In October, Venture investors moved $49 million while three buyers disclosed women’s health acquisition that add up to about $2.3 billion (headline figures, not like for like).
So why should you care about these numbers?
Because money shapes which women’s health problems get solved, which discoveries make it out of the laboratory, and which treatments eventually reach women.
It’s a side of women’s health we don’t talk about nearly enough.
I’ve spent more than two decades in investment management, and today, through Calabar Capital, I’m putting that experience to work investing in women’s health and healthcare innovation. So when I look at developments in women’s health, I’m looking at the science, policy, entrepreneurial activity but also looking (shamelessly primarily) at who’s putting money to work and what might those decisions tell us about where healthcare is heading?
That’s the perspective I bring: connecting the dots between science, healthcare and capital, and helping you understand why they matter.
And October gave us some interesting dots to connect. Below are five transactions that caught my attention this month. The full report can be accessed at: Women’s Health Capital Review: October 2026.
The Billion Dollar Blindspot exists to help make sense of what's changing in women's health. Becoming a founding member is a way to support that work and help bring these important stories to a wider audience.
Mergers & Acquisitions
Ferring agrees to acquire Gameto for up to $1.38bn
Ferring Pharmaceuticals agreed to acquire Gameto, the developer of Fertilo, an egg-maturation technology used in IVF. The deal was announced on 27 October at a headline price of up to $1.38 billion, which includes contingent milestones. It brings Gameto’s technology into Ferring’s fertility business.
What the technology does
Standard IVF needs about two weeks of daily hormone injections to ripen several eggs at once, and for many patients they are the hardest part. Fertilo collects eggs earlier, while still immature, and finishes ripening them in the lab alongside ovarian support cells grown from stem cells. Gameto says this removes about 80% of the injections.
The method is called in vitro maturation, or IVM. What is new is the support cells, which come from induced pluripotent stem cells, ordinary adult cells reprogrammed to a stem-cell state.
The first baby conceived with Fertilo was born in Lima, Peru, in December 2024. In the United States it remains investigational and a Phase 3 trial is under way.
Why the buyer wanted it
Ferring is a privately held Swiss company that has made fertility medicines for more than 50 years and brings what a start-up lacks: clinic relationships, distribution and regulatory experience.
What it could mean for patients
If Fertilo is approved, the first change would be to the experience of treatment: fewer injections, a shorter IVF cycle and, according to the company, a lower risk of the side effects that come with high hormone doses. It could also matter for egg freezing, which relies on the same stimulation.
Two things remain open though. Approval depends on the Phase 3 results, and cost and availability will not be known until there is a product to price. For now, this is a strategic investment in a technology.
What I find interesting
Gameto’s technology could reduce the hormone injections involved in IVF. Ferring sells fertility medicines, so buying it is a way for Ferring to own an innovation that could disrupt its own market.
Google invests in Flo Health
On 12 October Google Health made a strategic investment in Flo Health, alongside a multi-year partnership. The amount was not disclosed. The partnership connects Flo’s cycle insights with Google’s wearable data and personalised coaching.
What the companies do
Flo is a period tracking app with, the company says, more than 80 million monthly users. Google’s Fitbit wearables record sleep, heart rate, skin temperature and other body signals. From early 2027, users who opt in can send those signals into Flo to sharpen its cycle predictions, and Flo’s insights will inform Google’s paid AI health coach. A joint research programme will look for early signs of perimenopause and conditions such as PCOS and endometriosis.
Why Google wanted it
Body readings are not so meaningful for women without cycle context; skin temperature, for example, shifts across the cycle. Flo holds that context for a very large group of women. In this partnership, Flo gains sensor data it cannot collect itself and a featured place in the Google Health app and Google gets female-specific data.
What it could mean for users
For women who opt in, the practical change is predictions and coaching that account for their cycle.
