Overview
Over the next two decades, the Gates Foundation will work together with its partners to make as much progress as possible towards three primary goals:
- Help end the preventable deaths of mothers and babies
- Ensure the next generation grows up without having to suffer from deadly infectious diseases
- Lift millions of people out of poverty, putting them on a path to prosperity
This focus builds on the extraordinary global progress in health and development between 2000 and 2025—a period when child deaths were more than halved, deaths from deadly infectious diseases were significantly reduced, and hundreds of millions of people rose out of poverty. The health of women was not only a part of this progress…it was critical to achieving it.
$2.5B Investment Snapshot
The foundation is committing $2.5 billion through 2030 to transform women’s health, with a focus on driving impact across every stage of a woman’s life. This investment advances a pipeline of more than 40 promising innovations in development focused on five priority areas of women’s health.
This R&D funding commitment is focused exclusively on women’s health addresses challenges that affect tens of millions of women worldwide, particularly those in low- and middle-income countries. These challenges often lead to preventable maternal and child deaths but also have a huge impact on women’s lives through adverse birth outcomes.
Five priority R&D areas for investment:
- Improving maternal health (including obstetric care)
- Understanding gut health and nutrition
- Improving gynecological & menstrual health
- Expanding contraceptive options
- Addressing the outsized burden of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) on women
Why is the foundation investing in these five areas?
- They are grounded in data and evidence on the innovations most likely to save and improve the greatest number of women’s lives
- They reflect the needs and preferences of women living in low- and middle-income countries
- They address the high rates of misdiagnosis driven by gaps in medical knowledge and training
- They address real-world conditions – including low-resource settings with challenges such as limited infrastructure and training, workforce shortages and stigma
- Many of these innovations have the potential to help women globally, making them attractive for broader public and private sector investment
Through our commitment, the foundation is working with 300+ global partners and grantees – including innovators, researchers, health systems and entrepreneurs – developing solutions to improve women’s health.
Greater investment is urgently needed
Given how vastly underfunded the women’s health R&D field has been to date, addressing the women’s health burden will require collective effort from governments, investors, researchers, philanthropies, and innovators to invest in and develop cost-effective, high-impact tools and ensure they reach the women who need them most.
The Women’s Health Innovation Opportunity Map, co-created by the Gates Foundation and NIH with over 250 global experts, identifies 50 high-priority R&D areas that can drive real progress in women’s health if properly funded.
Building on progress to-date
The foundation’s 2025-2030 commitment builds on our work and progress over the last 25 years and is led by our Women’s Health Innovations team, a key part of our Gender Equality division that is anchored in women’s health. It leverages 25 years of foundational work in research and development to end preventable maternal and child deaths and lift millions out of poverty by 2045. The foundation has made significant strides in women’s health, with highlights in maternal health, nutrition, and next-generation contraceptives. Highlights include:
- Maternal health innovations like AI-enabled ultrasound, IV iron, and postpartum hemorrhage (PPH) solutions
- Advances in nutrition science, including gut microbiome tools and micronutrient supplements to address anemia and malnutrition
- Development of next-generation contraceptives, backed by upstream R&D to expand women’s options and autonomy
- Surveillance studies to better understand the burden of gestational diabetes and non-HIV Sexually Transmitted Infections
- Collaborations with the private sector to make products like injectable contraceptives more affordable
Investments at-a-glance
The foundation’s investments under this commitment have the potential to benefit all women but are specifically focused on addressing medical conditions and the barriers to care that disproportionately impact women living in low- and middle-income countries.
The below breakdowns are subject to minor change
Over 40 Women’s Health Innovations in Development
From discovery through early-stage product introduction, our funding includes upstream innovation, data and evidence generation, and advocacy to support uptake and systems change. Below is a sampling of these innovations in development.
Maternal Health and Obstetrics
- Postpartum hemorrhage (PPH) drape: A simple, low-cost drape that looks like a V-shaped plastic bag helps save lives by identifying when blood loss is dangerously excessive. It also has applications in the U.S., where leading institutions like the Mayo Clinic are shifting from visual estimates to more accurate drape-based measurement [Introducing to market/Product in market]
- Intravenous (IV) iron: A single infusion of IV iron in late pregnancy has been shown to reduce anemia—a risk factor for preeclampsia and postpartum hemorrhage—more effectively than daily tablets. [Introducing to market/Product in market]
- CPB-4888: Targets the root cause of preeclampsia by blocking excess sFlt1, a protein that drives the disease. Today, the only treatment for preeclampsia is early delivery—often at the risk of a baby’s survival or the mother’s health. This is one of the few preeclampsia innovations that specifically targets sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia’s high-burden contexts where care gaps are severe. Phase 2 clinical trials of the drug are expected to begin in 2027. [In Clinical Development]
- AI-enabled ultrasounds: New portable and affordable AI-powered ultrasounds that can be plugged into a mobile phone can identify and communicate potential dangers to mothers and babies by a trained health worker—even without a radiologist or obstetrician on-site. Our partnerships aim to bring these solutions to market over the next 2-3 years. [In Clinical Development]
Gut Health and Nutrition
- Maternal microbiome: Microbial therapeutics and new delivery platforms like gut-on-a-chip and transnasal introduction tubes strengthen the gut barrier and immune response. [Early R&D]
Contraception
- DMPA-SC: A self-injectable contraceptive. An increasing number of countries worldwide are adding DMPA-SC to their contraceptive method mix. More than 35 countries are scaling up self-injection, including Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Madagascar, Malawi, Nigeria, Senegal, Uganda, and Zambia. [Introducing to market/Product in market]
- Hormonal IUD: Placed directly into the uterus, this hormone-releasing IUD can prevent pregnancy for 6-8 years and it can also help to reduce heavy menstrual bleeding. Launch planning is targeting Kenya, Nigeria, and (potentially) India. Designed to provide an effective, affordable, and user-centered contraceptive option. [Introducing to market/Product in market]
- Micro-array patch: This novel contraceptive technology is a transdermal patch embedded with an array of drug-containing microneedles that offers women protection from pregnancy for up to 6 months. [In Clinical Development]
Gynecology/Menstrual health
- AI-enabled ultrasounds: In the early stages of examining use cases for diagnosing heavy menstrual bleeding (HMB) by detecting abnormal uterine bleeding— which impacts nearly half of all women in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia—as well as exploring uses for diagnosing cardiac and pulmonary conditions and breast cancer. [Early R&D]
- Vaginal Microbiome Research: The foundation is supporting a pan-African study looking at the vaginal microbiome among women in Africa to understand changes over a woman’s lifetime and susceptibility to bacterial vaginosis and other conditions. [Early R&D]
- Biological Mechanisms of Gynecological Health: The foundation is supporting the first study of endometriosis among African populations to shape more effective diagnostics and therapeutics. [Early R&D]
Sexually transmitted infections
- HIV/Syphilis Dual Rapid Diagnostic Test: A single test that simultaneously detects antibodies to both HIV and Treponema pallidum, the bacteria that causes syphilis. [Introducing to market/Product in market]
- Point-of-Care STI diagnostics: These diagnostic tests—for Neisseria gonorrhoeae (NG), Chlamydia trachomatis (CT), and Trichomonas vaginalis (TV) infections (often referred to as NG/CT/TV)—provide accessible, affordable, and accurate diagnostic tools for usage in lower-resourced settings. [In Clinical Development]
