Remarks as Prepared for Delivery by First Lady Jill Biden at Fierce JPM Week 2025

San Francisco, CA

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Thanks so much, Rebecca, for that introduction.

It’s great to be with you all.

Even as we gather for this event today, the people of Los Angeles are on our minds.

To everyone who has lost a loved one, lost a home, or who is facing the uncertainty caused by these devastating wildfires, we will stand with you in solidarity as you rebuild.

And we are so grateful for all of the first responders who are rushing to contain the fires and rescue people and neighborhoods.

I’ll start with the question that has brought so many industry leaders here today.

What’s next?

It’s also the question everyone has been asking my husband, President Biden, and me.

I see something special happening in women’s health research, and I want to keep advancing that momentum to improve lives.

Today, if you ask any woman in America about her health care, she probably has a story to tell.

You know her.

She’s the woman who gets debilitating migraines, but can’t find treatment options that work for her. She’s the woman whose heart attack isn’t detected because her symptoms don’t look like a man’s. She’s the woman going through menopause, who visits her doctor and leaves with more questions than answers.

Globally, women live longer than men. Yet we spend 25 percent more of our lives in poor health. That’s because women’s health is understudied and research is underfunded. In fact, just 4 percent of research spending is focused on women’s health. As a result, too many of our medications, treatments, health products, and medical school textbooks are based on men.

But a new story is also emerging.

In 2023, Joe and I launched the White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research.

Over the past 14 months, we have galvanized the government to invest in groundbreaking research on women’s health. The National Institutes of Health is investing $200 million in interdisciplinary research to advance women’s health—for example, looking at how menopause affects women’s hearts, brains, and bones.

The Department of Defense has committed $500 million to women’s health research.

And ARPA-H, the agency that Joe created to accelerate health breakthroughs, announced $113 million to help “de-risk” investments in big ideas.

In a little more than a year, the U.S. government invested nearly $1 billion in women’s health research.

And we’ve changed the federal research process. Today, we’re designing studies to include women. We’re disaggregating the data so we can see the differences between men and women. And we’re reporting those findings so we can better prevent, diagnose, and treat women—and men.

So what’s next?

It’s time for the private sector to bring discoveries to market and into the hands of consumers.

Women are waiting for better answers to improve their health.

And the potential in this space is too great to ignore. In 2021, the Boston Consulting Group estimated that the size of the women’s health market would grow from 9 billion dollars to 29 billion dollars in just eight years because of the momentum from funders and founders to address the unmet health needs of women.

I’m proud that the White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research has laid down a new marker of progress.

But that new standard isn’t the finish line for me. It’s my next starting point.

I will keep pushing for the change in health research that women deserve. I will build alliances across industries. And I will look for partners who want to meet this unfilled need.

Let’s work together to make sure that women everywhere benefit from the life-saving innovations that are within our reach.

You can count on me. And I hope women can count on you.

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