In celebration of International Women’s Day 2023, Diversity UK in partnership with the Cambridge Academy of Therapeutic Sciences, and UK Chinese Women Connect Association (UKCWC) hosted a panel debate on ‘Investing in Women HealthTech Founders’.
The event held on Tuesday 14 March 2023 at Trinity College, University of Cambridge, discussed the barriers and challenges faced by female entrepreneurs with a range of expert speakers including Hanadi Jabado, Managing Partner at Sana Capital who is a start-up advisor, angel investor and non-executive who is passionate about entrepreneurship and innovation; Gita Khalili Moghaddam, CEO of TumourVue Ltd, which she co-founded in 2018 to address a pronounced unmet need in cancer surgery; Chung Looi, CEO of Ablatus, a medical device company that has developed a patented technology to enhance the destruction of soft tissues such as tumours and fibroids and Qun Yang, Co-founder & COO of Biorbyt, one of Europe’s largest bioscience hubs, providing antibodies, small molecules, ELISA kits and protein services to the global scientific community. Moderated by Lopa Patel MBE, Chair of Diversity UK and Founder of the Asians in Tech initiative, the topics discussed ranged from why is it so hard for women to attract funding to why equal opportunities are no longer enough – a key theme of International Women’s Day 2023.
Professor Christopher Lowe, who gave the welcome address at the event said “In the UK, only 1% of healthcare research funding and innovation is invested in women’s health beyond oncology. This gender gap is contributing to worse health outcomes for women overall. For example, it can take between 7-8 years to properly diagnose and treat endometriosis and the procedures themselves are painful and invasive whereas erectile dysfunction, which affects about 19% of men, is an area that is far more researched in comparison.
If we talk about women-led companies, only 2% of global investment funding goes to women-led ventures and only 0.64% goes to women of colour. The level of funding for women-led companies also dropped 30% between 2019-2020. More astonishingly, in the USA, only 3% of fundraising goes to digital device innovations despite the fact that women are 75% more likely to use digital gadgets.”
Caroline Reynolds, Senior Research Facilitator at the Cambridge Academy of Therapeutic Sciences (CATS), outlined the role it plays as a strategic research initiative at the University of Cambridge to address some of the challenges, acting as a bridge between research and industry to encourage the development of therapeutics, medtech, diagnostics and devices.
The event represented the third event in the ‘Investing in Women Founders’ series co-organised by equality charity, Diversity UK, in its bid to keep the spotlight on the extremely low levels of venture capital funding that women founders receive globally and highlight the challenges that innovators in healthtech face specifically; from the misunderstanding about women’s health, to biases in grant funding programmes and the lack of awareness of market access and growth pathways.
Investing in Women HealthTech Founders Tech Showcase
Attendees also heard healthtech showcases from Lucy Jung, CEO of Charco Neurotech, which has developed the CUE1, a non-invasive wearable device for Parkinson’s that uses vibrotactile stimulation to improve movement and Peony Li, Founder & CEO of Jude, a healthcare company on a mission to bring bladder care into the mainstream.
Qun Yang, Co-founder & COO of Biorbyt, one of Europe’s largest bioscience hubs and Chair of UKCWC, closed the evening by talking about the activities the association is undertaking to “connect and empower women to achieve greater impact. The Chinese community is very entrepreneurial so we are delighted to co-host this event to encourage more founders in HealthTech and all sectors. I want our members to remember that ‘representation matters, our voice matters’ ”.
International Women’s Day 2023
The IWD 2023 #EmbraceEquity campaign theme seeks to get the world talking about why “equal opportunities are no longer enough” – and can in fact be exclusionary, rather than inclusive.
About IWD2023 #EmbraceEquity
International Women’s Day 2023 campaign theme: #EmbraceEquity
Equity isn’t just a nice-to-have, it’s a must-have.
A focus on gender equity needs to be part of every society’s DNA.
And it’s critical to understand the difference between equity and equality.
The words equity and equality are often used interchangeably.
Etymologically, the root word they share is aequus, meaning “even” or “fair” or “equal” – which led to equity being from the Latin aequitas, and equality from aequalitas. Yet, despite these similarities, equity and equality are inherently different concepts, and the IWD 2023 #EmbraceEquity campaign theme seeks to get the world talking about why “equal opportunities are no longer enough” – and can in fact be exclusionary, rather than inclusive.
About the Cambridge Academy of Therapeutic Sciences
The Cambridge Academy of Therapeutic Sciences (CATS) is a strategic research initiative established to facilitate the development of new therapeutics and support the education and training of the next generation of world-leading researchers. We transcend traditional boundaries between disciplines and between academics and industrialists. CATS provides a unique outwardly-focused mechanism in which fundamental and applied research into therapeutics and diagnostics can flourish and be translated into patient treatments with maximum efficiency.
Working in partnership, we are creating and supporting a vibrant, connected community of scientists working to tackle research and policy challenges. CATS is also home to the Cambridge Alliance on Medicines Safety. This industry/academia partnership has been established to build an active academic research programme amongst University scientists whose work relates to safety of medicines, with strong links to pharmaceutical and human-safety related companies. For further information visit: https://www.ats.cam.ac.uk/
About Diversity UK
Diversity UK is a charity whose mission is to improve equality and inclusion in Britain. We do this by: informing and educating the public about equality and inclusion initiatives, particularly in relation to race diversity; holding public bodies to account about the appointment of ethnic minority individuals to senior positions in the public sector and by promoting greater diversity in the tech sector in Britain. In 2022, Diversity UK celebrated its tenth anniversary having achieved successes, including:
- Publishing a flagship ‘Beyond the Glass Ceiling’ Research Report in 2013.
- Participating in 4 Government Reviews.
- Representation in 4 Consultations including on Gender Pay Gap Reporting.
- Establishing the annual Paul Stephenson lecture on race equality.
- Supporting 150 industry events; organising 35 events; celebrating 12 IWD events & 2 Diversity Tech Summits.
Diversity UK is a registered charity (No: 1155189) in England & Wales. For further information, visit https://diversityuk.org/
About UKCWC
UKCWC (UK Chinese Women Connect Association) is a charity based in the UK (registration number: 1193654). We aim to bring women in the Chinese community together to reduce the sense of isolation and loneliness, as well as to achieve racial harmony. UKCWC has three main purposes:
Connect: UKCWC provides a social and support network open to all Chinese women in the UK.
Empower: We want to empower our members to be the best versions of themselves.
Impact: We want to have a positive impact on Chinese women, their families and society as a whole.
We achieve our goals by regularly organising online and offline social networking events. We also raise the awareness of the good works by other relevant charitable organisations. For further information, visit https://ukcwc.org/