment environment around the sector. 

MobiHealthNews: Tell me about your work in women's health and your investments.

Alice Zheng: I'm a partner at a fund called Foreground Capital, which invests exclusively in women's health. We just spun out of a fund called RH Capital and are continuing to manage RH Capital Funds I and II. The investment thesis is exclusive to women's health, meaning all companies in our portfolio of 22 companies with 45 million AUM [assets under management], are addressing some condition that affects women.  

That said, we are very broad across health segments. So, we are investing in the life sciences, which means device diagnostics, therapeutics, as well as digital health and tech-enabled services, which is where Millie fits into our portfolio.  

My personal background is that I've been in women's health my whole career, wearing different hats. From the clinical perspective, I trained as a doctor. From the local public health perspective, I worked in East Africa and Asia in Women's Health. I was also a consultant at McKinsey working in women's health, also having been a patient, etc., all before I became an investor.

MHN: Women's health gets less investment than some other sectors of healthcare. Do you think that is slated to change anytime soon? Do investors need to focus more on the women's health sector?

Zheng: Yes. Well, I'm probably biased, because I've spent my whole career in women's health, and I'm at a fund that focuses there as well, and we're actively setting out to fundraise, so we absolutely see opportunity. 

Just to clarify what you were just saying–historically, women's health has been underinvested, under-researched, lots of issues, and that's true in the sense that modern medicine was developed for men. In fact, for white men. And so, women and minorities have been often excluded from a clinical trial perspective, for drug development, as well as just basic scientific research. 

In fact, if I think about medical school, when I was there it never occurred to me that all the anatomy textbooks had illustrations of male bodies, except for the ovaries, and simple things like that just make you realize how ingrained that male bias is.  

That said, things are definitely changing and, in terms of investment levels, yes, there is a lot of opportunity, for sure, but there's also been really exciting growth. So, Silicon Valley Bank did a report about a year ago looking at healthcare investment versus women's health VC [venture capital] investment pre-COVID and through kind of the last five years, and whereas healthcare investment peaked during COVID, and then kind of dropped back down to where it was pre-COVID, women's health investment also peaked, and then kind of held steady. And that is very much likely because it was a small base to begin with. 

There's still a lot of opportunity to be reached, but there definitely are really exciting signs of change. That includes, if you look at actual investment levels, there are headwinds with the economy and the VC downturn in general, but against those headwinds, women's health is performing okay, and better, compared to general healthcare, and then also increased public awareness about the issues. More and more women are scientists, CEOs, and investors. 

The White House, over the past year, has paid a lot of attention to this area as well, and I'm just seeing it on the agenda so much more than before. 

When I was at McKinsey, I served Fortune 500 companies, and it was hard to make women's health a platform, but even if I just look at where things are now, there's so many more corporates that care, so many more groups that are publishing on it, highlighting the disparities, the opportunities and all of that fuels our field board.

MHN: Where do you see women's health investment going in 2025, and do you think that the change in administration will affect women's health initiatives?

Zheng: I am hopeful for a better VC landscape in general in 2025. Again, we face the same headwinds and tailwinds as all other sectors within healthcare/VC, and I think there are some who project that the kind of IPO market might open up by midyear next year. Companies' M&A activity might pick up again as well. So, I think that will be very good for the women's health sector, as for everybody else, too. So, I'm hopeful in that regard.

But in women's health in particular, I do see a broad conversational shift from women's health as solely reproductive health, which is, I think, is where we started five years ago. A lot of the investment and interest was in fertility, maternity, reproductive areas, and there's certainly still a lot of opportunity there and a lot to be sold. I do also see a broadening of the conversation into, hormonal health broadly, not just for reproduction and autoimmune conditions, and women's heart health and all these different areas. So, that's where I see 2025 being a year where the conversation is brought in that way and investments, to the extent that companies are formed, can then follow. I'm feeling optimistic about just a general change in trend for VC. 

In terms of the election, there's a lot to unpack there, and maybe just to take a step back and say, no matter which party is in office, no matter what the current political ties are, it is really important to address women and their health needs. 

So, if you can take abortion out of the picture, right? That's very polarizing. It's politicized. Take it out of the picture and women's health matters a lot. So, we want to make sure that we're preventing pregnancies and that we're adequately serving women who are pregnant because we know that there will be more of them now with current policies.

Also, a lot of women's reproductive health is intertwined. So, care providers that are doing abortions are also ones that are providing the rest of gynecological care, and so my thought is around where there are going to be care deserts now that we need to double down and make sure we invest and innovate.  

Another big, kind of broad pasture of thinking is there are governments, and there are policies, and there are administrations, and they will turn things in different directions. The private sector can play a really important role in filling some of the gaps. So, as the private sector, we are spurring innovation, we are filling care gaps, and that is more important now than ever.