Senior executives from the World Economic Forum, Takeda and Gilead are among the latest speakers confirmed for Women’s HealthX, which takes place on 3–4 December 2026 in Boston, Massachusetts, as the event publishes its full agenda.

The newly announced speakers are Melissa Patel, lead for women’s health responsible investing at the World Economic Forum; Nicola Greenway, chief human resources officer at Takeda; and Jyoti Mehra, executive vice president of human resources at Gilead. They join more than 75 confirmed speakers and a delegate list the organisers say will exceed 750 leaders from pharma and biotech, hospitals and health systems, payers and policymakers, all focused on closing the sex-difference data gap in healthcare.

Organisations registered to attend span much of the sector. In pharma and biotech they include Novartis, Merck, Sanofi, AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, Bayer, Biogen, Johnson & Johnson, Gilead Sciences, Takeda, UCB, Astellas, EMD Serono, Amgen, Bristol Myers Squibb, Boehringer Ingelheim and Chiesi.

Among hospitals, health systems and academic medical centres are Mayo Clinic, Mass General Brigham, Northwell Health, UPMC, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Weill Cornell Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Northwestern Medicine, Mount Sinai Health System, UMass Memorial Medical Center, Tufts Medical Center, Yale School of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, University of Pennsylvania Health System and NYU Langone Health.

Payers and health plans represented include CVS Health, Humana, Cigna Healthcare, Kaiser Permanente, Elevance Health, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Evernorth, Fidelis Care, Health Plans Inc and UPMC Health Plan. On the government, policy and regulatory side, attendees include the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, ARPA-H, the FDA, HHS, the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Metro Public Health Department, the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, the NHS, the Northern Mariana Islands Board of Nursing and Planned Parenthood of Florida. A sample attendee list is available here.

Newly confirmed panels

Patel will join Sheri Schully, deputy chief medical and scientific officer at the All of Us Research Program, and Lindsey Miltenberger, chief advocacy officer at the Society for Women’s Health Research, for a panel titled “Driving Inclusive Health Research on a Global Scale: Using Data to Understand National Priorities and Address Critical Gaps in Women’s Health.” The session will look at the health priorities countries are focusing on today and how data can be used to identify gaps in women’s health that remain overlooked.

Greenway and Mehra will take part in a panel titled “Empowering Workforces Through Women’s Health,” in which corporate health leaders discuss women’s health priorities from both employee and employer perspectives, and which benefits organisations should be prioritising.

The full agenda is now available, and registration is open.

Impli has secured a £1.4m grant to begin clinical use of a real-time hormone patch for infertility treatment.

The startup, which is working with innovations from Imperial College London, is developing a continuous hormone monitoring system for use in in vitro fertilisation, known as IVF.

IVF is a fertility treatment in which eggs are fertilised outside the body before an embryo is transferred to the womb.

Timing is critical in IVF, the most common form of infertility treatment, but most patients are still monitored through blood tests taken every other day at best.

Hormone levels can change within hours, meaning important shifts may be missed.

These can include hormone surges linked to egg release, dips that may contribute to implantation failure and early signs of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome.

Ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome is a potentially serious reaction to fertility medicines, where the ovaries over-respond and become swollen.

In a treatment with low success rates, these uncertainties can affect patient outcomes and wellbeing.

Impli’s system is based on research by Dr Salzitsa Anastasova in the department of mechanical engineering at Imperial.

The technology uses electrochemical biosensors to sample hormones in the fluid between cells.

These can be used in a subcutaneous implant, meaning one placed under the skin, or in Impli’s Bio-Endocrine Analysis Monitor, known as BEAM, which uses microneedles that pierce the skin.

Microneedles are tiny needles designed to enter the upper layers of the skin with minimal discomfort.

The biosensors continuously measure oestradiol, luteinising hormone and progesterone, which are hormones involved in the menstrual cycle and fertility treatment.

Data is transmitted wirelessly to a smartphone, where AI software converts raw signals into real-time hormone trends.

