There is a gap at the heart of the European cannabis industry, and it is not where the industry thinks it is.
It is not a gap in the science. The science is moving faster than most operators realise. It is not a gap in the market, either. Women are already the leading adopters of cannabinoid wellness products across Europe, and have been for some years. The gap is in the conversation. Women's hormonal health, the endocannabinoid system, and the therapeutic potential of plant-based cannabinoid formulations have not been brought together in a way that actually serves the women who need them.
After seven years working inside the European cannabinoid supply chain, across trade shows, investor conferences, industry seminars, and consultative work with hundreds of brands and startups, this is the pattern I have watched. An industry that already sells primarily to women has been strangely reluctant to address women's health on its own terms. Women are absent from product visions. They are overlooked in formulation decisions. They are underserved by operators who, in practice, depend on them for revenue.
The shape of the burden
The conditions women live with at scale do not appear in most commercial pitch decks.
More than half of menstruating women experience dysmenorrhoea severe enough to affect daily life. Twenty percent experience pain severe enough to prevent normal activities. It is the leading cause of absenteeism in women under twenty-five, and for up to a quarter of sufferers, first-line pharmaceutical options do not produce adequate relief.
Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder affects three to eight percent of reproductive-age women. It is classified in the DSM-5, consistently underdiagnosed, and significantly undertreated. A 2024 randomised controlled trial of CBD at 160mg and 320mg twice daily produced measurable reductions in mood rating scale scores across three consecutive menstrual cycles.
Endometriosis affects six to ten percent of reproductive-age women globally, approximately 190 million people, with an average diagnostic delay of seven to eleven years. Perimenopause and menopause affect every woman who lives long enough. Approximately seventy percent experience vasomotor symptoms, forty to sixty percent experience clinically significant sleep disruption, and anxiety and mood disorder prevalence doubles during the transition.
These are not niche categories. This is the majority of the female population, at some stage of life, managing conditions that mainstream medicine has offered NSAIDs, hormonal contraceptives, and Hormone Replacement Therapy for, none of which address the underlying biology of how the female body actually regulates pain, mood, sleep, and skin.
The commercial gap in plain view
Women lead cannabinoid adoption. Across studies, women have a higher incidence of CBD consumption than men, across all age groups. In a 2022 survey of perimenopausal and menopausal women, eighty percent reported using or recommending cannabis for symptom management.
This is happening in a market with momentum. The European medical cannabis market was valued at USD 6.06 billion in 2024, projected to reach USD 36.2 billion by 2033 at a 21.97 percent compound annual growth rate. Germany's market alone is approaching EUR 2 billion, with pharmacy sales surpassing EUR 1 billion for the first time in 2025. The infrastructure being built around medicinal cannabis in Europe today is the same infrastructure through which therapeutic solutions for women's hormonal health will eventually move.
The gap is specific. It is not that women are not buying. It is that the industry has not yet built for them.
Education beats hype, and quality always surfaces eventually.
Why the conversation is finally changing
What has held the conversation back was not absence of interest. It was absence of clinical trial infrastructure and the regulatory constraints that come with it. The science moved ahead of what the industry has been permitted to say publicly. That gap is closing.
Medicinal cannabis frameworks are expanding across Europe. The evidence base is maturing. A generation of women is actively seeking better solutions than what they have been offered. Clinicians like Dr Genester Wilson-King, Dr Bonni Goldstein, Tanya Goodrich PT DPT, and Dr Suzanne Mulvehill are publishing peer-reviewed work at the frontier of this field. They are not fringe voices. They are board-certified specialists doing rigorous work in a space that mainstream medicine has been slow to take seriously.
It is exactly the right moment for all of us, operators, formulators, clinicians, and investors, to bring genuine cannabinoid therapeutic solutions for women's wellness properly to market.
A practical point
Most of the commercial conversations I am in at the moment are with distributors and brands who already know there is something here, but who have not yet built a coherent product or narrative around it. They are not wrong. They are early. And the cost of staying early, as the German medical market doubles and the UK infrastructure catches up, is steep.
The 2026 Icelandic Elements whitepaper is my attempt to bring the science, the clinical framework, the botanical evidence, and the commercial pathway together in one document. It is a foundation, written to be built upon, challenged, expanded, and developed by the practitioners and operators who have the training and authority to take this work further.
If you are building in this space, or thinking about it, I would like to hear from you.