BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Dr. Don Brown, a successful serial software entrepreneur and an Indiana University alumnus, will keynote “The Changing Business of Healthcare,” a conference being presented Nov. 9 in Indianapolis by IU’s Kelley School of Business.
Brown will kick off the conference, the latest event in the Indiana Life Sciences Collaboration Conference Series, organized by Kelley’s Center for the Business of Life Sciences. It will take place at Roche Diagnostics’ corporate headquarters, 9115 Hague Road in Indianapolis. The event will begin at 9 a.m. and wrap up at 2:45 p.m., with an optional tour of Roche’s new facilities to follow.
The title of Brown’s presentation will be “Better Late than Never: Technology Is Finally Poised to Disrupt Healthcare.”
“Technological innovation continues to fuel changes in how health care is being delivered. Don Brown is one of few people today who understand how the life sciences intersects with software and IT,” said George Telthorst, director of the Center for the Business of Life Sciences. “Different segments of the health care industry are intersecting in new ways. The newly approved deal bringing CVS Caremark and Aetna together is just one example of the vertical combinations that could affect consumers.
“Others include Cigna’s proposed merger with Express Scripts and the decision by two providers – Intermountain Healthcare and Ascension – to explore setting up their own generic pharmaceutical manufacturing operation. And companies such as Walmart, Amazon and Berkshire Hathaway are waiting in the wings,” he said. “Don and our other conference presenters will provide perspectives on the tectonic shift in the business of health care delivery.”
Brown founded two former Indiana-based tech firms, Software Artistry and Interactive Intelligence (with Life Sciences Technologies LLC CEO and fellow IU alumnus John Gibbs), and launched a third company, LifeOmic, in late 2016.
He earned a Bachelor of Science in physics from IU in 1978 and later enrolled in a combined MD/Ph.D. program with the intent of becoming a laboratory researcher. While studying at the IU School of Medicine, Brown started his first software company, Dealership Programming Inc., which was acquired by EDS in 1986.
He later switched his focus to computer science, earning a Master of Science in computer science in 1982 before earning a medical degree in 1985. He also earned a master’s degree in biotechnology from Johns Hopkins University in 2017.
In 1988, Brown founded Software Artistry, which became the first software company in Indiana to go public and was later acquired by IBM for $200 million. He then founded and served as CEO of Interactive Intelligence, a leader in communication technologies that went public in 1999 and was acquired by Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories in 2016 for $1.4 billion.
His current company, LifeOmic, provides long-term storage, retrieval, analysis and clinical use of genomic and other digital information used in precision medicine.
Brown is also an active technology and business advisor, investor and philanthropist. In 2016, he donated $30 million for the establishment of the Brown Immunotherapy Center at the Indiana University School of Medicine.
Among the other presenters at the conference will be Gurpreet Singh, U.S. health services sector leader at PwC; Ketan Paranjape, vice president of diagnostics information solutions at Roche Diagnostics; and Mike Mann, senior population health consultant, Intermountain Healthcare.
The registration fee is $175 and includes lunch. Students at accredited Indiana institutions of higher education may qualify for a discounted rate. Registration and additional information are available on the conference webpage or by contacting Kelli Conder at the Kelley School at 812-856-0915 or kconder@indiana.edu.
Future events in the 2018-19 Indiana Life Sciences Collaboration Conference Series are “The Healthcare Industry in Pain Management and Addressing the Opioid Crisis” on Feb. 15 at Cook Medical headquarters in Bloomington and “The Intersection of Food, Diet and Healthcare” on May 10 at One America Tower in Indianapolis. People may register for all three events for $450, for a savings of $75.
Editors: Reporters are welcome. Please contact George Vlahakis, the Kelley School’s associate director of communications and media relations, at vlahakis@iu.edu or 812-855-0846, to register.
