Wellcome Leap

National Heart Health Month is a time to talk about heart disease. It’s also time to talk about what we’re missing. Heart disease is the leading cause of death for women worldwide. Among women with stable chest pain who do not have blocked arteries, about half have coronary microvascular disease, which remains largely unseen, undiagnosed, in their care. Women are routinely told ... your arteries look normal, your heart is 'healthy’, it might be anxiety. Wellcome Leap’s newest program, VISIBLE – jointly funded by Pivotal, with support from British Heart Foundation – is working to change that. ❤️ What we don’t see matters. 🔗 Learn more: https://lnkd.in/gdKDezTS #NationalHeartHealthMonth #WomensHeartHealth #CardiovascularResearch

One out of every three women dies of cardiovascular disease. It is the number one cause of death for women. Approximately 100 million* women, globally, live with stable chest pain. Each year, a subset of these women – an estimated 700,000 women in the United States and Europe alone – undergo invasive coronary angiography and leave without a diagnosis. They are told their arteries look "normal." That their hearts are healthy. That it might be anxiety. Of the women with stable angina who undergo coronary angiography, two out of three do not have a blockage in their heart arteries – the cause of heart disease medicine has spent decades learning to find and fix. In most of these women, the underlying abnormality lies in the function of the smallest vessels of the heart – the coronary microvasculature, which remains largely invisible to current diagnostic pathways. The result of a system optimized to find focal blockages is a diagnostic odyssey, leaving a population – predominantly women – without answers. Wellcome Leap’s new $55M program, VISIBLE, jointly funded by Pivotal , with support from British Heart Foundation, aims to change this reality. Its goal is to increase the proportion of women presenting with stable angina who receive effective diagnosis and treatment for coronary microvascular disease – from less than 1% to more than 80%. In so doing, VISIBLE aims to demonstrate advances capable of reducing the burden of cardiovascular disease for millions of women worldwide. It’s time. Women have waited long enough. Learn more: https://lnkd.in/gdKDezTS *Estimates range from 60-140 million

One out of every three women dies of cardiovascular disease. It is the number one cause of death for women. Countless women with cardiovascular disease leave their doctor's office told their hearts are healthy. That it might be anxiety.  What we don’t see matters. 95% of the heart's vascular system is rarely evaluated – it controls 80% of blood flow to the heart muscle.  Revealing this network could save years, health, and lives for millions of women. It's time. Coming soon: A $55M research program jointly funded with Pivotal, and with support from British Heart Foundation. wellcomeleap.org

Alongside this year’s JP Morgan Healthcare Conference in January, Wellcome Leap hosted Emerging Breakthroughs, an immersive showcase – transforming an empty art gallery in San Francisco into a live demonstration of what’s next in human health. The event highlighted 5 of our programs, featuring the technologies, research advances, and clinical solutions emerging from 3+ years of global collaboration. Visitors met the people behind the programs and saw firsthand how Leap’s innovation model accelerates research toward real-world impact. “I've been at JP Morgan for three full days and without a question this exhibit has been the most profound I've seen. Biological research mixed with technology come to life in a way that is really impressive.” – Sandy Gleysteen, Executive Producer, Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement This is the Leap difference: Interdisciplinary innovation. Bold goals with clear, measurable milestones. Rapid execution. And solutions designed to scale globally. Thank you to everyone who joined us – and to the investors and partners helping to take these programs to the next stage. 🚀 #EmergingBreakthroughs #JPMHealthcare #HealthcareInnovation #TranslationalResearch #GlobalHealth

From pregnancy to cardiovascular disease to Alzheimer’s, women experience health differently, disproportionately, and uniquely. Treating women as if they are small men has led to decades of underinvestment in women’s health research. During #WEF26, our CEO Regina Dugan joined global health leaders in a panel moderated by Kearney to explore how collaboration, investment, and system-level alignment can accelerate breakthroughs in women’s health. Wellcome Leap is investing more than $250M to help close the women’s health research gap – using a model with global reach and unprecedented speed to make new scientific breakthroughs  investable. That’s how we get to the impact women deserve. Our view is simple: It’s time. Women have waited long enough. #WEF26 #WomensHealth #HealthEquity #GlobalHealth