Sotirios Saravelos, consultant gynaecologist and reproductive medicine subspecialist at the Wolfson Fertility Centre, part of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, said:

“Continuous hormone monitoring has the potential to change the landscape of fertility treatment, both in terms of clinical care and patient experience. Rather than snapshots taken at fixed points in time, with Impli we will have access to a live feed of each patient’s hormonal response, allowing us to personalise care in a way that has not been possible before.”

Saravelos is part of the research consortium that has won a £1.4m grant to take Impli’s BEAM device from prototype to its first human clinical validation for IVF.

The project was designed with support from Dr Simon Hanassab as part of a PhD on how AI can support decision making for IVF.

The work was carried out at the UKRI Centre for Doctoral Training in AI for Healthcare at Imperial, a collaboration between the department of computing and the department of metabolism, digestion and reproduction.

Hanassab is now working part-time as Impli’s head of AI.

The grant comes from the National Institute for Health and Care Research Invention for Innovation programme.

It will support a 30-month project bringing together Impli, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, the London Institute for Healthcare Engineering at King’s College London and the patient advocacy network Fertility Europe.

Specialist medical device manufacturer TTP is also involved.

BEAM is the first step in Impli’s plan to develop a broader platform of fully implantable, long-duration monitoring systems.

Anna Luisa Schaffgotsch, founder and chief executive of Impli, said:

“We are not just building a device, we are building the evidence base to show that continuous hormone monitoring is possible, clinically meaningful and ready for the real world. With an exceptional consortium behind us, we now have the funding, the expertise and the clinical pathway to do that properly.”

According to the company, the same core technology could later have applications in hormonally driven cancers, polycystic ovary syndrome, endometriosis and menopause.

Polycystic ovary syndrome is a common hormonal condition that can affect periods, fertility and metabolism.

Endometriosis is a condition where tissue similar to the lining of the womb grows outside the uterus, often causing pain.

BEAM’s development builds on more than 15 years of biosensor research at Imperial, with intellectual property covering the sensing approach, device architecture and data interfaces.

Impli has so far delivered three functional prototypes, completed pre-clinical laboratory trials and begun animal trials, which the company said have shown positive results.

It also has a strategic partnership with Bayer on real-time hormone biosensing and relationships with IVF clinics internationally.

Spain will triple annual women’s health research funding to €18m under a programme focused on discrimination in medical research.

Spain’s Ministry of Science will increase investment in research and development projects focused on women’s health to €18m a year.

The initiative was announced on Monday by prime minister Pedro Sánchez during the presentation of Somos. Contamos: Fin de la discriminación de las mujeres en la investigación de la salud, which translates as We Are. We Count: Ending Discrimination Against Women in Health Research.

Sánchez said:

“This will boost research, diagnosis and treatment in areas that affect the lives of thousands of women in our country, who have not received the necessary attention.”

The plan is divided into three main areas.

These include a specific mission on women’s health through the centre for technological development and innovation, which will support companies and research centres working on research and development projects.

It also includes a new funding line for the Carlos III health institute and measures to build the research workforce in the field, including predoctoral contracts for projects focused on women’s health.

Sánchez said conditions such as endometriosis reflected discrimination faced by women in healthcare.

Endometriosis is a condition where tissue similar to the lining of the womb grows outside the uterus, often causing severe pain and, in some cases, fertility problems.

The prime minister said the condition affects one in seven women and can take a decade to diagnose.

He said:

“This cannot be allowed in Spain today.”

Sánchez added:

“If a disease affected one in seven men, causing chronic pain, difficulty working, and fertility problems, would we accept a decade-long delay in diagnosis? The answer is obvious: certainly not. So it’s high time we said ‘no’ with the same clarity when we talk about diseases that affect millions of women.”

Other diseases where diagnosis and treatment suffer from a lack of a gender perspective include chronic pain, autoimmune and thyroid diseases, cardiovascular and mental health conditions, menopause and hormonal imbalances.

Autoimmune diseases occur when the immune system mistakenly attacks the body, while thyroid diseases affect a gland in the neck that helps regulate metabolism, energy and hormones.

Sánchez said:

“There can be no equality while science continues to respond better to some lives than to others.”

The prime minister also addressed the delay in diagnosing women.

He said:

“It is a paradox that says a lot about our past, that challenges our present, but that also drives us to change the future, including through politics.”