LIVTOSHARE

i love being a woman

Author

Livia Han
January 19, 2025

(hi if you're new here, i give a personal reflection at the start, if you'd like to jump to the news please scroll down to the women's health insights portion!)

✨ This week's quote: “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”

✨ This week's life update: Hi Everyone! Happy New Year, I've missed you all!

After the holiday break in Shanghai with my grandma, we dove straight into the JPM Healthcare Conference in SF. Those who've been following know how precious this time with my grandma was – the last time I was home, I didn't realize it would be the last time I'd see my grandpa. That experience taught me a profound lesson: money will come and go, but time with our loved ones is truly not forever. For those of you also living far from family, I hope you can remember this too.

photo taken in presidio, on a spontaneous biotech founders & vc hike a new linkedin friend invited me to when she saw I posted about moving to SF!

And now... hello from my new home in San Francisco! This city has already shown me it's truly a place of synchronicity, possibility, and opportunity. Just in my first week:

⚡️ Connected with Oura's women's health team lead (through a chance encounter while charging my phone at a coffee shop!)

⚡️ Was invited to moderate a women's health panel by a biotech fund

⚡️ Reconnected with Mayo Clinic's Chief Innovation Officer from a previous event

Crazy? Yes. But we're just getting started!

✨ This week's lesson: Share your journey and embrace vulnerability! This week, I took the leap and announced my departure from my previous role on LinkedIn. Was I nervous? Absolutely – partly because it made everything real, and partly wondering about people's questions about what's next. But what happened next was magical: A lovely woman immediately reached out and invited me to join a biotech hike with VCs and Founders passionate about women's health. Another fund lead reached out for coffee next week. All because I chose to share my story openly.

✨ This week's reflection: Reflecting on my parents' immigration journey – starting fresh without knowing anyone or having a safety net – puts my own leap of faith into perspective. I'm incredibly grateful for friends opening their homes and hearts as I navigate what's next. Their support makes this transition feel more like an adventure than a free fall.

✨ This week's audiobook: Atomic Habits by James Clear (I re-listen to this one every year)

✨ This week's song: I AM WOMAN by Emmy Meli

✨ This week’s podcast: Healthcare as a north star with Kate Garrett, Managing Partner at Sonder Capital

✨ This week's journal prompt: What parts of your journey have you been hesitant to share? What possibilities might open up if you did?

🌱 The Women's Health Revolution: Insights from JPM 2025 🌱

As I settle into SF, I couldn't have picked a better time to arrive – jumping straight into the JPM Healthcare Conference showed me just how much momentum is building in the women's health space. The energy was electric – we went from 8 women's health events last year to 23 this year! Through every panel, pitch, and conversation, one question kept coming up: "Why now?"

As someone immersed in this space, I see multiple forces converging beyond startups:

Policy & Progress:

  • The ERA's ratification as the 28th Amendment is a massive step for women. I believe could open new possibilities for women's inclusion in clinical trials and research

  • This constitutional foundation could reshape how we approach gender equality in healthcare

Academic & Innovation Momentum:

  • Penn's FOCUS program leading groundbreaking research

  • Mayo Clinic's Women's Health Research Center driving systemic change

  • Growing institutional commitment to solving historical gaps

Women's Health x AI: When I first started exploring this space, I worried women's health would miss the AI wave due to our historical data gaps. But I'm seeing fascinating possibilities emerging, particularly in two areas that get me really excited: enhancing diagnosis and boosting research.

A question that keeps circling in my mind: Since women often face delayed diagnosis or aren't taken seriously, could virtual care help with better triaging and diagnosing? Similar to how workplace screening tools have evolved to combat discrimination and improve DEI, will we see a similar application for women's health? As I explore these possibilities, I'm not alone in seeing the transformative potential.

As Deena Shakir and Shailee Samar at Lux Capital powerfully articulate in their recent (incredible) report, "Women's health has been underserved, underfunded, and understudied for decades—an inequity that's not just a glaring gap in care but also a missed trillion-dollar opportunity." Their research shows that closing the women's health gap could save 75 million years of life annually and boost the global economy by at least $1 trillion by 2040. With the AI healthcare market projected to grow from $20.8B to $148B by 2029, we're just scratching the surface of what's possible.

🍒 WOMEN'S HEALTH NEWS THAT CAUGHT MY ATTENTION 🍒

Partnerships that caught my eye:

Must-Read Insights:

Media & Advocacy: (something I don’t believe we’re talking about enough!)

Last year showed us the complex relationship between social media, healthcare information, and censorship. As reported in previous newsletters, 74% of YouTube influencers were found to discourage hormonal contraception, highlighting the power social media holds in shaping health decisions. Natural Cycles' CEO Elina wrote a powerful statement addressing these challenges in the UK, as NC was misplaced in a category it should’ve never been in - I highly recommend reading for anyone interested in the impacts of PR and media in this space.

It's a fascinating paradox: while we scrutinize health content creators on TikTok (rightfully so), we simultaneously see published reports spreading misinformation through traditional channels. This brings up critical questions about how we validate and distribute health information across all platforms. The intersection of social media, healthcare education, and content moderation remains one of the most important challenges we need to solve for women's health information accessibility.

Here’s an example where the sharing of health information on social media helped save this woman’s life.

While these partnerships and insights paint an exciting picture of progress, what drives this momentum goes deeper than business opportunities or technological advancement.

Behind every startup, every investment, and every innovation in women's health, there's a story. We're here because we've held the hand of a friend, got sent home from the emergency room, watched a family member's symptoms dismissed until it was almost too late, or sat in a doctor's office begging for answers and just getting met with pain killers instead. We're here because we've lived these stories – and we're determined to rewrite them.

This is about our mothers, our sisters, our friends, ourselves. I truly only see the path forwards. We're not just building companies or investing in startups – we're creating the healthcare system we needed when we were told to "just deal with it” or “get a less stressful job". 

The revolution in women's health isn't coming. It's already here. And we're just getting started.

⚡WHO'S HIRING?⚡ Check out this Women's Health Jobs newsletter here!

If you enjoyed this edition of LIVTOSHARE, forward it to a friend who's interested in women's health and growth!

If you'd like to have a deeper discussion on any of the above, please respond to this email! I love talking about this space!

Have a BEAUTIFUL WEEK!!!

With love & light, Livia Han 💗

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