Factory Capital launches women’s health institute InAWH, backed by $25M investment commitment
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA, June 5, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- A former banking executive and current Partner at private investment firm Factory Capital expects to invest in excess of $25 million to build businesses targeting the largely untapped US$120 to 350 billion potential global market for peri- and post-menopause (“midlife”) interventions.
To help unlock the sector, Factory Capital and Anna Samuelsson, the head of its women’s health initiative, launched the Institute Advancing Women’s Health (InAWH) after years of research and firsthand experiences revealed women’s midlife health symptoms were too often being missed, dismissed, or misdiagnosed. The nonprofit is designed to strengthen the clinical infrastructure, education, and care models needed to make women’s midlife health a scalable healthcare category.
It is intended that the $25 million will be spent on strategic investments across the business and the Institute.
The move constitutes Australia’s first example of a corporate holding company or PE firm creating nonprofit clinical infrastructure to help build an investable category, rather than waiting for the market to mature on its own.
InAWH (pronounced “in awe”) will convene multidisciplinary clinical expertise to translate credible evidence into practical tools, care pathways, and clinician education to help deliver more effective, evidence-based midlife care to women.
In doing so, it will be focusing on a segment where existing treatments are few, developed in specialist siloes, and routinely ignore the integrated nature of the issues women face.
The result of this is that women are left without consistent clinical pathways and investors without scalable models, which is where Samuelsson saw the opportunity.
The United States was chosen as launch headquarters to instantly build global positioning while still retaining Australian origins and reach, and to build in ready access to critical US philanthropic, medical, research, and investment networks.
Some of InAWH’s founding Medical Advisory Board even came out of official retirement to tackle what they are calling “the wicked problem of women’s midlife medical neglect”, citing that after a lifetime of seeing women’s health treated as “niche”, attitudes now appear to be shifting.
Samuelsson and Factory Capital have brought together a powerhouse board including former Gates Foundation COO and general counsel Connie Collingsworth as Chair, and former Merck Serono R&D chief, Dr Annalisa Jenkins OBE as Non-Executive Director.
Newly-appointed global CEO Paula Schneider will lead alongside world-class specialists in cardiology, endocrinology, obstetrics, gynaecology, neurology, genomics and bio statistics hailing from Yale, Oxford, UNSW, and the International Menopause Society.
This includes John Eden, Conjoint Associate Professor of Reproductive Endocrinology at UNSW, with The Hon. Bronnie Taylor, former NSW Minister for Women who helped secure $45 million for specialist menopause services, consulting to Factory Capital on the project.
Factory Capital is the founder and initial funder of InAWH in recognition of the increasingly clear economic opportunity, with predictions that closing the women’s health gap more broadly could add US$1+ trillion to the global economy every year until 2040.
Research by Macquarie University also shows that midlife issues could cost Australian women up to $17 billion in lost earnings and retirement savings, suggesting an enormous market with untapped demand.
The neglect of women’s health is therefore not just an ethical or social justice issue, according to Samuelsson, but a massive economic, investment, and national productivity opportunity.
Anna Samuelsson, founder of InAWH and partner at Factory Capital, said: “Women’s midlife health symptoms are too often still being treated as marginal, imagined, or simply something to be endured, despite impacting roughly half of the population.
“As a result, women are being forced to turn into medical detectives to identify their own ailments, then are arming themselves to the teeth with evidence so they can fight their doctors for the appropriate treatment. It’s a wicked problem that sits across clinical care, research, education, and investment.
“There is also a major economic failure here with millions - or even billions - of dollars being left on the table. So not only am I motivated to solve these issues so women can access better care, but there is a serious investment argument sitting within this chronically overlooked market.”
Connie Collingsworth, chair of InAWH and former chief operating officer and general counsel of the Gates Foundation, said: “The health of mid-life women has been systemically ignored and deprioritized across the globe, resulting in glaring gaps in knowledge, training, and care. The mission of InAWH is to provide training, collaborate across disciplines, and create global cross-sector partnerships to ensure women receive advice and care based on the most current medical evidence available.”.
Bronnie Taylor, former NSW Minister for Women and former NSW Minister for Regional Health, said: “Australia has finally begun to recognise menopause as a serious workforce and health system issue, but recognition alone is not enough. Women need services, clinicians need practical tools, and health systems need models that can reach women before symptoms force them out of work or out of care.”
John Eden, conjoint professor of Reproductive Endocrinology at UNSW, said: “Women in midlife often present with symptoms that cross multiple specialties, but the healthcare system is still organised in silos. The opportunity for InAWH is to bring that expertise together and translate it into practical guidance clinicians can use.”
Kim Smith
InAWH
inawh@thirdhemisphere.agency
Legal Disclaimer:
EIN Presswire provides this news content "as is" without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the author above.
