Wellcome Leap and Medicines360 launched a partnership last week that aims to accelerate maternal health tools globally.
San Diego-based Wellcome Leap helps build and fund programs to improve human health. San Francisco-based Medicines360, meanwhile, is an innovation organization that helps develop and launch products for women.
Through the partnership, the organizations will develop blood tests and noninvasive eye-imaging tools to better predict the risk of common pregnancy complications linked to about half of all stillbirths. It builds on the advances designed in Wellcome Leap’s In Utero program, a $50 million initiative launched in 2022. The technologies developed in this program include:
- The University of Cambridge’s blood-based biomarkers of fetal-growth restriction, gestational diabetes mellitus and preeclampsia
- The University of Edinburgh’s retinal eye imaging technology, which is meant to detect vascular-related conditions such as preeclampsia
Medicines360 will lead the development of these products and will also be testing them in a clinical trial starting this summer. The diagnostics will be tested in first-time pregnancies (which are when the biggest risks are) throughout three trimesters.
“The ultimate goal is to develop diagnostic tests which can be deployed largely, so not on very sophisticated analytical systems which cost a lot and are available in more sophisticated labs,” said Dr. Andrea Olariu, CEO of Medicines360, in an interview. “Our goal is really to develop tests that can be deployed in rural areas, and we’ll start with the U.K. and U.S., but then the goal is to expand globally and make this test available also in low and middle-income countries.”
She added that this will help close gaps in maternal health access, balance medical interventions such as C-sections, and improve early detection of complications and ongoing monitoring throughout pregnancy.
Around the world, more than 2 million pregnancies end in stillbirth every year. And more than one in 150 births end in stillbirth in the U.S. About 30% of stillbirths occur in pregnancies with no identifiable risk factors, according to an October 2025 JAMA study. Low-income families are especially at risk. This is what the partnership hopes to change.
“Before you finish this paragraph, another baby will be stillborn. Every 16 seconds, a mother, a family, grieves this loss. Women deserve clearer insights of their pregnancy health,” said Regina E. Dugan, CEO of Wellcome Leap, in a statement. “By combining Wellcome Leap’s scientific breakthroughs with Medicines360’s global innovation and access model, we can deliver predictive tools to mothers around the world – before complications arise. Before it’s too late.”
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