Last week at the World Economic Forum, our CEO Regina Dugan, joined leaders across sectors to explore how innovation across brain health, metabolic health, and women’s health can move from insight to impact. At Wellcome Leap, this is our focus: Programs that mobilize global teams to accelerate breakthroughs in human health in years, not decades. #WEF26 #HealthyLongevity #WomensHealth #BrainHealth

The human gut microbiome functions as a vital organ, playing a central role in nutrition and metabolism, endocrine regulation, immune system development, and in influencing neurological, cognitive, and behavioral outcomes. From birth through age two, an infant's gut microbiome reshapes itself almost daily. Today, this developing system faces more pressures than ever, as pregnancies and early childhoods are exposed to factors that may disrupt healthy microbiome formation and resilience. There is much scientific debate about results suggesting a link between the early-life microbiome and neurodevelopmental challenges, including autism. There is, however, little debate that more research is needed. In FORM, we are focused on research to better assess the role of the maternal and developing infant gut microbiome in healthy infant neurodevelopment. Critically, FORM seeks to identify whether an accumulating set of early-life pressures to the developing gut microbiome could be one contributing factor to the rise in neurodevelopmental challenges — including, autism spectrum disorder (ASD). And further, whether resilience to functional disruption can be measured and supported in key developmental windows and increase options for support as a pathway towards reducing the likelihood of children experiencing severe autism-related difficulties that impact their daily life. Wellcome Leap’s $50M program FORM: Foundations of a Resilient Microbiome, brings together a global, interdisciplinary team to generate the evidence needed to move this field forward – with urgency, rigor, and impact. Today we announce the global team of researchers selected for the program. Learn more: https://lnkd.in/eAYv5HM5 #Microbiome #Neurodevelopment #EarlyLifeHealth

Progress in global health requires trust, collaboration, and the courage to back bold ideas. Proud to be part of Wellcome Trust’s commitment to drive high impact efforts that can transform human health – for all of us.

During #JPMWeek, our CEO Regina Dugan participated in a McKinsey & Company–hosted fireside chat alongside Anita Zaidi from the Gates Foundation on: Advancing the Health of Women: From Discovery to Market & Systems Transformation As Regina shared, the challenge is foundational: "For too long, research has treated women as if they’re small men. Women are not small men. The result – we don’t have minor gaps – we have chasms in our knowledge of the health challenges women face.” But the opportunity is equally clear – if we invest urgently. Boldly. And behind a model that is designed to unlock follow-on investments. Because that’s how we’ll get solutions to women, at scale, globally. “At Wellcome Leap, we are investing $250 million in women’s health research across 5 programs, inclusive of all stages of life. The type of work that we do – use-inspired research – has specific measurable outcomes designed to reduce the technical risk, at convincing scale, so as to make advances investible.” This is how Wellcome Leap moves breakthroughs from discovery to impact. Faster. It’s time. Women have waited long enough. #WomensHealth #HealthcareInnovation #HealthEquity #SystemsChange  #JPMWeek #JPM2026

This week Leap’s headquartered in Union Square during the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference, showcasing emerging health breakthroughs from our global programs: 1kD - The First 1000 Days In Utero - Wellcome Leap MCPsych - Multi-Channel Psych SAVE - Surgery: Assess / Validate / Expand R3 Global - Wellcome Leap We’ve created a space for conversation – where breakthrough ideas meet the people who can work with us to move them into real-world impact. In town and interested in learning more? Send us a DM. #JPMWeek, #JPM2026, #HealthImpact, #MaternalHealth, #MentalHealthInnovation #SurgicalInnovation, #Biomanufacturing #JPM2026