In 2025, we saw significant investments in women’s health. Pivotal Ventures and Wellcome Leap committed $100 million toward women’s health research and development. The Menopause Society announced a $10 million initiative to train a new cohort of practitioners in menopause care and the realities of midlife women’s health. In the tech world, MIT launched the Female Medicine through Machine Learning (FMML) initiative to deploy AI-driven tools for the discovery, detection, and delivery of women’s health care.

As we head into 2026, these investments aren’t just symbolic of progress. They will influence the scope of what is possible in women’s health. With rapid transformations in digital health solutions, research and development, and AI, 2026 is poised to deliver tangible results that move the needle on equitable care for women — particularly in personalization, access, and ease. Alongside clinical developments, this year’s Flow Forecast is also shaped by growing advocacy and a massive push from women seeking to play a larger role in their health. It’s especially important as more researchers tout the power of prevention. 

For one, women’s health care is becoming more consumer-focused, and more women are seeking care in nontraditional settings as the line between health and wellness blurs. Others are eager to get more data on their health through wearable tracking and lifestyle monitoring — especially as the midlife window has become a critical time to optimize not only physical health but also brain health. “Real progress depends on having women directly involved in the ideation and innovation process,” Dr. Eugenia Alleva, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Health at Mount Sinai and the Windreich Department of AI and Human Health at the Icahn School of Medicine, tells Flow Space. “When women help shape the questions and the solutions, the work is much more likely to be relevant and genuinely useful.” 

From product innovations to novel AI-driven initiatives, this is the Flow Forecast: seven trends we predict will drive women’s health in 2026.

Med spas, which offer a hybrid of spa treatments and medical aesthetic treatments from a provider, will dominate the marketplace in 2026 as part of a continuing trend. According to the American Med Spa Association, the number of med spas in America has increased from about 1,500 to 10,000 between 2010 and 2023. This is emblematic of a larger move away from traditional doctors’ offices, and unsurprisingly, women are the ones accelerating the shift, pushing to decentralize a health care system that’s historically dismissed them. And it doesn’t hurt that spa and wellness hubs are aesthetically enticing entry points that feel comfortable, not clinical.

Beyond the spa, optimizing health span — how long you live in good health — has become the central ethos of many wellness and longevity clinics offering health services in gyms, malls, and hotels. Biomarker testing, a more enticing rebrand of health labs, has grown in step with these offerings that aim to use health data to provide personal lifestyle recommendations before you get sick. Some longevity clinics and precision medicine companies integrate primary care physicians, nutritionists, and obesity medicine experts in a single facility.

 While outside health hubs and spas cannot replace the necessary age-related screenings, they have become more enticing as destinations for primary, preventive, and aesthetic care. Just this summer, Northwestern Medicine opened a novel longevity clinic in Chicago that offers testing for a slew of biomarkers, along with access to doctors, an exercise physiologist, and a registered dietitian to help you “bend the curve” of aging. “Women are no longer content to wait for a diagnosis, but instead seek out ways to protect their health early,” says Dr. Yihan Chen, an internal medicine physician at Biograph, a longevity health and early disease detection clinic. “In 2026, we expect to see rapid growth in precision diagnostics and integrated longevity assessments tailored specifically to women.” The Well Westlake in Cleveland, for example, offers services for aesthetic treatments and gynecology in the same space, while New York’s The Lanby offers primary care outside of the doctor’s office. “Industry leaders are recognizing that there’s this shift in where consumers are spending their time. It’s not at the doctor’s office. It’s at the gym. It’s at cryotherapy, a sauna center, or a spa, ” says Chloe Harrouche, cofounder and CEO of The Lanby, who emphasizes that nontraditional wellness facilities must have clinical oversight to effectively support patients.

Concierge medicine and longevity programs remain expensive, but market pressure is pushing insurers and employers to adapt or integrate new benefits. Regardless of where you seek care, do your due diligence on who is providing the care and get input from licensed medical professionals. Outside clinics are not always held to the same standards as doctors’ offices, and regulations vary significantly by state in the med spa industry, including for popular IV hydration spas. However, as women report frustration with traditional health care’s arduous wait lists and short appointments, we predict they will be at the forefront of the next frontier of care.

