The Invisible Epidemic: Why Osteoporosis Represents a Critical Investment Opportunity in Women's Health

The numbers tell a stark story. By 2025, experts predict 3 million osteoporosis-related fractures in the United States alone, with annual healthcare costs reaching $25–30 billion. Yet despite this looming crisis, an estimated 69% of all osteoporosis cases remain undiagnosed.

For women’s health investors, osteoporosis represents both a massive unmet medical need and a significant osteoporosis investment opportunity. In the United States, an estimated 10 million people age 50 and older have osteoporosis, with the majority being women. But the true scale becomes clear when you consider that one in two women will break a bone in their lifetime due to osteoporosis—an incidence greater than heart attack, stroke, and breast cancer combined.

At Portfolia, we see osteoporosis as a core women’s bone health issue and a crucial frontier for women’s health investing: a place where better diagnostics, better adherence, and better technologies can unlock impact and returns at the same time.

The Gender Gap in Bone Health: Why Osteoporosis Is a Women’s Health Issue?

Osteoporosis is fundamentally a women’s health condition, driven by biology and exacerbated by gaps in care. Hormone changes during menopause directly affect bone density, meaning women can quickly lose bone mass for several years, while in men, bone loss is generally slower.

The impact is profound. The lifetime risk of developing a major osteoporotic fracture is 46.4% for women compared to 22.4% for men. These aren't just statistics—they represent millions of women facing decreased mobility, loss of independence, and life-threatening complications. A fragility hip fracture carries almost a 30% one-year mortality rate.

For Portfolia and our community of investors, this is exactly the kind of gap that defines our women’s health thesis: a common, serious condition that affects women disproportionately, is highly preventable, and has been historically under-diagnosed and under-treated.

Innovation Gaps Creating New Opportunities in Osteoporosis

Despite the prevalence and severity of osteoporosis, the treatment landscape has significant gaps that innovative companies are beginning to address—and that investors can help accelerate.

Treatment Adherence Crisis

Osteoporosis drug use has significantly decreased, and hip fracture numbers are no longer declining. Current treatments often require frequent injections or come with concerning side effects, leading to poor patient compliance. This opens the door for companies developing:

• Novel delivery methods that improve adherence
• Treatments with better safety profiles
• Personalized medicine approaches that optimize outcomes

Diagnostic Blind Spots

The diagnostic challenge is staggering. Men face an even higher undiagnosed rate at 86.88%, reflecting healthcare provider bias, as osteoporosis is still often perceived as a “women’s disease.”

Companies that can:

• Improve early detection before fractures occur
• Create accessible, affordable screening technologies
• Address screening gaps in younger at-risk populations

are poised to capture significant market share. For investors focused on women’s health innovation, these diagnostic blind spots are not just a clinical issue—they’re a clear osteoporosis innovation opportunity.

Emerging Osteoporosis Innovations Worth Watching

The osteoporosis innovation pipeline is heating up, with approaches that could transform how we think about women’s bone health.

Anabolic Therapies

‍Romosozumab, the most recently FDA-approved osteoporosis medication, is a monoclonal antibody to sclerostin with both anti-resorptive and anabolic features that significantly decreased the risk of vertebral fractures in postmenopausal women. This dual-action approach represents a new generation of more effective treatments.

Novel Drug Targets

‍Researchers are exploring how parathyroid hormone signaling blocks salt inducible kinases (SIK), with hopes that older adults could one day take a pill to avoid bone loss and fractures. Fundamental discoveries in bone biology are opening new therapeutic pathways.

Precision Medicine

‍Recent advances include mathematical models that help clinicians optimize medication combinations and sequences, potentially improving outcomes while reducing side effects. This personalization of treatment represents a shift toward more effective, patient-centered care.

Alternative and Adjunct Approaches

‍Beyond traditional pharmaceuticals, innovations like vibration therapy and targeted estrogen delivery at fracture sites are showing promise in bone regeneration, expanding the toolkit available for prevention and treatment.

For Portfolia, these developments signal a broader bone health technologies ecosystem where capital, clinical science, and digital platforms can work together.

The Business Case for Investing in Women’s Bone Health

For Portfolia investors, osteoporosis presents a compelling opportunity at the intersection of unmet medical need, market size, and innovation potential:

• Market Scale: With 95 million Americans over 65 creating the largest elderly population in U.S. history, and projections showing 54 million women and 41 million men over 65 aging through 2025 and beyond, the addressable market for osteoporosis innovation continues to expand.
• Preventable Burden: Osteoporosis is largely preventable, meaning effective interventions can capture value by reducing downstream costs while improving quality of life.
• Innovation Readiness: Better understanding of bone biology, new therapeutic targets, improved delivery mechanisms, and digital health integration create a fertile environment for breakthrough companies.
• Systemic Change Opportunity: The current treatment paradigm is failing—declining medication use despite rising fractures signals a market that is ready for better, more patient-friendly solutions.

