Health innovation is no longer judged only by the strength of science or the sophistication of a product. Its value is determined by whether breakthroughs reach people, earn trust, improve outcomes, and strengthen systems in ways that are sustainable for communities and the planet. At the Global Health and Purpose Summit, as part of People and Planet United, Diwakar Mittal, Director, Corporate Affairs at Novo Nordisk, Anushree Lakshminarayanan, Director of External Affairs, Policy, and Corporate Communications at MSD India, and Masooma Pathre, Director of Communications, Strategic Marketing Enterprise, EurAsia at Medtronic, join host Aman Gupta, Managing Partner at FINN Partners, for a conversation on who tells the story of health innovation and who shapes its access.

The session advances a timely leadership argument. Communications, public affairs, and policy advocacy are no longer support functions that arrive after discovery, approval, or product launch. They are strategic levers that influence how science is understood, how trust is built, how systems prepare for adoption, how policymakers evaluate value, and how innovation moves from markets to people and planet. The conversation shows that the story of health innovation is inseparable from the system that must deliver it.

Innovation Is Defined by Access and Trust

Gupta opens the session by reframing health innovation for a new operating environment. Scientific breakthroughs remain essential, but they are no longer sufficient. Chronic disease burden is rising, affordability and equity are under scrutiny, and health systems must increasingly align human health with planetary sustainability. In that environment, the test of innovation is not only what is invented, but what reaches people and changes outcomes.

That opening frame sets the standard for the full conversation. Innovation must be trusted by communities, supported by policy, connected to access, and sustainable for the systems that carry it. The narrative around science therefore becomes a practical matter. It determines whether stakeholders understand value, whether policymakers see public health relevance, whether clinicians adopt solutions, and whether patients believe the innovation is meant for them.

Health Systems Must Be Designed for Impact

Mittal brings the discussion immediately to the operating level. Health innovation for people and planet means strengthening health systems fundamentally, not treating sustainability, access, and outcomes as separate agendas. Products, partnerships, manufacturing, supply chain choices, resource use, primary care strengthening, affordability, and prevention must be considered together.

The point is especially relevant in settings such as India, where primary care reaches large populations and where public-private partnerships can make innovation more practical. Mittal argues that patient outcomes and environmental impact must advance at the same time. In his framing, ESG is not a separate function. It must be integrated into business decisions, product design, manufacturing, supply chains, and access models.

Prevention becomes a central part of that sustainability agenda. A healthcare system that waits for avoidable disease progression becomes more expensive, more resource intensive, and less equitable. A prevention-focused system, by contrast, can reduce burden on patients, providers, infrastructure, and the planet.

Technology Must Travel to the Patient

Pathre advances the conversation from system design to care delivery. For medtech and digital health, the operational meaning of innovation for people and planet lies in expanding reach. Remote care, connected devices, AI, and better clinical pathways can bring technology closer to patients, reduce unnecessary travel, ease pressure on hospitals, accelerate decisions, and improve the efficiency of care.

That sentence captures a major shift in health innovation. Access is not achieved only by creating new treatments or devices. Access is achieved when the system is ready to deliver them. Policy, clinician awareness, reimbursement pathways, patient education, and ecosystem coordination all determine whether innovation reaches the people it is meant to serve.

Pathre also connects delivery speed with system efficiency. When clinicians can make decisions faster, when patients spend less time in hospital environments, and when care moves closer to people, innovation begins to reduce pressure on the system rather than add complexity to it.

Approval Is Only the Starting Point

Lakshminarayanan adds a crucial perspective from access, policy, and communications. Discovery and regulatory approval may mark scientific achievement, but they do not guarantee impact. The real test begins when innovators ask whether affordability, delivery, system readiness, manufacturing scale, supply resilience, and sustainability have been built into the pathway from the beginning.

Her argument moves innovation from a product-centered model to a system-centered model. The questions that determine impact are practical and strategic. How quickly does innovation move from approval to adoption. Who benefits. What systemic cost is required. Can it reach thousands, or can it reach millions sustainably. Can partnerships begin early enough to influence disease burden, prevention goals, and public health gaps.

This is where partnerships become essential. Governments, multilateral organizations, innovators, clinicians, payers, patient groups, and communicators each shape whether innovation becomes an isolated breakthrough or a durable public health intervention.

