Driving Innovation and Empowerment to Improve Women’s Health – that was the headline for a seminar held by Hologic and Medicon Valley Alliance on the 18th of April.
The event took place in Copenhagen and was attended by prominent speakers from Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. In their welcoming addresses, Katrine Brems Olsen of Medicon Valley Alliance underscored the importance of collaborative efforts to elevate women’s health, while Bjarne Schreiner, Nordic Regional Business Manager at Hologic Diagnostics, emphasized the company’s commitment to global advocacy for women’s health through early detection and treatment.
Marie Emilsson and Hologic therefore urge politicians to make women’s health a priority by establishing an EU Women’s Health Strategy.”
To give an overview of the health situation for women, Marie Emilsson, Senior Manager Market Access at Hologic, presented year 3 data from the Global Women’s Health index. The conclusion was that the Nordic countries score quite low, and that overall progress is lacking. Emilsson and Hologic therefore urge politicians to make women’s health a priority by establishing an EU Women’s Health Strategy.
Lack of sex-specific data
Nora Mork Østbø from the Norwegian Ministry of Health and Care Services held a presentation titled “Advancing Women’s Health: Embracing sex-specific Medicine through Policy Changes”. She stressed the lack of sex-specific data and limited understanding of how sex affects disease and health outcomes, something that requires more and better research on women.
Lærke Priskorn, reproductive epidemiologist at Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen and active in the ReproUnion collaboration, talked about how infertility rates have increased worldwide. She summarized by pointing out that women carry the treatment burden even if the problem is impaired semen quality, which means that male problems must be understood to reduce the burden on women.
Sophia Zackrisson explained some of the great opportunities AI presents, for instance improved breast cancer detection, more sensitive methods including 3D mammograms, and reduced workload for radiologists.”
The next speaker was Sophia Zackrisson, professor of Diagnostic Radiology and Senior Consultant Radiologist at Skåne University Hospital in Malmö. The topic of her presentation was “AI and Advanced Imaging Techniques for Early Detection of Breast Cancer”. Although breast cancer screening is a success story, today’s technology still misses many cases. Zackrisson explained some of the great opportunities AI presents, for instance improved breast cancer detection, more sensitive methods including 3D mammograms, and reduced workload for radiologists.
Business potential
The final speaker was medical doctor Kia Lampi, specialized in obstetrics and gynaecology, and co-founder of FemTech startup Sisko. She talked about “The Role of Digital Innovations in Management of Women’s Specific Conditions”.
Lampi underlined that healthcare is designed by men for men, but that innovation can be helpful to gather data, impact on better research and deliver better care for women. “Women’s health is a good investment for society and there is a lot of business potential,” Lampi said.
Women’s health should be higher on the political agenda
To round up the seminar, a panel of Danish and Swedish policymakers at regional, national and EU level were invited to the stage for a discussion on the awareness of women’s health and how innovations can be transformed into policy and practice.
“We are aware of the challenges facing women’s health and have allocated EUR 29 million in the research reserve to strengthened clinical and independent research into women’s diseases,” said Preben Friis-Hauge, Member of Folketinget (the Danish Parliament) and its Health Committee (Denmark).
All four politicians and the audience agreed that women’s health should be higher on the political agenda. Obstacles that were mentioned are that men’s health is still taken more seriously than women’s health and that some women’s issues still are taboo to talk about. “Some people think it’s a joke when women raise specific health concerns, but it’s not,” Lars Gaardhøj, Chairman of the Council and of the Executive Committee, Region Hovedstaden (Denmark), emphasized.
We must do it together.”
There was also agreement about men having a lot of power and need to be a part of the solution. “We must do it together,” said Carina Ohlsson, Member of the European Parliament, Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality (Sweden).
“We have to act and not just keep talking. It is very interesting to see what the future holds,” added Maria Berglund, Chair of the Skåne University Hospital Board, Member of the Skåne Regional Council (Sweden).
Featured photo of Lars Gaardhøj, Maria Berglund, Carina Ohlsson, and Preben Friis-Hauge: Tomas Enqvist
