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.
Proposal application steps.
Upload your proposal and submit your application before 23 April 2026 at 11:59pm ET.
VISIBLE
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.
Proposal application steps.
Upload your proposal and submit your application before 23 April 2026 at 11:59pm ET.