• European women’s health M&A shows the highest volume in 20 years
• Consumer health developing fast, including telehealth, supplements
• Oncology, fertility, menopause constitute large markets

Investors are starting to take note of an untapped market comprising half of the world’s population.

Women are beginning to make themselves heard – even at the doctor’s office.

So far in 2026, M&A in European women’s health shows the highest volume in 20 years – and has even surpassed the full year volume recorded for any year in the past two decades, Mergermarket data shows. The same pattern holds for global M&A.

The lift in global and European volume was in large part due to two megadeals: Sun Pharma’s USD 12.4bn (EUR 10.6bn) acquisition of Organon, and Apollo and KKR’s EUR 3bn investment into Bayer’s long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARC) business (comprising hormonal intrauterine devices and subdermal implants).

In Europe, 18 deals worth a total EUR 3.9bn were announced in YTD26, a significant rise in volume from YTD25’s 19 deals worth EUR 71m.

Source: Mergermarket, data correct as at 25-Sep-26

“Women’s health is outperforming a large majority of the life sciences market”, said Dylan Doran Kennett, partner at Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer.

“If I was looking at potentially hot spaces for M&A, I’d include this area”, his colleague and Co-Head of Life Sciences, Alan Montgomery, added.

Women’s health is no longer just fertility treatments like IVF and period care. “Just think about perimenopause, menopause, post-menopause, it’s a huge market,” said Rusty Ray, Managing Partner at Alantra, noting that the fact that menopause is now being talked about in the public domain is certainly helping.

Female health is a massive and underserved market, and even though things are starting to move in the right direction, with more awareness of and attention to it, it is by no means free from hurdles, Ray continued. Often, women go to their GP or specialist with symptoms and are told “that’s just life” rather than being offered a solution, he said.

“We have heard that story many times, both from family and friends and in work-related conversations,” Ray said. “People that are wealthy and have access to the best healthcare in the world still get that answer.”

The problem is both on the providers’ side – they lack enough knowledge of what they can offer – and on the patients’ side – they don’t understand the symptoms and don’t know what is available, Ray said.

Nonetheless, there is a clear shift happening, and much of it is driven by consumerisation of healthcare, Ray continued. In fact, a lot of the action is on the consumer side, rather than in prescription medicines or on the medical device side, he said.

Source: Mergermarket, data correct as at 21-Sep-26

From GLP-1s to oncology

Direct-to-consumer telehealth providers, like Hims & Hers Health, is one interesting space, as people take charge of their own wellbeing, as well as vitamins, minerals and supplements (VMS), Ray said.

“It all goes back to consumerisation and women starting to raise their hands and saying what they want,” Ray said.

Life sciences investors are also looking at other under-served clinical areas such as menopause care, endometriosis and, as previously mentioned, fertility/ovarian biology, which is seeing interest from private equity funds, Montgomery said.

Equity funding for endometriosis-related companies came in at more than USD 57m in 2025, spanning therapeutics, diagnostics and imaging, from being a mere footnote in 2024, according to a report by W Group, a data and intelligence platform focused on women’s health and sports.

Oncology – companies building therapies and diagnostics for breast, ovarian, and gynaecological cancers – attract the largest funding cheques, while fertility continues to be the deepest category by deal count, according to Molly Taylor, Head of Content at W Group.

GLP-1 and metabolic health for women has appeared as another interesting category, after SheMed raised a USD 50m Series A at a USD 1bn valuation last year, Taylor added.

Many targets in VMS

Targets in the sector include many VMS and other consumer health businesses, often startups or young companies, Ray said.

Piper-backed, UK-based women’s supplements provider Wild Nutrition appointed Highstead Partners to look at strategic options, including a sale, as reported by this news service in January.

Natural Cycles, a Swedish provider of a fertility and birth control app, will consider a Series D equity round to finance acquisitions, and could consider a majority stake sale to a private equity investor, the company told this news service in January. The company is also reportedly weighing up an IPO.

Across the pond, provider of at-home vaginal microbiome test and precision healthcare, Evvy, last week announced it had raised a USD 40m Series B round.

On the pharmaceuticals side, backer EW Healthcare Partners mandated Clearwater to advise on the sale of its majority stake in Laboratoires Majorelle, a French specialty pharma company focused on products in women’s health and urology, as reported in July.

Sponsors and strategics 

Private equity funds are eyeing acquisitions on the consumer health side, but there is a lack of targets of any scale, Ray said. Vitabiotics, the second largest European deal in 2026 to date at EUR 873m, was a notable exception. Sponsors are also looking at services, such as fertility and genetic testing, among others, Ray said.

Among strategic acquirers, large consumer health businesses such as Haleon and Kenvue have a focus on women’s health, Ray said. Players like Unilever, Karo Healthcare, and Procter & Gamble, which recently bought Thorne for USD 3.8bn, are also in the buyer mix, he said.

Otsuka bought women’s health supplements company Bonafide Health for USD 425m via its subsidiary Pharmavite in 2023.

On the Rx side, dedicated women’s health players like Theramex and Laboratoires Majorelle have made acquisitions.

Given the pace at which taboos around women’s health are disappearing, expect investors to continue taking note of this sector – and getting capital to work.