McKinsey research into the benefits of closing the women's health gap

[GreenViolin]

McKinsey recently published some very interesting research into what it could mean to women's lives and the economy if the women's health gap was closed: mckinsey.com/mhi/our-insigh...

Of particular interest for endo is the chart in Exhibit 7 which shows that endo has a huge share of suffering caused by the disease yet next to no new treatments in the pipeline, as research tends to focus on diseases with high mortality rates (e.g. cancer), whilst overlooking diseases which lead to disability. They don't suggest cancer funding should be cut (I'm certainly grateful to be alive thanks to the treatments available when I had non-Hodgkins lymphoma as my endo wouldn't exactly be an issue now if I was dead), but that additional funding needs to be found to look at those diseases that largely get ignored.

This was also interesting: "Addressing sex-specific conditions can pay off. For example, the debut of Viagra for erectile dysfunction, which affected an estimated 152 million men in 1995, generated $400 million in sales revenue within its first three months in the US market in 1998.75 By 2012, worldwide sales hit a record $2.1 billion.76 Globally, given the similar prevalence and high unmet need for conditions such as endometriosis and menopause, there is enormous potential for innovative treatments". In other words, as well as helping those of us struggling with the daily burden of endo, there is a huge amount of money to be made from developing effective treatments which ultimately supports the economy.