Women's Health Archives

Program Overview

The Women’s Health Innovation Grants are part of the MLSC’s Women’s Health Initiative. The grants focus on projects with translational potential and preliminary supporting data, but still require a key set of proof-of-concept experiments prior to attracting a commercial partner or spinning out into a new company. Projects could include hiring a postdoc to perform research, working with a CRO, entering into a sponsored research agreement, etc.

Individual grants of up to $300,000 will be awarded to Massachusetts-based women’s health researchers, and up to $3 million is available for the whole program.

The application period will run from July 31 to Nov. 17, 2023 at 5 p.m. EST.

Eligibility & Evaluation

An eligible applicant must be a full or part-time employee at a Massachusetts-based research institution proposing as a Principal Investigator a project focused on increasing our understanding of sex and gender differences in biology (that has translational potential) or developing solutions for diseases or conditions that affect women solely, disproportionately, or differently. Funding must be used to support an experiment or experiments that increase(s) the translational opportunity for the technology with a defined goal such as filing patents, securing sponsored research agreement, attracting other industry support, etc.

To evaluate applications, an external panel of scientists from academia and industry with expertise in women’s health and translating early-stage innovations will review applications with an eye towards their value to our understanding of women’s health, the unmet need they are addressing, and the proposed solution, among other criteria.

Impact on the Ecosystem

Massachusetts recognizes there has been a lack of development in novel solutions to treat conditions that affect women solely, disproportionately, or differently. This impacts not only patients but also employers and the healthcare system. The consequences are profound, with women more likely to have adverse drug reactions than men, and the lack of effective therapies results in reduced quality of life. The Massachusetts Life Sciences Center aims to support and incentivize translational project teams developing novel solutions in this area of need.

Program Overview

The First Look Awards are part of the MLSC’s Women’s Health Initiative. This program is a collaboration between the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center (MLSC) and the Mary Horrigan Connors Center for Women’s Health and Gender Biology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), Harvard Medical School. The goal of this grant program is to support early-stage exploratory translational research at Massachusetts research institutions that furthers our understanding of sex and gender differences especially for diseases or conditions that affect women solely, disproportionately, or differentially. The First Look Awards align with the Connors Center First.In.Women Precision Medicine Platform, which advances the inclusion and specific investigation of women in the development and utilization of new drugs, devices and digital therapeutics in order to produce sex-specific and sex-differentiating knowledge about newly developed treatments.

Up to $250,000 is available for the program, and we anticipate making five awards of up to $50,000 to Massachusetts-based women’s health researchers.

The application period will run from July 31 to Nov. 17, 2023 at 5 p.m. EST.

Eligibility & Evaluation

An eligible applicant must be a full or part-time employee at a Massachusetts-based research institution proposing an exploratory project as a Principal Investigator to begin developing translatable solutions for women’s health and furthering our understanding of gender biology.

An external panel of scientists from academia and industry with expertise in women’s health will review applications.

Please see full list of eligibility requirements and evaluation process.