Resilience rules: reflections on International Women’s Day 2026

In this blog, Jane Wall, Managing Director at BIA, reflects on the insights from our sell-out Women in Biotech 'Big WiB' event held at Hinxton Hall, Cambridge, in the lead-up to International Women’s Day. Drawing on the latest WIB leadership report update, she examines the current challenges facing women in the sector and celebrates the 'Series A superstars' who are defying the current economic headwinds.

As we approach International Women’s Day this Sunday, I am reflecting on the incredible energy at Hinxton Hall, Cambridge, this week. An audience of 250+ gathered for our ‘Big WiB’ Women in Biotech 2026 event: a full day celebrating the brilliance of our community in a completely sold-out event that proves the appetite for connection and high-calibre thought-leadership in our community has never been stronger.

The theme for IWD 2026 is Rights, Justice, Action, and awareness of the fragility of those rights and the need to press ahead against the headwinds was strong throughout the day.

Women in leadership report: one year on

I shared a sobering update from our latest Women in biotech leadership report. The headline? The dial has moved just 0.4% in 12 months. With female CEO representation stalling at 18.7%, growth has officially hit a plateau.

In a highly risk-averse market, we are seeing a boardroom retrenchment. Boards are falling back on ‘known’ management teams, and in the critical private, pre-clinical stage, female NED representation has dropped to just 9%. This is a global "structural cap" that we cannot afford to ignore. However, beneath this plateau, there is a story of extraordinary defiance.

If you want to see what resilience looks like, look no further than our female founders and CEOs. In a year where global capital retreated, female-led firms nearly doubled their share of capital to 15%. Our ‘Series A superstars’, including Draig Therapeutics and T-Therapeutics, secured over £341 million.

These results prove that when world-class science meets high-calibre female leadership, you create the most resilient assets in the global biotech portfolio. This isn't just a win for diversity; it’s a win for UK clinical excellence.

Inspirational and challenging day

We kicked off Big WiB with an incredibly insightful session for our mentors and C-suite attendees with Paula Holland from Cooley and Jody Thelander on compensation and equity where Jody presented some of the latest transatlantic stats on how companies are managing both strategically: fascinating also to track the closing of the compensation gap in some areas – but a glaring disparity in equity as featured in the recent Forbes article.

From US policy and changing global political rhetoric on DEI, how to lead companies through change, and the challenge and opportunity in women’s health.  From the launch of the Health Data Research Service, tissue biology through the lens of women’s health and lessons in leadership.  Our panels and keynotes ranged widely and insightfully through the day with so many great anecdotes, lived experience, advice, thought-provoking challenges and calls to action – alongside a good deal of laughter, networking and cocktails.  It really struck home how incredibly resilient, inspirational and determined our speakers, panellists and audience proved to be.  Thank you to all of you for your time, your wisdom and your energy.

My takeaways?

• The ownership gap cannot be ignored.
• The representation data is challenging but women leaders outperformed the market in 2025 and we have some incredible role models in the UK.
• The UK has an opportunity to lead the world in joined-up data and in a focus on diversity in clinical trials and diverse data.
• We must not sleepwalk into losing key rights and letting the wrong political (and public?) rhetoric gain ground. Broader communication is key.
• Change is an opportunity – flex your resilience muscles and embrace (some) chaos. If in charge of change, be mindful of effective communication and your own presence.
• Women’s health is under-researched and under-funded, BUT thanks to technology and huge advances in awareness, it is coming of age. Word of mouth and pressure from patients will be key but investors are now interested.
• Take opportunities, reset after setbacks, prepare, know yourself, find good mentors and build your network.
• Favourite analogy of the day: there’s a reason why on a plane they instruct you to fit your own oxygen mask before you sort anyone else out (thanks Jody).

 

 

BIA’s ongoing work supporting Women in Biotech

Underneath the ongoing series of inspirational events that bring women and allies together to create and build important connections, we have been building a body of work that is measuring and acting on some of the challenges that impact women in the sector.  In 2022/3 we launched the first UK sector DEI report, which identified the leaky pipeline for women and identified areas of the sector where underrepresentation was critical.

We established our mentoring programme – now in its fourth cohort; we expanded into Big WIB to incorporate a full day of workshops, panels and keynotes.  We built the Advisory Group, which has been so helpful in supporting, guiding and challenging us, and we started bringing C-suite women together for camaraderie at a crucial point in their careers.  When then moved on to publish the first WIB leadership report, diving deep into the barriers to establish where we could have the most impact as BIA – as a result of that collaborating with Invest in Equity to help that initiative get off the ground to bring and keep more women in investment, and just this month launching She Steers: NEDs in Biotech and our leadership report update.

Things do take time but we are really starting to see the impact as we move through our mentoring cohorts – with 60% of mentees participating moving to more senior roles after the programme, and 64% of those progressing within their own company.  So if you have shining stars and you’re a member company, please do consider putting them forward for the programme later this year.  We have also focused on the C-suite in this cohort – ensuring that we are really supporting those coming through that vital stage where the numbers tell us that women start to be filtered out.

Very proud to have launched She Steers recently in collaboration with Murray Edwards (Cambridge), AstraZeneca and Deloitte.  The NED area is in absolute dire need of a larger pool of board-ready women – We have been blown away by the quantity and quality of women applying to the programme – there is clearly no shortage of talent (but we knew that, didn’t we?) It’s access to the rooms that remains the barrier.  The applications are now closed but you’ll hear more about the programme as we move through the spring.  Watch this space!

Join us at Alderley Park, Canary Wharf (and watch out, Edinburgh – we'll be back)

Our journey continues! I look forward to seeing many of you at our next Women in Biotech event in Alderley Park on 13 May. Tickets go quickly, so book quickly to avoid disappointment. 

Happy International Women’s Day! Let’s celebrate and keep the pressure on for change...