What if the medicines we develop aren’t designed with everyone in mind?

For decades, women have been underrepresented across different stages of healthcare research. From the cells and animal models used in preclinical research, through to clinical trials and the development of medicines, women’s biology has not always been adequately considered.

For women, this can have real consequences.

Women are more likely to die following a heart attack than men. Women can experience different symptoms, disease progression and treatment responses, and sex differences can influence how medicines are metabolised and how patients respond to them.

And these aren’t just issues for clinicians or researchers working specifically in women’s health. They are drug discovery questions.

To quote Dr Stacy Sims: “Women are not small men”.

If biological sex can influence disease biology, drug metabolism, efficacy and safety, then shouldn’t we be considering these differences much earlier in the research and development pipeline?

This is one of the reasons we wanted to dedicate ELRIG’s Scottish Forum to advancing drug discovery in women’s health research.

Women’s health is more than reproductive health

When we hear “women’s health”, it is easy to think first about reproductive health, fertility, pregnancy or menopause. These are hugely important areas, but women’s health extends far beyond them.

Sex differences are relevant across oncology, cardiovascular disease and metabolic disease.

For those working in drug discovery, this raises important questions:

Are we considering sex differences in disease biology?

Are our preclinical studies designed to identify meaningful differences?

Are women adequately represented in clinical research?

And are we analysing our data in a way that allows us to see where women and men may respond differently?

Why ELRIG?

This is where we believe ELRIG’s Scottish Forum can play a role.

We want to bring together leading scientists, researchers and industry experts across the full spectrum of women’s health.

We want the forum to be a space for discussion, collaboration and learning – but also for challenging some of the assumptions that have shaped how we conduct research.

Because advancing women’s health isn’t simply about developing more treatments specifically for women.

It’s about asking better questions, designing better research and developing medicines that work for the people who ultimately need them.

We hope you’ll join us as we explore what the future of women’s health research and drug discovery could look like – and, importantly, what role we can all play in shaping it.