Communications and Policy Shape Outcomes

The conversation then turns to the central role of communications and policy advocacy. Lakshminarayanan argues that these functions are no longer afterthoughts. They are integral to strategy because they help move innovation from awareness to intent, adoption, and system-level action. Her examples from vaccine ecosystems, Ayushman Bharat, HPV vaccination, and HIV advocacy show how sustained advocacy and credible communication can shift public understanding, policy choices, and adoption at scale.

Mittal reinforces the same point from the perspective of chronic disease and patient journeys. Communication and advocacy become stronger when they address the full journey of people living with non-communicable diseases, including awareness, treatment, adherence, complications, stigma, and policy recognition. Obesity is one example. Mittal emphasizes the need to move beyond the idea of obesity as only a lifestyle issue and toward recognition of obesity as a chronic disease requiring public health attention, policy engagement, and coalition-building.

The session repeatedly returns to coalition as the model of progress. No company, agency, or institution can reshape public health outcomes alone. Sustainable change requires shared language, shared evidence, and shared responsibility across the ecosystem.

Evidence Must Reach the Right People

Pathre makes one of the clearest statements in the session about the role of communications and policy in translating evidence into action. The purpose is not to substitute narrative for evidence. The purpose is to carry evidence to decision makers, patients, clinicians, policymakers, and stakeholders in language that each audience can understand and use.

Her example of stroke therapy reimbursement in Punjab illustrates how communication, policy, and stakeholder engagement can shape access. Stroke may not always be as visible in public discussion as other non-communicable diseases, yet evidence, advocacy, and ecosystem engagement can help reimbursement systems recognize the value of treatment and expand access across states and populations.

Pathre also emphasizes that communicators translate evidence across audiences. Policymakers, patients, clinicians, and ecosystem partners do not need the same message in the same form. Effective communications helps each stakeholder understand why the issue matters, what action is needed, and how the decision affects real people.

Trust Is Built Through Consistency

The final major theme of the session is credibility in an era of misinformation, disinformation, and rumor. Pathre is direct. Credibility is core to the work of communications. Trust is built through consistency, clarity, transparency, listening, rapid correction of misinformation, and collaboration across the whole ecosystem.

Mittal adds that trust grows from understanding patient pain points and building solutions with communities. In chronic disease, stigma can prevent people from seeking care, remaining adherent, or speaking openly about their needs. Responsible storytelling must therefore normalize patient experience, listen to lived realities, set the right expectations, and avoid oversimplifying long-term health challenges.

Lakshminarayanan closes the misinformation discussion with an important warning. Misinformation is not temporary. It will become more complex, especially in a digital environment shaped by deepfakes, bots, and rapid rumor cycles. The antidote is not defensiveness. It is consistent behavior, transparent evidence, credible partnerships, ethical guardrails, localized communication, and honesty about both benefits and uncertainty.

From Invention to Responsible Impact

Gupta closes by summarizing the leadership shift at the center of the session. Health innovation will not be defined only by what the sector invents. It will be defined by what it enables, who it reaches, and how responsibly it acts. Communications, policy, and trust sit at the center of that journey because they determine whether innovation becomes understood, accepted, accessible, and durable.

From Breakthroughs to Impact offers a clear message for healthcare leaders, innovators, communicators, and policymakers. The future of health innovation depends on the ability to connect science to access, evidence to policy, technology to system readiness, and public narratives to trust. Breakthroughs matter, but impact depends on the systems, stories, partnerships, and decisions that carry those breakthroughs into the lives of people and communities.

Session Intelligence

This leadership conversation examines health innovation through the lens of access, communications, policy advocacy, sustainability, patient-centered care, system readiness, misinformation, trust, and responsible impact. Its central insight is that innovation becomes transformative only when science, policy, communications, and partnerships work together to move breakthroughs from discovery to durable public health value.

Core Leadership Theme

Health innovation must be judged by access, trust, adoption, system readiness, and impact, not by breakthrough science alone.

Communication Signal

Communications and policy advocacy translate evidence into trust, policy movement, stakeholder action, and public health outcomes.

System Impact Standard

Responsible innovation requires partnerships, prevention, affordability, sustainable delivery, and clear guardrails against misinformation.

Health Innovation Access to Care Policy Advocacy Health Communications Trust and Credibility Misinformation People and Planet Responsible Impact