Nearly half of all cancers detected each year have no recommended screening tests, according to the American Cancer Society. Even for screened cancers like breast cancer, the current detection tools often fall short: Mammograms miss up to one in eight breast cancers, especially for those with dense breasts. Yet, many women are never informed they have dense breasts or need additional screening. A series of new cancer tests has the potential to radically change these issues, making cancer screening both more accessible and less invasive. 

Jayant Parthasarathy, the founder and CEO of Astrin Biosciences, launched Certitude in December to detect breast cancer as early as stage 0 with a blood test built from machine learning that analyzes thousands of proteins. Results will be shared at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium by the end of 2025.

“Certitude’s early clinical results have shown great promise, detecting 2.5 times more instances of cancer than 3D mammograms with high sensitivity and specificity across the board,” Parthasarathy says. While not an official diagnosis, a positive test indicates the need for further imaging and serves as another tool in the toolbox. “Because we aren’t relying on seeing through dense tissue, the blood test can detect cancers that mammograms can miss,” he says. 

Dr. Tom Beer, a medical oncologist and the chief medical officer of Exact Sciences, which launched the multi-cancer test Cancerguard this year, says more data will be released in 2026 about Cancerguard’s ability to detect cancers specific to women. A new endometrial test from Exact Sciences in partnership with Mayo Clinic is also on the horizon, he says, which would allow clinicians to collect detectable samples during a routine pap smear. “Our endometrial test is designed to markedly reduce the need for these invasive biopsies and provide answers in a non-invasive way,” says Beer. Just this month, the American Cancer Society also endorsed self-testing for HPV, the virus responsible for detecting cervical cancer. 

Cancer risk assessments are also getting an AI makeover. Although not standard of care, cofounder Michelle Zimmerman says her company, Previvor Edge, which recently raised $3.3 million, is another tool in assessing cancer risk — potentially a bridge between primary care and oncology, as she puts it. “It is very common for a cardiologist or an endocrinologist to get involved with a patient before they have a heart attack or before they’re in a diabetic coma. We should be doing the exact same thing with cancer… helping them understand if they have an elevated risk,” Zimmerman says. Another new tool this year from Carnegie Mellon researchers, CATCH-FM, is using AI to scour medical records and infer cancer risk early. 

These advancements are vital as research shows more young women, in particular, are getting cancer. But these new tools must be tested for efficacy and reimbursed by insurance “to make a big dent in health care,” Zimmerman says. Additionally, more diagnoses do not mean fewer deaths. More research is needed to determine whether these innovations lead to better treatment plans — and ultimately, to lives saved. Further, not only catching cancer early but also understanding how it will progress would be the ultimate game-changer. “If somebody could tell us, ‘This stage zero is going to progress, and this stage zero is not,’ think of what that would mean in terms of the choices we’d be able to give some women?” says Dr. Geraldine McGinty, professor of clinical radiology and population health sciences at Weill Cornell Medicine. “What we’re seeing is that women are not going to continue to be content with hearing, ‘We don’t know.’”

Dementia and Alzheimer’s are no longer seen as diseases solely of old age. Midlife is becoming a time for brain optimization, and experts have made clear that cognitive decline is not inevitable. “Alzheimer’s is a disease that starts very often in midlife” and shows symptoms in old age, Lisa Mosconi, PhD, a neuroscientist and author of “The Menopause Brain,” said this year on The Tamsen Show. Women comprise two-thirds of Alzheimer’s cases, the most common cause of dementia, and their lifetime risk of developing dementia is 48%, according to research this year in Nature Medicine. As we live longer, risk inevitably increases, and more experts are pointing to the power of prevention as early as your 40s. 

Diabetes, hypertension, and smoking are some of the most significant modifiable risk factors of dementia. Lifestyle habits like regular movement, adequate sleep, and a heart-healthy diet rich in whole foods also play a role in dementia prevention, and these interventions really work. In a study from the National Institutes of Health, older adults who adhered the most to five healthy lifestyle factors had a 60% lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s.

For women in midlife, more research is emerging on the link between the brain and the menopause transition. “There’s growing research on how hormonal changes in perimenopause and menopause affect cognition and mood, and how early interventions like strength training, sleep optimization, and cognitive therapy can help protect long-term brain function,” says Dr. Shoshana Ungerleider, a board-certified internal medicine physician and the founder of End Well, an organization reframing end-of-life care. 

