The majority of medical inventions and medical needs are primarily aimed at men. As proof, researchers only represent 25% of patents filed over the past three decades.
The observation is clear, a lack of research on women’s health does exist. Osteoporosis, endometriosis, hyperthyroidism, urinary tract infections, fibromyalgia, polycystic ovary syndrome, all these pathologies mainly or even only affect women and treatments or innovations concerning them are rare. Faced with this observation, the researcher Rem Koning of Harvard Business School was interested in this “Phenomenon” after his wife developed a rare disease after childbirth, postpartum preeclampsia. Considered incurable, it results in hypertension. “It came out of nowhere, and it was way more terrifying than it should have been. They can treat it with magnesium to lower your blood pressure, but you feel really bad. “, explains Professor Koning, whose comments were reported by 20 minutes.
A shortage of female inventors
Rem Koning’s study is available in the journal Science. To carry out this study, Professor Koning carried out a text analysis by “Machine learning” (automated software learning) on more than 440,000 biomedical patents in the United States, spanning more than thirty years (1976 to 2010).
In short: by linking the names of inventors with patents, Rem Koning and his colleagues found that patents filed by teams of inventors were 35% more likely to promote women ‘s health. Teams made up entirely of women were 18% more likely to create products aimed at women as well. On the men’s side, the finding is identical. Research teams composed mainly of men will focus on inventions and the medical needs of men. “Male-dominated teams have produced hundreds of inventions focused on the needs of men more than those focused on the needs of women. These male inventors were more likely to generate patents on topics such as “erectile” or “prostate” than “menopause” or “cervix”. Male inventors also tended to target diseases and conditions such as Parkinson’s disease and sleep apnea, which disproportionately affect men. “, indicates Pr Koning to The Conversation.
Many wasted inventions
Another worrying finding that emerges from this study is the number of patents filed over the past thirty years. If patents had been invented by both men and women and equally, there would be 6,500 more inventions centered on women. “Unfortunately, previous research has shown that women make up a minority of patents in the United States, both in biomedicine and in other fields,” Koning notes. We were therefore not surprised, but we were disappointed by the little change in the figures “, explains Rem Koning, quoted by 20 Minutes.
The gap is expected to continue despite years of improvement in science. Women represent only 27% in the disciplines which lend themselves to medical research. “When we don’t give women the opportunity to invent or create new businesses, we lose new ideas, new technologies and therefore we end up with slower economic growth”, deplores Rem Koning. “Not only is society losing the ideas of women, but female consumers are particularly disadvantaged”.
