Jun 15, 2025, 12:00 PM ETPanel

In Service of a Healthier Tomorrow | Global Conference 2025

Panel Objective: The session defines a strategic roadmap for the US healthcare ecosystem, projecting the state of care in 2035 rather than 2030, amidst a "golden era" of biomedical innovation.
Current Systemic Tensions: The US faces a paradox of possessing world-class therapeutics and AI potential while struggling with access, affordability, and inferior outcomes compared to global peers.
Demographic & Disease Trends: The system must address an aging population and a rise in chronic disease conditions which currently consume disproportionate healthcare dollars.
Workforce Constraints: A critical deficit in healthcare workers is projected to persist through 2035, necessitating a shift toward automation and AI to prevent system collapse.

AI Evolution Stages: Panelists reference a prediction that AI will progress through three phases: Assistant, Colleague, and eventually taking over primary functions.
Epic's "ART" Implementation: Epic Health Systems has deployed Automated Response Technology (ART) for patient messaging; while 50% of physicians find the tone unnatural, nearly 100% of patients prefer it for perceived empathy.
Clinician Burnout Reduction: AI-driven documentation tools are being adopted to offload charting from clinicians, with reported results including reduced resignation rates and improved work-life balance.
Regulatory Friction: Robert Ford (Abbott) and others identify the regulatory framework as the primary bottleneck, fearing it will lag behind the rapid adoption of robotic surgery and AI diagnostics.
Future Tech Horizons: Abbott anticipates mainstream adoption of AI-based diagnostics, sub-skin biowearables, and brain-computer interfaces within the next decade.

Cost Curve Analysis: Greg Case (Aon) presented data showing that a 24-month period of strict GLP-1 adherence among 50 million employees resulted in a 50% decline in the cost curve, a 7-percentage point improvement over typical baselines.
Short-term vs. Long-term ROI: While GLP-1 adoption causes immediate cost spikes due to drug pricing, long-term analytics suggest structural cost bending and generational health improvements.
Data as the Scaling Link: The panel emphasizes that without granular data analytics and adherence tracking, high-cost innovations like GLP-1s cannot scale or prove their value to employers and payers.
Employer Leverage: Employers sponsoring 60% of the US population are identified as the critical catalyst for accelerating population health and bending the cost curve nationally.

NIH Funding Cuts: A proposed 40% reduction in NIH funding (from $47B to $27B) is flagged as potentially devastating, threatening US leadership in life sciences.
Global Investment Disparity: Life sciences R&D investment ($300B globally) is only one-third of total US corporate R&D investment ($800B), yet it is disproportionately reliant on government seed funding.
Brain Drain Concerns: With 40% of top US academic scientists being non-US born, budget cuts and a "hostile environment" risk triggering a mass exodus of talent to Europe and China.
Regulatory System Erosion: Ellen (Friends of Cancer Research) notes the firing of 3,500 FDA employees and budget pressures that jeopardize the agency's ability to vet novel therapies, risking a loss of US leadership to competitors.
Xenotransplantation Breakthrough: Pablo (Royalty Pharma) reports a successful 28-day pig-to-human kidney transplant in a decedent with no rejection, paving the way for a compassionate-use trial in 20 dialysis patients.
Cost Reduction Potential: Inbred, genetically modified pigs (developed over 40 years with NIH funding) could produce kidneys costing low thousands of dollars, potentially replacing the $150–$200B annual US dialysis expenditure.

Payer-Provider Alignment: Judy Faulkner (Epic) predicts improved collaboration between payers and providers, leading to faster prior authorizations, fewer denials, and closed care gaps.
Tariff Impact on Supply Chains: Panelists acknowledge tariffs as a significant volatility risk for global healthcare supply chains, though major manufacturers claim resilience due to decades of planning.
Interoperability Ethics: Concerns were raised regarding patient data being sold to third parties (e.g., class action lawyers) rather than used solely for clinical interoperability.
Insurance System Obsolescence: David Rubenstein notes the US health insurance model, established in 1945, requires modernization, proposing concepts like "personal health scores" akin to credit scores.
Alternative Funding Gap: Ellen asserts that private foundations and pharmaceutical companies cannot realistically fill the gap left by NIH cuts, necessitating government partnership to maintain US leadership.

Consensus on 2035: The panel agrees that 2035 will be defined by the successful integration of automation and AI, provided the regulatory system can adapt and funding remains stable.
Risk vs. Resilience: While the "best of times" (innovation) are juxtaposed with the "worst of times" (funding cuts, workforce shortages), the panel concludes that cross-sector collaboration (public, private, academic) can mitigate these shocks.
Call to Action: The closing argument emphasizes that "hope is not a strategy"; the industry must proactively align incentives, fund foundational research, and modernize infrastructure to prevent China from seizing global health leadership.