Gates Foundation money fills gap in women’s health

McKinsey found that female-specific conditions like endometriosis (severe pelvic pain) and menopause are underrecognized and under-researched relative to the disability they cause.

That’s why the Gates Foundation’s announcement of $2.5 billion in investments through 2030 for women’s health — made Monday at a STAT event in Cambridge — is welcome news. (STAT shares a parent company with The Boston Globe, and Globe publisher Linda Henry introduced the event.)

The investment will fund research and development in maternal and obstetrical care to make pregnancy and childbirth safer, gynecological care and menstrual health, contraception, nutrition, and treatment of sexually transmitted infections.

The Gates Foundation has a history of investing in areas that don’t draw market-based or government funding. Its goal is to turn basic scientific research into cost-effective products that can be sold worldwide, particularly in lower-income countries.

For example, at the STAT event, foundation founder Bill Gates showed off a plastic drape attached to a container with measuring marks that can be placed on the table where a woman is giving birth and used to measure blood loss. Postpartum hemorrhage can kill birthing women, and Gates said the $1 item can help health care providers identify dangerous blood loss, so treatment can be given sooner.

On the other end of the technological spectrum, Gates highlighted an artificial intelligence-powered ultrasound, currently being tested by Philips, that can send information to a health worker’s cellphone about whether a pregnancy is high-risk. The goal is to make it easier for midwives in areas without ultrasound technicians to take an ultrasound, interpret the results, and send women with high-risk pregnancies for more advanced care.

The good news for Massachusetts is the state’s strong biotech ecosystem means some ideas funded by the Gates Foundation will be researched and developed here.

For example, Giovanni Traverso, director of the Laboratory for Translational Engineering at MIT, received money to develop a transdermal patch that could provide women with long-term contraception. The lab is also developing probiotic medications to treat abnormalities in the vaginal microbiome, a condition associated with risks including painful infection and premature birth.

Traverso said the foundation invests in high-risk, early-stage research that few commercial investors will back, then focuses on developing cost-effective products. “The foundation again and again has been willing to take risks recognizing many things we do don’t work. But if a few do, they could have a big impact,” Traverso said.

Scott Johnson, CEO of Concord-based Comanche Biopharma, is trying to develop the first drug to treat preeclampsia (high blood pressure during pregnancy). If the drug is approved, Johnson said the Gates Foundation will help distribute it in low-income countries. The foundation gave Comanche Biopharma money to improve the chemical manufacturing process and package the drug in a prefilled syringe, making it cheaper and simpler to deliver.

Johnson hopes after initial trials in wealthier countries, Gates Foundation funding and expertise will help the company do clinical trials in Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa, with an eye toward getting the drug approved and distributed in areas where sales wouldn’t otherwise be economically viable.

Other Massachusetts grantees include researchers at Beth Israel Lahey Health, Mass General Brigham, Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard University, Fenway Health, Tufts University, and UMass Chan Medical School.

Rasa Izadnegahdar, director of maternal, newborn, child nutrition and health for the Gates Foundation, said the goal is to catalyze private-sector investment in an area of health research with global applicability that has never had sustained funding.

“It’s a high return-on-investment area,” Izadnegahdar said. “That could be economic, societal, or from the lens of survival, including in low- and middle-income country settings. When you invest in improving the life of a woman, you’re substantially increasing the opportunity of survival for her children, and it has an impact on the community.”

Especially as the federal government cuts support for scientific research, Gates’s investment highlights the good that can be done by private philanthropy filling the gap.

Editorials represent the views of the Boston Globe Editorial Board. Follow us @GlobeOpinion.