This is the kind of systemic women’s health challenge Portfolia was built to address: big, under-served, and ripe for investor-backed innovation.

Portfolia Portfolio Spotlight: Osteoboost Health

Portfolia is proud to be an investor in Osteoboost Health (formerly Bone Health Technologies), a company that exemplifies the kind of breakthrough osteoporosis innovation the market desperately needs.

A Revolutionary Non-Pharmacological Approach

In January 2024, Osteoboost received FDA clearance as the first and only prescription medical device for low bone density, representing the first non-pharmacological therapy approved to treat osteopenia—the precursor to osteoporosis that affects an estimated 52 million Americans.

The Osteoboost device is a wearable belt that delivers targeted, calibrated vibration therapy to the lumbar spine and hips for just 30 minutes a day. The technology is based on NASA research demonstrating that medical stimulation of bones through vibration improves bone health, now adapted for everyday use at home.

Closing the Treatment Gap for Osteopenia

Over half of all fragility fractures happen during osteopenia, yet prior to Osteoboost, there were no prescription treatments developed specifically for this stage. While pharmacological interventions exist for osteoporosis, patient acceptance remains critically low due to side effects.

The Osteoboost device was clinically proven to protect postmenopausal women from bone strength and density loss, with user adherence over 80% and zero serious adverse events during the trial. This combination of efficacy, safety, and usability addresses one of the field’s most persistent challenges: getting patients to actually use their prescribed treatments.

Building a 360° Bone Health Platform

Under the leadership of CEO Laura Yecies, a seasoned entrepreneur with over 30 years of experience building and scaling companies, Osteoboost Health acquired Wellen in July 2024, adding a personalized exercise program designed by physical therapists to strengthen bones and reduce fall risk.

This acquisition enables a 360° bone health solution—combining precision vibration therapy with science-backed exercise protocols. It is exactly the kind of integrated, preventative care model Portfolia looks for when we invest in women’s health innovation.

Market Validation and Launch

As of May 2025, Osteoboost became available nationwide by prescription, addressing a market of over 64 million Americans with osteopenia and osteoporosis—a $30 billion opportunity in the U.S. and $100 billion globally.

The company has secured backing from leading investors including Esplanade Ventures, Terumo Medical Corporation, Ambit Health Ventures, Portfolia, Astia Angels, and Golden Seeds—strong validation of both the science and the business model.

For Portfolia, Osteoboost Health demonstrates how thoughtful design, rigorous evidence, and patient-centered technology can transform an overlooked category like osteoporosis into a powerful engine for both impact and returns.

Why Osteoporosis Innovation Belongs at the Center of Women’s Health Investing?

The projected 3 million fragility fractures by 2025 represent a significant increase from current levels, driven primarily by the aging baby boomer population. This demographic wave is creating urgency for new solutions in women’s bone health.

For investors focused on backing companies that enhance women’s lives, osteoporosis innovation checks every box:

• A massive, growing market opportunity
• Clear unmet medical and economic need
• Strong clinical and economic rationale for prevention and early intervention
• The potential for transformative impact on millions of women’s health and independence

The companies that can crack the code on osteoporosis through better diagnostics, more effective treatments, improved adherence, or preventative approaches—won’t just generate returns. They’ll help women maintain their strength, independence, and quality of life as they age.

That is an investment thesis that aligns directly with Portfolia’s mission: backing the innovations women want to see in the world, for both returns and impact.

Join Us in Strengthening the Future of Women’s Bone Health

If you believe osteoporosis shouldn’t quietly steal years of mobility, independence, and quality of life from millions of women, you’re aligned with our vision.

At Portfolia, our women-focused funds are channeling capital into founders who are rethinking osteoporosis detection, prevention, and treatment; from breakthrough devices like Osteoboost Health to the next generation of bone health technologies still coming to market.

If this resonates with you as an investor, we invite you to explore how osteoporosis fits within Portfolia’s women’s health funds and to start a conversation with our team. Inside the Portfolia experience, you’ll see how thousands of women are pooling their capital, insight, and lived experience to back companies that are redefining what’s possible in women’s bone health.

Add your perspective to that table and help move osteoporosis from an invisible epidemic to a preventable, treatable women’s health success story.