Dr. Sharon Brangman, Chair Trustee at The McKnight Brain Research Foundation and the Chair of the Department of Geriatrics at SUNY Upstate Medical University, says new cognitive training platforms and virtual companions that reduce the risk of social isolation (which is associated with a 50% increased risk of dementia), and encourage healthy behaviors, may also move the needle on dementia prevention. “AI can help make those behaviors easier to maintain through tailored reminders and motivation,” says Brangman, adding that one-third of people feel uninformed about brain aging today. “AI can analyze subtle changes in speech, behavior, and movement that may signal cognitive decline long before traditional clinical assessments. That early insight can give families time to plan, and it can help healthcare providers suggest lifestyle changes, like exercise, eating more healthy foods, keeping the mind engaged with games and mental challenges, and maintaining social connections, all of which may help adults maintain their cognitive or brain health as they age.”

More findings on brain health — and solutions to aid the aging brain — may be on the way. At the end of 2025, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration removed the black box warning on hormone replacement therapy, which had previously listed risks of cardiovascular disease, breast cancer, and probable dementia that have been debunked. Hormone replacement therapy is not universally recommended as a dementia prevention tool, but with more usage, we may see the impact on the brain. “Brain aging is thought to be a major factor [for developing dementias]. There are many changes of aging, and some may be preventable. Loss of estrogen in women with menopause is one,” says Dr. Rhonda Voskuhl, a UCLA board-certified neurologist and global leader in menopause and brain research.

The drug discovery process is arduous. Only 10 out of every 10,000 molecules screened typically make it to clinical trials, a process that costs billions of dollars and often takes more than a decade. 

But the growing AI drug discovery marketplace is projected to reach $16.5 billion by 2034. AI can “traverse the drug product life cycle, which includes nonclinical, clinical, postmarketing, and manufacturing phases,” according to the FDA. It does this by accelerating the identification of molecules that could play a role in drug discovery and the development of more treatments for historically under-researched conditions in women’s health. 

Investors are showing keen interest in AI drug discovery companies. One of those, Manas AI, closed a $26 million seed extension in September and announced the appointment of Meta and Google alum Ujjwal Singh as Chief Technology Officer. The company is hoping to accelerate treatments for aggressive cancers such as breast cancer and lymphoma. 

In the fourth quarter of this year, Eli Lilly announced a $100 million deal with Insilico Medicine, a leading AI-drug discovery company that has announced promising results in a Phase 2a study for a drug to treat idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). Lilly also partnered with Nvidia to create “the industry’s most powerful AI supercomputer” for drug discovery, aiming to shorten drug timelines. “AI technologies have replaced traditional methodologies in the drug development process with far higher speeds, reduced costs, and improved accuracy,” according to an NIH study. “In the coming years, it is planned that the introduction of AI will certainly help to design the future of medicine.” 

Doctors and scientists remain eager to see how AI influences their own work. Diana Laird, PhD, a professor of obstetrics, gynecology & reproductive sciences at UCSF who specializes in ovarian aging, hopes AI can accelerate the development of treatments to preserve ovarian function, which would extend how long women live in good health. “We’re still understanding how it works, and certainly we’re in the era of big data for biology, so we’re quite excited to have not only this imaging data, but also single-cell sequencing data for the ovary,” Laird says. “There are a lot of exciting innovations that are happening. We are excited to get to the point where we can work with medicinal chemists and people who are doing the drug discovery.”

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) launched the Female Medicine through Machine Learning (FMML) program this year to advance discoveries, earlier diagnoses, and potential treatments in women’s health through AI. The three pillars of the initiative encompass AI discovery, detection, and delivery of women’s health treatments. The initiative applies machine learning to real-world data from biobanks and hospitals, unlocking patterns in women’s health conditions like PCOS and cardiometabolic disease. This may also accelerate the development of new treatments, although that is not the main focus. “We may end up realizing that there’s a gene that’s driving [a health condition],” says Frida Polli, PhD, a neuroscientist and visiting innovation scholar leading the MIT initiative. “If you then have a gene, you can then develop a drug target.”  

