Maneesha Ghiya is Managing Partner and Founder of FemHealth Ventures, a firm focused on providing investment capital to entrepreneurs focused on women’s health. Investing in healthcare since 2000, Maneesha has invested via public equities, private equities and as a hedge fund specialist.  She is a Senior Advisor to ExSight Ventures, an ophthalmology-focused venture capital fund and serves on multiple boards.

Our conversation starts with Maneesha’s background and her early interest in the intersection of healthcare, engineering and business.  We then move to the personal experience when delivering her child that catalyzed her interest in FemHealth and the venture fund that she founded with this as its focus.  There is a startling disparity in funding, awareness and the profile attached to female health issues and we list some of these – the lack of participation by women in drug trials, the low level of research dollars applied to health conditions that traditionally affect women and the low level of knowledge regarding disparities in how certain illnesses – e.g. cardiac arrest – present.

Maneesha lists some of the innovative solutions being sourced to solve some of these problems and what kind of commercial potential they could have.

This series is being supported by an anonymous supporter and we are using our traditional sponsor slots to shine a light on organizations that promote diversity in medicine.  These include

The Doctors Back to School Program through the American Medical Association which sends minority physicians and minority medical students into schools in underserved communities as a way to introduce children to minority medical role models.  Contact dbts@ama-assn.org for more information on the Doctors Back to School program. https://www.ama-assn.org/member-groups-sections/minority-affairs/doctors-back-school-program

GLMA is a national organization committed to ensuring health equity for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (LGBTQ) and all sexual and gender minority (SGM) individuals, and equality for LGBTQ/SGM health professionals in their work and learning environments.  To achieve this mission, GLMA utilizes the scientific expertise of its diverse multidisciplinary membership to inform and drive advocacy, education, and research. https://www.glma.org/index.cfm?nodeid=1

The American Medical Women’s Association is focused on supporting and retaining women in healthcare through promoting gender equity in medicine.    https://www.amwa-doc.org/our-work/initiatives/gender-equity-task-force/invest-in-her/

The National Orthopaedic Alliance and international Orthopaedic Diversity Alliance. https://www.orthopaedicdiversity.org/