patrick nowlin

The Abstract -

In this episode of The Dose Response, Alex Condoleon sits down with healthcare leader Patrick Nowlin to explore how AI and digital innovation are reshaping medicine—and why the pace of change may be faster than many leaders anticipate.

The conversation opens with a creative prompt: if Patrick’s career came with a prescription label, what would it say? His answer - a potent “mind-expanding dose” prescribed to shift an organization’s horizon and provoke new ways of thinking—paired, of course, with a black-box warning about the need for careful sequencing to realize the vision.

From there, they examine innovations such as “Griffin products”—hybrid solutions that merge therapies and delivery systems—and the shift of care beyond the clinic into the patient’s hands and home. Patrick draws on his experience in both Western and Chinese markets to explain why some regions accelerate adoption while others advance more cautiously, highlighting the influence of culture, infrastructure, and regulation.

Through it all, one truth keeps surfacing: in healthcare, velocity without trust is a dead end. Patrick makes the case for pairing startup-style creativity with the regulatory savvy and scale of big players—because bridging that gap is where real transformation happens.

Patrick’s closing insight is clear—leaders must think exponentially, act with intention, and prepare their organizations now, because once the inflection point arrives, the pace will leave little room to catch up.

Keep your eyes on the horizon as Healthcare’s Digital Dawn rises.

The ManuTranscript

Alex Condoleon:
Patrick, welcome to The Dose Response, where bold ideas meet courageous conversations in healthcare. If digital innovation were a medicine, we’d still be in Phase 1 — far from the maximum tolerated dose — but the window of opportunity is wide open.

You’ve inspired me more than once, so let’s start with a fun one: if your résumé were a medication label, what would it list under “Indications and Usage”?

Patrick Nowlin:
That’s a perfect setup, Alex — especially since we first crossed paths working on an insulin dosing project. I’d say: “Administer when you need a mind-expanding dose that redefines the horizon.” My strength is in planting a mile marker way down the road, one that shifts how people see the path ahead. I’m the “mind-expanding dose” that prompts the reaction: Oh, I’ve never looked at it that way before.

And I’d add: my best work happens when an organization is ready to think beyond the next product cycle. When you aim far enough ahead, conversations move from incremental improvement to category-defining transformation. That’s when innovation stops being limited to a specific project and becomes part of the organization’s operating DNA.

Alex Condoleon: Sometimes medicines has a black box warning. What’s yours?

Patrick Nowlin:
Mine would read: “Apply with care — may cause temporary disorientation.” My ideas are often several steps ahead of what’s immediately actionable. For some, that’s exhilarating; for others, it’s overwhelming. You can’t just plug in a future vision and expect it to run — you need careful sequencing and change management.

That’s why I think of innovation like a potent therapy: the dosage, timing, and combination with other “agents” matter. Get it right, and you energize a team to move toward a bold future. Get it wrong, and you risk burnout or resistance. Leaders who match ambition with a pragmatic roadmap — those thousand baby steps — are the ones who actually deliver transformation.

Alex Condoleon: You’ve been a senior healthcare executive in Pharma, you are currently part of the Executive for a highly innovative start-up, and you think about AI daily. Are we at the dawn of a fundamentally new era in healthcare?

Patrick Nowlin:
Absolutely — though the transformation will take two distinct forms. On the therapy side, AI is accelerating the creation of what I call “Griffin products” — hybrids that combine traits nature never put together, like a griffin’s lion body and eagle wings. Imagine precision biologics merged with digital diagnostics and novel delivery systems. The result will be a broader arsenal of highly targeted, narrowly applied tools — and entirely new delivery models to match.

On the care delivery side, AI will blur the boundary between clinic and home. Self-management will expand, supported by real-time monitoring and adaptive guidance. And critically, AI will strip away administrative drag so clinicians spend less time at a keyboard and more time connecting with patients. This isn’t just operational efficiency — it’s a fundamental redefinition of the care experience.

Alex Condoleon: You’re American and you now call China home. How does the speed of development and adoption compare between China and the US?

Patrick Nowlin:
China’s innovation culture is all about velocity. The mantra is “ship it at 60%, test, iterate.” That’s the opposite of the Western “perfect it before you launch” mindset. They’ve proven you can have both speed and quality if you design your system for it, much like Japan’s manufacturing revolution in the 1980s.

But speed isn’t just cultural — it’s also regulatory. China’s framework allows certain AI applications to advance faster, while others face tight oversight. The result is different “flavors” of AI-driven healthcare around the globe, shaped not by the tech itself but by the rules of the game. For innovators, that means one-size-fits-all strategies don’t work — you need to tailor your approach to each market’s regulatory DNA.

Alex Condoleon: Looking five to ten years ahead, which emerging technologies will make the biggest impact?

Patrick Nowlin:
AI-driven protein design leads the list. Tools like AlphaFold can help us create proteins tailored to specific environments — therapies that work in places nature never designed them to. Combine that with targeted delivery systems, from mRNA vectors to cell-specific carriers, and we could treat niche populations with unprecedented precision.

What’s transformative is not just the science, but the business model shift. Smaller patient groups become viable to serve because development cycles are faster, costs lower, and efficacy higher. That’s a fundamental change in how we think about market size, value, and patient access.