The companies say they have safeguards in place: nothing moves between the apps without permission, given separately for each type of data and each purpose, users can withdraw it at any time, and Flo data shared with Google Health will not be used for advertising or sold. Those are the companies’ own commitments.
The research programme announced is the longer-term part. Earlier recognition of perimenopause or PCOS would matter to many women, but today (under the partnership), it is a plan and not a product.
What the news leaves out
Flo’s privacy history is missing from the announcement. It settled with the US Federal Trade Commission in 2021 over sharing users’ health information with third parties, and in 2025 Google and Flo settled related litigation for about $56 million, with the settling parties denying wrongdoing.
Consumer apps like Flo generally sit outside HIPAA, and the public statements I found do not say whether the data can train AI models.
Cycle-prediction apps are also less accurate for irregular cycles, which are common in PMOS, a condition the research targets.
What I find interesting
A wearable records sleep, temperature and activity, but hormonal changes help explain those readings. Flo adds that context, which could make Google’s products more useful to women. This goes to show that women’s health companies building products with specialist knowledge/edge can become valuable to a much larger platform, and this is a clear example.
Allara raises $30m
Allara raised $30 million on 13 October, taking its total funding to $75 million. The company provides virtual care for hormonal, metabolic and reproductive conditions, including PCOS, and has served more than 120,000 patients.
What Allara does
Allara is a virtual practice for hormonal and metabolic health. A patient sees a women’s health clinician and a dietitian in one care relationship, billed to insurance, and the company says it is in-network with major insurers in most states. It treats PCOS/PMOS, thyroid disorders, endometriosis and menopause-related needs, and over the past year has added GLP-1 medicines and hormone replacement therapy.
Why investors backed it
Allara works with major commercial insurers and is increasing awareness among employers whose insurance arrangements already include its services.
What it could mean for patients
For a woman whose symptoms cross specialties, the appeal is one team with insurance coverage. Coverage depends on insurer and state, and some needs, such as an in-person exam, sit outside a virtual practice though.
What I find interesting
Women managing conditions such as PCOS/PMOS often see several specialists separately. Allara brings that care together, and the commercial opportunity is in solving a recurring problem for patients who need ongoing support rather than a single consultation. The round also carried the majority of the month’s venture capital investments. Allara accounted for 61% of disclosed venture dollars in October, and care delivery as a category for 66%.
Hologic agrees to acquire Reveal Genomics
Hologic announced on 19 October that it will acquire Reveal Genomics. Reveal is based in Barcelona and develops HER2DX, a genomic test that personalises breast cancer treatment. Terms were not disclosed.
What HER2DX does
About one in five breast cancers is HER2-positive, which grows faster and is usually treated with chemotherapy plus HER2-targeted drugs. HER2DX is run on a tumour sample. It measures 27 genes and combines them with clinical features such as tumour size to score two things: the risk the cancer returns, and the likelihood the tumour disappears completely after pre-surgery treatment.
Why Hologic wanted it
Hologic is known for mammography and breast biopsy systems, which find and sample cancers. HER2DX acts later, when oncologists decide how much treatment to give. Acquiring Reveal Genomics extends Hologic from detection into treatment planning. The deal still needs Spanish regulatory approval.
What it could mean for patients
A woman who scores low risk might be offered less chemotherapy and avoid its side effects, while a high score could prompt more intensive treatment. That depends on trials showing the approach is safe and on guidelines and insurers accepting it.
What I find interesting
Hologic went private under Blackstone and TPG in April, and it is still buying innovation in women’s health. That matters for founders and investors, because it shows an established strategic acquirer remains active.
Additionally, Reveal also gains access to Hologic’s commercial reach, while Hologic adds a specialist test to its breast cancer diagnostics business.
Labcorp agrees to buy Myriad’s prenatal testing business for $210m
Labcorp announced on 20 October that it will buy Myriad Genetics’ prenatal business for $210 million in cash, plus inventory. The business covers prenatal and carrier-screening tests, among them Prequel, Foresight, SneakPeek and FirstGene.
