Melinda French Gates Commits $215 Million to Pivotal as Women's Health Funding Hits $600 Million
Updated
Updated · TIME · Jun 4
Melinda French Gates Commits $215 Million to Pivotal as Women's Health Funding Hits $600 Million
3 articles · Updated · TIME · Jun 4
Summary
$215 million in new funding will flow through Pivotal for women’s reproductive and midlife health, expanding Melinda French Gates’ women’s health commitments to $600 million over two years.
French Gates said the money targets areas long under-researched and underfunded, especially perimenopause and menopause, where she sees major gaps in scientific evidence, treatment tools and provider training.
Pivotal plans to work with the Menopause Society to push accurate guidance and training into more ob-gyn residencies, primary-care programs and nursing channels so care reaches beyond women with elite access.
She also tied the push to broader failures in reproductive and maternal care, arguing the post-Dobbs landscape has added confusion for patients and doctors while philanthropy cannot replace government health funding.
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How Melinda French Gates’ $590 Million Investment Is Revolutionizing Women’s Health and Menopause Research
Overview
Melinda French Gates is driving a major shift in women’s health by launching significant philanthropic investments in 2025 and 2026. Her efforts respond to the critical underfunding of women’s health research, which received only 5% of global R&D funding in 2020 and has mostly focused on fertility and cancers, leaving many conditions neglected. By closing these investment gaps, there is potential to boost the global economy by $1 trillion annually by 2040. Gates’ funding aims to address chronic health issues that sideline women, leading to lost productivity and creativity, and to spark breakthroughs that benefit women worldwide.