While breakthroughs will still take time, we predict more momentum in this space, which has the potential to transform women’s health

For decades, the health system has catered to men. It wasn’t until 1993 that women were legally required to be included in clinical trials. While research on women’s health remains underfunded and underprioritized, there are signs that the needle is moving on equitable inclusion. “Women are demanding better scientific study of women’s health, reproductive health, and especially the menopause transition,” says Elissa Epel, PhD, director of UCSF’s Aging, Metabolism, and Emotion Center and author of “The Stress Prescription.”

For one, more research is being done on women’s health conditions and conditions disproportionately affecting women, like endometriosis, heart disease, and autoimmune disorders. There is also more research on ovarian health — the body’s fastest-aging and least understood organ. Jennifer Garrison, PhD, a neuroscientist and faculty member in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology at UCSF, calls the ovaries the “architects of health and female bodies” and the “pacemaker for aging.” “Ovarian aging is the most important conversation that we can have with respect to aging and females,” she says. In the future, potential research into preserving ovarian function could transform women’s health outcomes with insights into extending how long women live in good health. “If we understand [ovaries] at a deep enough level, then we should be able to offer women a menu of options that might include interventions, but might also include lifestyle choices,” Garrison says. 

And Frida Polli, PhD, a neuroscientist and the leader of the Female Medicine through Machine Learning program at MIT, says more real-world data from biobanks and hospital records will allow AI to more quickly identify patterns that can lead to earlier diagnosis and treatment of conditions like PCOS and endometriosis. “That’s not years away,” Polli says. “We could probably do that in 12 months.” 

As we wait for large-scale clinical data to catch up with these innovations, women are taking their health into their own hands. “Even if we don’t have all the answers [yet]… we can still empower ourselves to use what we do know clinically to start moving in the right direction,” Garrison says, noting that women can become more educated by using high-tech wearables, getting preventive scans earlier, and staying on top of the latest research. Board-certified reproductive endocrinologist Carla DiGirolamo says the growing global wearable-technology marketplace will give more women access to their personal health data, enabling them to make more informed daily choices. “Every single woman’s circumstances are as individualized as her fingerprint,” she says. And as AI continues to improve, Dr. Eugenia Alleva, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Health at Mount Sinai and the Windreich Department of AI and Human Health at the Icahn School of Medicine, forecasts more tangible outcomes linked to personal wearable devices for women. “I think 2026 might be the year we start to see these actually matter in day-to-day life. With wearables and all the passive data we generate, these models could give people very personalized insights without sending all their data to the cloud,” she says. “I think that shift — more private, more personal, more continuous — will have a real impact on women’s health.”

Companies are also hoping to fill the gap. Rachel Springate, cofounding general partner of Muse Capital, who invests in innovative women’s health companies, started investing in the space eight years ago when the landscape was far sparser. “You see the progress; we have these multibillion-dollar companies now,” says Springate, who was one of the first major investors in Midi Health, a menopause care platform that recently announced another $50 million in Series C funding. The more that companies use female-specific data — as opposed to extrapolating from men — the more of a shift we will see, Springate says. “It’s going to make a real difference.”

One in eight Americans has used a GLP-1 drug, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation Health Tracking Poll — but over half the people surveyed said they’re difficult to afford. These drugs, approved to treat diabetes and obesity, have been around for over two decades but gained immense popularity in the early 2020s amid the COVID-19 pandemic and new formulations. Hefty price tags and insurance roadblocks have limited their use, but more generations of GLP-1s and combinations of drugs are coming that could lower cost, increase access, and make them truly mainstream treatments. Dr. Rocio Salas-Whalen, a board-certified endocrinologist and obesity medicine specialist, equates GLP-1s to the iPhone, in that we are poised to see more updates. “They’re becoming more sophisticated, and this is just the tip of the iceberg,” she says. 

With this, we predict more Americans will have access to GLP-1s in new, more accessible formats. As a result, Salas-Whalen believes we are finally at the end of the dieting era. “It’s going to be a change in how we live, [and] even [in] how we practice medicine,” she says. One of the major changes is already on the way: The Trump administration and drug manufacturers Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk struck a deal at the end of this year to lower the cost of GLP-1 weight loss drugs starting in 2026. On top of that, the medication is coming to the market in pill form. This comes as more research is looking into GLP-1s as a treatment for substance abuse problems, PCOS, kidney disease, and neurodegenerative problems. 

