Panel Moderator- David Reitzel, Crowe LLP and Panelists Conor Aberle, Eli Lilly; Tim Dube, Pharmaceutical Care Management Association; Haizhen Lin, Kelley School of Business; Ann Roy, Boston Scientific
Breaking Bottlenecks: Consumerism and Collaboration in Healthcare 🩺💻
Summary by Rex Rumsey, MBA Candidate, Class of ’25
What if the future of healthcare were reimagined? At the recent IU Kelley School of Business’ Indiana Life Sciences Collaboration focused on Healthcare, a dynamic keynote by Jay Bhatt of Deloitte followed by panelists– Conor Aberle, Eli Lilly and Company; Ann Roy, Boston Scientific, David Reitzel, Crowe; Tim Dube, Pharmacy Care Management Association and Haizhen Lin, IU Kelley School of Business joined industry professionals, startups, and thought leaders for an engaging discussion.
Keynote by Jay Bhatt, Deloitte
The message was clear: Consumerism and technology are reshaping healthcare. With $550 billion already spent on nontraditional healthcare products, people are moving from passive patients to empowered partners in the center of their care. The Deloitte Center for Health Solutions recently published its 2025 Insights for the life sciences and healthcare industries which goes into more detail about these shifts.
However, significant bottlenecks remain—reimbursement challenges, trust issues, and regulatory hurdles are among the most pressing. The U.S. payer system is particularly complex, categorizing 70% of individuals as either commercially insured (those under 65 and employed) or Medicare beneficiaries (65+). Misaligned risks and rewards between the two systems make it difficult for payers to justify upfront investments in wellness and preventive care.
Why? On average, individuals switch jobs and insurance plans every three years, long before the long-term benefits of early intervention are realized. Moreover, the costs of managing chronic diseases often shift to entirely different payers later in life. These types of reimbursement models and limited access to integrated data make ROI calculations for early, preventative treatments less feasible, slowing the move towards a platform-based business model.
Despite these challenges, consumer-driven models are developing. Disruptors like BetterHelp, Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company, PBC, Amazon, and Lilly Direct are shaking up traditional gatekeeping and distribution channels, offering patients easier access to affordable medications and services.
Yet, this shift raises critical questions:
▪️ How do we balance affordability, safety, and efficacy in a consumer-centric system?
▪️Can healthcare companies build trust and responsibly use patient data to enhance care?
▪️Are we willing to reduce the regulatory burden on corporations to improve the customer experience, knowing it might come with greater risk and fewer protections?
The conference highlighted the need to understand why systems exist, how they function, and the value they provide before redesigning them. Manufacturers must innovate, managed care models should reduce excessive costs, and PBMs play a vital role in ensuring consistency and cost-effectiveness of drugs.
Collaboration among these groups is critical to creating a healthcare system that prioritizes transparency, consumer preference, and a balanced approach to trust and risk, all while keeping patients at the forefront in a new, modernized way.
Future Healthcare Leaders! Indiana University graduate and undergraduate students gain insights from industry executives at the conference.
A special thanks to series event supporters: Barnes & Thornburg LLP, Elevance Health, Labcorp, and Eli Lilly as well as Primary event supporters Boston Scientific, Deloitte, and Ice Miller LLP for collaborating with the Kelley Center for the Business of Life Sciences.
The Center for the Business of Life Sciences at the Kelley School of Business will be coordinating two more conferences this academic year.
The February 28 event is a one-day research conference that brings together life sciences related research faculty, industry leaders, and healthcare regulators to stimulate important new research questions and collaborations as well as share the latest in data-driven life sciences acahttps://www.labcorp.com/demic research. Content will include several academic research paper presentations along with keynote addresses from academia, regulatory affairs, and industry. This conference will help foster collaborative connections between companies, regulators and business researchers.
On May 2nd, Cook Medical will host the Healthcare and AI event focused on professionals in the life sciences industry. During this event stakeholders will discuss and debate potential impacts of artificial intelligence on healthcare, which is just beginning to be envisioned. Among those “leading the charge” are several Indiana firms, universities, and healthcare providers. These may take the form of potential new drugs, new devices and procedures, or new treatment approaches and regimens. This conference will provide an update as to the latest with this emerging technology.
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