2025 Year in Review

2025 made one thing unmistakably clear: women’s health is at an inflection point. The NIH was never positioned to close the gaps in women’s health research, but this year’s budget cuts led to a dramatic decline in research funding and a new urgency for private-sector leadership. 

In 2025, we met every grant-making target we set and the research we funded is already - after only 6 months - making huge impact. Our grantees identified genetic mutations in 17 preeclampsia patients, used AI to identify endometriosis 2.5 years before a doctor's diagnosis, and discovered androgens in PCOS patients that predict future cardiovascular disease.

In 2026, our goal is to double our grants and double our impact. We have already raised enough to fund six grants, and with your support we can reach 10 by year-end. Every dollar raised will be disbursed directly to researchers in March—fueling discoveries that can start immediately.

We cannot thank you enough for helping us launch. This moment demands bold action, and we are ready to meet it. Our mission is resonating, our model is working, and the demand for what we do has never been higher.

A Brand New Pace of Research

What sets us apart is simple: shorter grant-making processes, grantees selected by the nation’s leading experts, resulting in highly targeted grants to world-class scientists working in the most underfunded areas of women’s health.

Within just 6 months and at $200,000 per grant, the interim results from our five 2025 grantees are phenomenal:

• Dr. Java identified genetic mutations in 17 preeclampsia patients.

• Dr. Elhadad used AI to identify endometriosis patients 2.5 years in advance of a diagnosis by a doctor.

• Dr. Kim discovered androgens in PCOS patients that are predictive of cardiovascular disease.

This is what happens when talented scientists get the funding they need without multi-year processes and delays. This is private-sector research operating at the speed women deserve.

In 2025, we also deepened partnerships with industry leaders to build a venture-philanthropy pathway that accelerates translation of findings into diagnostics, treatments, and products. This work will position FWH as a critical bridge between early discovery and real-world impact.

Thought Leadership & Influence

In just our second year, FWH emerged as a leading voice shaping the future of women’s health research. Founder and Executive Director Katy Brodsky Falco shared our work on some of the most influential stages in philanthropy, science, and innovation—including Women Moving Millions’ Annual Summit, Cure’s X-Factor Healthcare Innovation Summit, Iconiq Capital’s Women’s Health Co-Lab launch, and Ellevate Network’s Annual Summit.

FWH became an inaugural member of the Milken Women’s Health Network, led by First Lady Dr. Jill Biden, and Katy represented FWH at Clinton Global Initiative. Our work has been featured in Bloomberg News, The New York Times, CNN, and Fast Politics with Molly Jong-Fast. And we launched our first public-facing partnership—with Oscar-winning actress Lupita Nyong’o—to accelerate research on uterine fibroids.

2026 Grant Applications increased 500%- Leading Institutions are Looking to Us

In 2025, the NIH cuts didn’t just shrink available dollars—they destabilized entire pipelines of research. And scientists responded.

Proposals to FWH for 2026 Grants increased 500% from the year prior. 

Even more telling: Applications came from the most historically well-funded institutions in the country—Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Chicago, Duke, UCLA, and Magee Women’s Health Institute, among many others.

This is both a profound validation of our model and a warning about the urgency of the moment. The world's leading researchers are turning to a private research fund because the traditional system can no longer meet their needs, and it our duty to provide the level of funding we all deserve.