FPM/ABHI Webinar: CVD & Women’s Health – What Can We Practically Do to Shift the Dial?
Tuesday 13 October 2026
12:00pm - 1:00pm
Members of FPM and ABHI are invited to join this latest partnership webinar.
Earlier this year, we partnered with the ABHI to deliver a well-recieved webinar on companion diagnostics. We are pleased to continue that collaboration with a discussion on one of the most significant challenges in healthcare: improving cardiovascular outcomes for women.
Taking a whole-pathway perspective, this webinar will explore innovation from the early development of medicines, assays and medical technologies through to diagnosis, monitoring and long-term management. The session will examine how research, clinical practice and innovation can better reflect the specific needs of women, including the role of biomarkers, diagnostic thresholds and sex-specific approaches to cardiovascular care.
Bringing together experts from industry, research and healthcare, the discussion will focus on practical actions that can help accelerate progress and improve outcomes for women living with or at risk of cardiovascular disease.
Who should attend?
This webinar is relevant to FPM and/or ABHI members working across the life sciences and HealthTech sectors, including those involved in pharmaceuticals, medical devices, diagnostics, research, regulation, clinical practice and health policy, as well as anyone with an interest in women’s health and cardiovascular innovation.
Event Details
This event is free to register.
When? Tuesday 13 October, 12:00 – 13:00 (UK time)
Where? Online
Bookings for this event are via the Eventbrite platform.
To join FPM as a member, please visit the Membership pages on our website or contact membership@fpm.org.uk.
Please note our booking terms and conditions and our privacy policy.
Agenda
Introduction (12:00 – 12:05)
Ravi Chana, Executive Director, Diagnostics, ABHI
Dr Sheuli Porkess, President, FPM
Session (12:05 – 12:45)
Speaker: Professor Andrew Krentz FFPM(Hon)
- Scene setting
- Cardiometabolic risk profiles between the sexes and the key stages of the life course that are most relevant to women’s cardiometabolic health – and why
- Adolescence – risk of polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome (insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome)
- Pregnancy – gestational diabetes; hypertension; pre-eclampsia; long-term risks of CMD
- Menopause – increased risk of CMD
Speaker: Dr Fran Conti-Ramsden
- Hypertensive disorders of pregnancy
- Longer-term CVD
- Emerging data on window for risk modification in the postpartum
Speaker: Dr Bejal Pandya, Consultant Congenital Cardiologist and Clinical Director, Specialised Cardiology, Barts Heart Centre at St Bartholomew’s Hospital
- Current gaps in women’s cardiovascular care
- The role of HealthTech across the cardiovascular pathway
- What needs to change to ensure existing innovations reach women more consistently
- Practical examples and lessons from Barts Heart Centre
Q&A (12:45 – 13:00)
Chair: Ravi Chana, Executive Director, Diagnostics, ABHI
Meet the Speakers
Professor Andrew Krentz MD PhD FRCP FRCPath FFPM(Hon) FRSM FRSA is an academic physician and medical educator whose translational research spans epidemiology, preclinical science, clinical trials and implementation science including machine-learning approaches for precision medicine. He has authored and edited textbooks on diabetes, insulin resistance and cardiovascular disease. He is also the founding Editor-in-Chief of the multidisciplinary journal Cardiovascular Endocrinology & Metabolism. In 2025/6 he created a well-regarded clinical summit series on Cardiometabolic Disease Prevention under the auspices of the Royal College of Physicians in which women’s health over the life course was a major theme.
Dr Bejal Pandya is a Consultant Cardiologist at Barts Heart Centre, St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London. She qualified from the University College London in 2001 and trained in Cardiology in the London Deanery. She is the clinical director for specialised cardiology.
Dr Pandya is an expert in adult congenital heart diseases and she is also interested in aortopathy disease and pulmonary hypertension associated with heart disease. She has extensive experience in a range of cardiac procedures including cardiac catheterisation, pulmonary vascular resistance studies, complex echocardiography such as bubble contrast echocardiography and transoesophageal echo.
Dr Pandya has a keen interest in clinical research with a focus on MRI-augmented cardiac catheterisation studies and has published extensively in this area. She is a keen educator and lectures nationally and internationally. She is also council lead for congenital heart disease for the Royal Society of Medicine. She has contributed to literature and presentations for a number of charities to include the Aortic Dissection Charitable Trust.
Dr Frances Conti-Ramsden is an Obstetrics and Gynaecology registrar and Chadburn Clinical Lecturer at King’s College London, where her research focuses on cardiovascular disease in pregnancy and maternal risk prediction.
She completed an MRC-funded PhD at King’s in 2025 on ethnic disparities in pre-eclampsia risk, work recognised with the ISSHP Zuspan Award, and holds an MSc in Health Data Analytics and Machine Learning from Imperial College London. She completed an NHS Clinical AI Fellowship in 2026 and is part-time Chief Medical Officer at MEGI Health, a Femtech company developing regulated digital tools for cardiovascular care in pregnancy and beyond, where she leads clinical safety and regulatory strategy.
Health equity and the adequate representation of women in research and innovation run throughout her work.