What the tests do
Prequel screens for conditions such as Down syndrome using fragments of the baby’s DNA in the mother’s blood. Foresight checks whether parents carry gene changes that could cause an inherited condition. SneakPeek is an early blood test that predicts a baby’s sex.
Why Labcorp wanted it
Labcorp runs one of the largest clinical laboratory networks in the United States, with blood-draw sites and relationships with obstetricians. Prenatal testing needs exactly that: a clinician orders the test, a patients blood is drawn, a lab runs it and results return quickly. The price which was $210 million in cash plus inventory is for a business expected to bring about $160 million of revenue, or about 1.3 times revenue, according to Evercore.
What it could mean for patients
For most pregnant women nothing changes at first. But over time, a larger laboratory could mean wider insurance contracts and easier ordering, which affect out-of-pocket cost and who gets tested.
What the news leaves out
Myriad’s prenatal revenue fell 16% in the first half of 2026, and there is the question whether Labcorp can reverse that, against competition from Natera and BillionToOne.
A sale moves a database. The announcements do not say how patients’ genetic data transfers to the new owner.
What I find interesting
Developing a test and distributing it at scale require different capabilities. Labcorp can add these tests to its established laboratory network. This demonstrates that a specialist business can be worth acquiring because the buyer can take it further.
Philanthropic Moves
Philanthropic, multilateral and public commitments reached about $444 million, higher than the month’s venture financing.
The three largest were:
a Bangladesh and European Investment Bank women’s health initiative of about $292.5 million (EUR 250 million), which repurposes 2021 sovereign loan funds originally meant for COVID-19 immunisation and runs from 2027 to 2031;
the $100 million Uzima programme for stillbirth prevention, with $50 million each from the Gates Foundation and Wellcome Leap;
and a $50 million gift from Karen and Rob Hale to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, which the foundation describes as its largest single gift.
What I find interesting
I wrote about Uzima earlier in October, and the point holds across the larger commitments: philanthropic and public money can support evidence and delivery that commercial investors are not yet positioned to fund.
What the developments tell us
Read these separately, and each layer gives a partial picture; venture shows a slower month compared to September, acquisitions show confident buyers, and philanthropy and policy show where attention is moving towards.
But read together, they show a division of labour. Venture pays for the earliest and most uncertain risk, acquirers pay when the technical risk has shrunk and the bottleneck is distribution (which is what Hologic, Labcorp and Google each bought) and philanthropy pays for evidence where no commercial buyer exists yet.
The full October report
The full report sets out each disclosed round with its stage and category, every acquisition and every philanthropic commitment, along with the platform and partnership news from the month. You can read it on the Billion Dollar Blindspot website: Read the full October report.
If you’d like more conversations about women’s health and wealth, subscribe to our YouTube channel.
My new book, The Billion Dollar Blindspot is now available on Amazon and in bookstores.
About Maryann Selfe
Maryann Selfe is an institutional investor and the Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Calabar Capital, an investment platform backing exceptional managers and founders in women’s health. She is the author of The Billion Dollar Blindspot and writes about women’s-health investing and capital allocation.
Connect on LinkedIn · Discover the Book · Learn more about Calabar Capital
The Billion Dollar Blindspot is an independent publication. Its content is provided for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice, an investment recommendation or an offer to buy or sell any security.
This is such a helpful breakdown! Adding what each deal could mean for patients makes the money side so much easier to follow. Fewer IVF injections would be a huge change for so many women.
That makes sense. On Gameto, I'd note how much Ferring is paying for the clinical step: Fertilo's US Phase 3 (FIRST, about 500 women aged 18 to 35) compares it against standard IVM, not conventional stimulated IVF. So even a clean result doesn't directly prove the fewer injections claim against the IVF most patients get today. That may be why so much of the $1.38bn sits in milestones.