Ahead of Women’s Health Week Europe in London, industry leaders are challenging how the global healthcare ecosystem values women’s health. Wellness perks are usually where the initiatives start, but unfortunately in many cases it is also where they end. And that is not enough to adequately serve women employees.
We spoke to Ravit Warsha Dor, Partner & Director at TELUS Global Ventures, to understand how the women’s health industry can help employers build policies and programmes that truly support women’s health necessities - backed by data.
Q: As decision-makers gather in London for Women’s Health Week Europe, what is the single biggest misconception enterprise leaders still hold about women’s healthcare?
The most pervasive misconception is that "women’s health" starts and stops with reproductive care. Over the last decade, corporate health strategies have made progress by adding fertility benefits, parental leave policies, and early-stage menopause support. While these investments are vital, treating female health strictly as a series of reproductive milestones leaves out a massive piece of the overall health picture: female-dominated chronic illness.
A female-dominated condition is any illness that disproportionately affects women in terms of prevalence, severity, or diagnostic delay. We are talking about autoimmune diseases, chronic pain, migraines, irritable bowel syndrome, depression, and cardiovascular conditions. Historically, these areas have rarely carried a "women’s health" label in executive boardrooms or venture capital circles. Yet, they represent the single largest unmanaged cost driver for employers globally.
If enterprise benefits only cover reproductive health, companies are leaving their most significant workforce health risks completely unaddressed.
Q: What does the data tell us about how these chronic conditions impact female employees and employer productivity?
The metrics highlight clear disparities in health outcomes and workplace absence.
TELUS Health global dataset analysis, spanning thousands of employees across the UK, US, Europe, and Asia-Pacific, demonstrates that women experience higher rates of chronic conditions than men, particularly across mental health, migraines, and autoimmune disorders.
Source: Global workforce absence study across chronic conditions (TELUS Health)
Across every single chronic condition category, women record higher yearly absence rates than men. For instance, female employees lose double the workdays to musculoskeletal and chronic pain conditions compared to their male peers. This isn't just an abstract clinical gap, it is a direct productivity loss and a silent driver of talent burnout.
Q: Why have these chronic conditions hit female populations so much harder, and how does precision medicine fit into the solution?
The root cause stems from clinical history. For decades, clinical research and diagnostic baselines relied predominantly on male data. As a result, women face systemic diagnostic delays and treatments that fail to account for female biology. A drug or care protocol designed around a steady male baseline often performs differently when applied to dynamic hormonal variations across a woman’s life stage or cycle.
This is where precision medicine changes the paradigm. We are moving past one-size-fits-all population norms toward dynamic, personalized feedback loops.
By integrating modern diagnostic technology, such as genomic markers, continuous biomarker tracking, and AI-driven clinical decision tools, care models can account for cycle-related physiological shifts, immune variations, and real-world patient-reported data. Precision care turns what used to be reactive symptom management into proactive, tailored health preservation.
Q: How should digital health founders and venture investors adapt their strategies to capitalize on this shift?
Founders and investors must reframe what it means to build a digital health business. Women make approximately 80% of all household healthcare decisions. They act as the primary health gatekeepers for themselves, their partners, their children, and aging parents.
Point solutions built exclusively around short-term, niche use cases often struggle to scale or show sustainable enterprise ROI. To succeed, innovators must build comprehensive platforms that:
• Address multi-condition comorbidities (e.g., managing autoimmune flares and co-occurring mental health together).
• Integrate smoothly into existing payer, provider, and EMR workflows rather than operating as isolated silos.
• Demonstrate cost offsets directly to self-insured employers through reduced absenteeism, improved retention, and lower overall claims.
When founders design with gender-informed data, they create more effective tools for everyone while accessing multi-billion-dollar global markets.
Q: Where does TELUS fit into this evolving ecosystem as both an investor and a global commercial partner?
TELUS occupies a unique vantage point across global healthcare. Through TELUS Global Ventures, the focus is on investing in precision diagnostics, AI health infrastructure, and scalable chronic care platforms designed to close long-standing clinical data gaps.
However, capital alone isn't enough. TELUS Health operates across employer wellness, payer insurance, and primary care provider channels globally. This multi-channel distribution allows TELUS to act as a commercial engine for health tech innovators. By plugging precision digital health tools directly into global employer channels, solutions can move from pilot projects to enterprise-wide scale.
Looking Forward to Women’s Health Week Europe
Closing the gender health gap is more than a social advocacy issue - it is a strategic imperative, both to retain talent and to sustain long-term growth. Global business leaders, insurers, and founders have a clear responsibility: to move beyond generic wellbeing perks and build an enterprise health ecosystem rooted in precision care, equitable data, and long-term lifespan health.
TELUS Global Ventures is a proud sponsor of Women's Health Week Europe, looking to meet with innovators in this space. If that’s you, grab your ticket to meet them at the Emirates Stadium, London, on 7-8 October and register for WHW Europe below.
