Healthcare up close: Moving from discovery to real-world impact

The “bench-to-bedside” journey from research innovation to actual patient care is no quick trip. It can take years, even decades.

To explore ways to expedite that process, two preeminent brands — WashU Olin and The Atlantic magazine — recently convened top thinkers from academia, medicine, public health, and private investment in the school’s Business of Health Summit.

The event featured representatives from Silicon Valley, private equity, and both the medical and corporate sides of the innovation space. It brought a national focus to WashU’s groundbreaking work in this area, as well as promoting the health ecosystem in the St. Louis region.

It was the latest event sponsored by Olin’s new Business of Health Initiative seeking to widen perspectives on how to solve the biggest challenges in health. The initiative’s goal is to leverage the school’s strengths in the health sector and connections with WashU Medicine and the new School of Public Health to create lasting impact.

“We’re bringing core business skills to fuel the steady growth of ideas and innovation, so that we can build better outcomes for patients, improve care delivery systems, and deliver revolutionary breakthroughs to the market,” Dean Mike Mazzeo said in his welcome to 175 participants at the Oct. 15 summit on the WashU campus.

Panelists discussed strategies to propel innovative breakthroughs from discovery to real-world impact at scale. They also explored the various obstacles that stand in the way. All acknowledged that the challenges are substantial, particularly in times of uncertain early-stage medical research funding.

But as conversations played out over the half-day event, one common theme emerged: The importance of collaboration among the major players in the various sectors. “Innovation, especially in the healthcare space, is a team sport,” said Olin alumna Erin Scott, MBA/MSBE 2007, PhD 2013, a senior lecturer at MIT Sloan.

We want to bring the people with deep knowledge across many different disciplines together in the room to move these innovations forward.

—Erin Scott

Beyond commercializing research discoveries, panelists said it’s important to put smart business minds to the task of making these breakthroughs available equitably. “We have a lot of brilliant minds in business who are thinking about the next device, the next drug, the next whatever way to make money,” said Karen Joynt Maddox, a health services and policy professor at WashU’s schools of Medicine and Public Health. “And we don’t have the connection of all of these brilliant minds, all of the McKinsey kids, thinking about how we fundamentally shake up how we deliver healthcare.”

Professor Ryan McDevitt, one of two new faculty members at Olin with a healthcare focus, led a panel looking at the benefits and tradeoffs of various types of funding for healthcare organizations, including private equity, which has been rapidly expanding its footprint in the sector.

Jesse Hunter, healthcare operating partner at Welsh, Carson, Anderson, and Stowe, said private equity has an opportunity to provide the catalyst for positive change.

“There’s a lot of momentum towards the status quo within the current system,” Hunter said. “There is the question of ‘Where is the innovation and disruption going to come from?’ I think within healthcare, there is a tremendous opportunity to do all the things that everybody wants: improve access, improve quality outcomes, improve experience, particularly at the patient level, and ultimately, to do that in a more cost-effective way.”

Patrick Aguilar, Olin’s managing director of health, said jumpstarting these types of discussions is an important goal of the Business of Health initiative.

“I'm particularly energized by the idea that we’re engaging in those conversations together, both with excellent panelists and with the conversations you’re having in the hall about how to create impact,” he told participants.

There will be another opportunity for those involved in health research and enterprise to connect and continue those conversations at WashU Olin’s annual Business of Health symposium on March 5, 2026.