Alex Condoleon: 10 years ago we could have had this same discussion and would have been talking about a similar aspiration. However, one difference now is that these ideas feel genuinely within reach. Why is that?

Patrick Nowlin:
Because the science has caught up to the vision. A decade ago, we could imagine these therapies or innovations but couldn’t chart a credible path to get there. Today, that path is visible — which makes the conversations more grounded and more urgent.

The limiting factor now isn’t technology; it’s regulation and payer adoption. Without frameworks that can keep pace, even the most brilliant innovations risk languishing. In fact, the next big healthcare breakthrough might not be a therapy at all — it might be a regulatory model that accelerates safe adoption.

Alex Condoleon: In the US, e-prescribing took over a decade to hit 90% adoption. ChatGPT hit 100 million users in two months. What’s the lesson here for healthcare?

Patrick Nowlin:
Healthcare is conservative for good reason — “first, do no harm” is not just a slogan. We move fast only when the platform is burning, as it was with COVID vaccines. Outside of crisis, the adoption curve can be slow.

The lesson? Speak healthcare’s language. In tech, you might prove value through user engagement or A/B testing. In healthcare, it’s randomized controlled trials and validated outcomes. Innovators who position their solutions within that framework build trust faster — and that’s the real accelerator.

Alex Condoleon: We’re in a world where last year’s innovation agenda can feel outdated. How does this pace change the way leaders set strategy?

Patrick Nowlin:
In small companies, the limiters are regulation and payer access. In large companies, it’s often culture and process. That’s why the most effective model is partnership: small companies innovate rapidly, large companies industrialize and scale — bringing the muscle to navigate payers, regulators, and global markets.

The leaders who succeed now are those who can translate between innovation and adoption — who understand that the bottleneck isn’t just in the lab, it’s in the ecosystem. Mapping that ecosystem and its rate-limiting steps is the key to unlocking real-world impact.

Alex Condoleon: Regulators, payers, and health systems can all be barriers to adoption. How should innovators work with them?

Patrick Nowlin:
Start with empathy. Regulators aren’t trying to block progress; they’re protecting patients. Payers aren’t stubborn for sport; they’re safeguarding financial sustainability. The job of an innovator is to make adoption safe for these stakeholders, both in perception and in reality.

That means sequencing your innovation in smaller, safer steps — building evidence, de-risking the rollout, and proving value incrementally. It feels slower, but it actually gets you further, faster, because you avoid the hard stops that come from overreaching.

Alex Condoleon: Any examples of when that bridge wasn’t built well?

Patrick Nowlin:
Apple Health’s work with heart diagnostics comes to mind. Technically brilliant, but the approach to the FDA lacked alignment with their risk framework. It wasn’t a technical gap; it was a cultural one. Big pharma, for all its bureaucracy, knows how to navigate those conversations — and when paired with startup speed, that’s a formidable combination.

Alex Condoleon: Do we need a leadership mindset shift to act despite uncertainty?

Patrick Nowlin – Absolutely. Leaders can’t lead from the boardroom alone anymore—especially in a time when AI and digital transformation are rewriting the healthcare playbook in real time. You’ve got to get to the front lines, sit with the teams deploying these tools, and experience firsthand how workflows, patient interactions, and even decision-making are shifting. If your only view is from the strategic dashboard, you’ll miss the nuance—those subtle friction points and unexpected breakthroughs that shape how innovation actually sticks.

The danger for senior leaders is assuming their past experience fully translates into this new environment. It doesn’t. Technology is changing the “how” of care delivery, data capture, and decision-making in ways that can’t be understood secondhand. Getting close to the action not only accelerates understanding, it also builds trust with teams who see that leadership is willing to learn alongside them. That presence on the ground is what will inform better, faster, and more relevant strategic decisions at the top.

Alex Condoleon: And that’s exactly what I mean when I talk about leadership in the age of the democratization of innovation. This isn’t about a select few making the big calls—it’s about creating the conditions where innovation can surface from anywhere, where those closest to the patient or the process can shape the agenda.

Your call to action just now - Leaders who get out there, who understand the real context, are far better equipped to channel that distributed innovation into momentum.

Another important question - are we seeing different technologies emerge in China versus the West?

Patrick Nowlin:
The tech is similar, but adoption conditions are different. E-prescriptions are a great example. In the US, slow adoption. In China, near-instant uptake. Why? An online-first retail culture, dense urban infrastructure with cheap delivery, and regulations that enabled virtual clinics and online prescribing.

It’s proof that tech alone isn’t enough. You need the right cultural, economic, and regulatory conditions to unlock adoption. That’s why global strategies have to adapt to local realities.

Alex Condoleon: Final question Patrick. What should healthcare leaders be asking themselves right now?

Patrick Nowlin:
Where will exponential change hit my world, and what can I do today to shape it? The biggest shifts won’t be driven by tech companies alone — they’ll be led by those who understand healthcare’s complexity and can bridge innovation with adoption.

The leaders who win will be those who see innovation not as a one-time dose, but as a therapy — carefully managed, adjusted, and scaled over time to deliver sustained impact.

Alex Condoleon: Patrick, thank you for joining The Dose Response. Your insights, your leadership, and your unwavering focus on translating vision into reality are exactly what this series is about.

Patrick Nowlin: Anytime, Alex. Always a pleasure.