\u201cPregnancy is stunningly under-studied,\u201d said Gates, who discussed the pledge during an event with STAT<\/a> on Monday afternoon in Cambridge, Mass. He noted that The Gates Foundation is now the primary funder in research areas like the vaginal microbiome, which it believes could have importance both for pregnancy and the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases, and new non-hormonal contraceptives.<\/p>\n \u201cGiving birth is still \u2026 very risky, particularly in low-income countries. Even conditions like preeclampsia and gestational diabetes aren\u2019t as well understood for the rich world as they should be,\u201d Gates told STAT.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBill Gates discusses risks of pregnancy during an interview with STAT in Boston on Monday. Experts in maternal and women\u2019s health said the commitment represents a major new source of research funding at a time when the U.S. government is cutting both research related to women\u2019s health and aid directed at maternal health; the field has been hit by reductions in grants from the National Institutes of Health, cuts to data monitoring efforts<\/a> at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the dissolution of the U.S. Agency for International Development.<\/p>\n The Gates Foundation said the goal of the new initiative is to address a long-running deficit in medicine that has disfavored women\u2019s health \u2014 to the extent that the \u201ctypical\u201d patient described to medical students has traditionally been male. In an article published in the BMJ<\/a> last week, Ru Cheng, the foundation\u2019s director of women\u2019s health initiatives, said that only 1% of global research and development funding is allocated to women\u2019s health issues outside of oncology, and that between 2013 and 2023, only 8.8% of NIH-funded research focused exclusively on women. While venture capital investment in women\u2019s health grew by 300% between 2018 and 2023, it still accounts for just 2% of health care venture investments.<\/p>\n \t\t\t \t\t\t\t \u201cFor too long, women have suffered from health conditions that are misunderstood, misdiagnosed, or ignored,\u201d said Anita Zaidi, president of the Gates Foundation\u2019s Gender Equality Division, in a statement. \u201cWe want this investment to spark a new era of women-centered innovation \u2014 one where women\u2019s lives, bodies, and voices are prioritized in health R&D.\u201d<\/p>\n Although the Gates Foundation says that it aims to help women everywhere, most of its projects have a primary focus on health innovation in lower-income countries \u2014 although many of the same problems also afflict wealthy nations, and particularly the United States, which ranks 55th in the world in maternal mortality rates<\/a>.<\/p>\n The vast majority of the funds \u2014 as much as 70% \u2014 will go to research and development. About a tenth will go to market introduction of new technologies or generating better data around them. Only about 4% will go to manufacturing, and 3% to advocacy.<\/p>\n The foundation provided a list of more than 40 existing projects it has funded that could fall under the commitment. They range from the very low-tech to the extremely high-tech. There is, for instance, a simple, low-cost plastic drape \u2014 think of a V-shaped plastic bag \u2014 that can be placed under a patient during childbirth to collect lost blood. Markings in the bags allow health care providers to rapidly identify when there is too much maternal blood loss.<\/p>\n There is also, though, funding for an upgraded type of ultrasound device that is both more compact than the one traditionally used during pregnancy and that uses artificial intelligence so the operator needs less expertise \u2014 potentially improving prenatal care in areas with fewer resources.<\/p>\n And the foundation is funding the most expensive type of project in health care \u2014 the creation of new medicines. For instance, funding will go to Comanche Biopharma, a Cambridge, Mass., biotechnology firm, that is developing a drug that targets a key protein involved in triggering preeclampsia, a condition that causes high blood pressure during pregnancy and results in the deaths of 45,000 mothers and the loss of half a million fetuses and infants annually, according the World Health Organization.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Comanche CEO Scott Johnson, who previously led the development of the blockbuster cholesterol drug Leqvio at The Medicines Company, said that the foundation\u2019s impact goes beyond money.<\/p>\n \u201cIn fact, I would argue, although the money is incredibly important, the resources of the Gates Foundation are amazing,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cThey have biostatisticians, they have drug modelers, they have lawyers who have looked at regulatory challenges in Third World countries and can help you figure out how you do a clinical trial in Ghana. They have enormous resources, and useful resources.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t \t\t\t\t In return for that support, Johnson said his company has agreed that if it does not develop its drug for low- and middle-income countries, the Gates Foundation will gain access to its intellectual property in ways that will allow it to make the product available. That, Johnson acknowledged, could make venture capitalists and large pharmaceutical companies that might partner with Comanche nervous.<\/p>\n However, Johnson said, in this case broad availability is a goal the company and the foundation share. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to be able to find a way to deliver this drug in these countries or it\u2019s not going to achieve its full value, and I mean its full societal value,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s curious why some of these areas are so under-invested, because the rich world health burden on preeclampsia specifically is still, you know, very high,\u201d Gates said.<\/p>\n Other high-tech approaches being funded by the Gates Foundation include self-injectable contraceptives, contraceptive patches, rapid diagnostics for sexually transmitted infections, and research to understand how the human microbiome affects maternal health and disease transmission. There is also a large slate of projects connected to ways in which the microbiome can affect women\u2019s health generally, including during pregnancy.<\/p>\n Women\u2019s health is an area that has been core to The Gates Foundation since its inception. In 1999, Gates and his wife at the time, Melinda French Gates, made a gift to Johns Hopkins University to start an institute of population and reproductive health; it is now named after Bill\u2019s father, William Gates Sr., who died of Alzheimer\u2019s<\/a>.<\/p>\n From then on, issues related to women\u2019s health and reproductive autonomy have remained central to the foundation\u2019s mission, with French Gates often serving as a spokesperson on them, including in a 2012 TED Talk<\/a> in which she argued that it was time \u201cto put birth control back on the agenda.\u201d That year the foundation co-hosted the London Summit on Family Planning.<\/a><\/p>\n Melinda and Bill Gates divorced in August 2021, and she chose to exit the Gates Foundation\u2019s operations<\/a> last May; her own charitable work is focused on women\u2019s equality<\/a>,\u00a0including the type of political activism the Gates Foundation has avoided.<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAlex Hogan\/STAT<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/AP3899033835378607-768x432.jpg\")
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\n\t\t\t\tEnhertu, used as first option, stalled tumors for more than a year in women with breast cancer, study finds<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/AP24169566780787-768x432.jpg\")
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\n\t\t\t\tNew blood test could predict preeclampsia in the first trimester<\/a><\/p>\n
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