“I think they are studying these drugs literally for every single outcome we can think of. I would not be surprised if, sometime, maybe even in the near future, you see them really getting more commonplace use,” says Dr. Jen Ashton, a board-certified OB-GYN and obesity specialist. “The data has clearly shown non-weight loss related benefits to GLP-1s, and so when you connect the dots, these medications are already being used off-label by a variety of doctors and health care professionals for a variety of indications.” Dr. Ashton suspects the medications will be tested on the potential to mitigate the symptoms of perimenopause and midlife weight gain, and obesity specialists point to GLP-1s’ potential to manage menopause symptoms.  

It’s important to note that GLP-1s are primarily used to treat obesity and type II diabetes. And it’s essential to talk to a licensed medical provider about your options, and better, an obesity specialist who has experience prescribing these drugs, Salas-Whalen says. 

Because the medications lead to weight loss, experts in endocrinology and obesity also point to the important distinction between weight and body composition, ensuring patients don’t lose needed muscle. Salas-Whalen says body composition scans are paramount, alongside getting adequate protein and adhering to strength training. “I do feel that for women, especially in midlife, going through perimenopause and menopause, [GLP-1s] become an ally,” Salas-Whalen says.

After centuries of dismissal, women’s sexual health is finally taking center stage. New products alongside increased scientific rigor are poised to make waves in closing the gender desire gap in 2026. 

A recent analysis found that at least one in five women of reproductive age experience sexual dysfunction and sexual distress. In midlife, low libido becomes even more prevalent as hormone levels fluctuate during perimenopause. Too often, women feel pressured to normalize these symptoms, the way they’ve had to for periods and childbirth, explains sex counselor and board-certified OB-GYN Dr. Sadaf Lodhi. “They get used to it,” says Lodhi, who is also a menopause society practitioner with a specialization in women’s sexual health. But now, she says, more women are coming to her practice eager to talk about the impact of low libido. “I think we are making headway,” she says. “Ten years ago, no one was talking about libido as much. [Women] don’t need to settle for sex being painful or a decreased libido if it’s bothering them.” 

This month, Daré Bioscience is launching DARE to PLAY Sildenafil Cream, made with the same active ingredient as Viagra. “When Viagra launched in 1998, men gained access to a trusted, evidence-backed solution, while women have been told everything from, ‘It is just stress, relationship issues, or in their heads.’ To put it simply, we think this is unacceptable,” says Sabrina Johnson, CEO of Daré Bioscience. “Women deserve products that have been clinically studied, carefully formulated, and made to the highest safety and quality standards—just as men have received for decades.” The newly released cream, which underwent a randomized placebo-controlled study, helps relax and open blood vessels in the clitoris and vulva to increase sexual pleasure. 

Another treatment option is Sprout Pharmaceutical’s Addyi  — often referred to as “the little pink pill” — to treat hypoactive sexual desire disorder in premenopausal women. While approved by the FDA in 2015, the drug’s acceptance in the medical community has faced an uphill battle. “We played the long game,” Cindy Eckert, CEO of Sprout Pharmaceuticals, recently told the New York Times. “Culture caught up.” This year, the FDA also granted priority review to potentially fast-track Addyi for approval in postmenopausal women in the coming year. 

And it would be remiss not to mention that testosterone is having its moment in the spotlight as a libido saver for women. Women’s testosterone levels decrease with age, and the hormone plays a role in energy and libido. Of note, the FDA has not approved testosterone for women’s libido, and high doses of testosterone — far more than the average woman would naturally produce — can come with serious side effects. Research has also not thoroughly explored the longer-term impacts of high doses of testosterone for women. Still, the conversation signals a long-overdue shift in how women’s sexual health is understood and prioritized.

To compile the 2026 Flow Forecast, Flow Space interviewed 30 experts, including OB-GYNS, oncologists, obesity specialists, radiologists, health tech entrepreneurs, investors, scientists, and biotech experts. While the list is predictive, we merged expert insights with market and consumer trends and scientific data to outline the pillars with the most transformative potential in 2026.