Jim Powell, former president and CEO of Roche Biomedical and Laboratory Corporation of America (LabCorp), discussed his career and the spirit of entrepreneurship that continues to motivate him during a Legends of Business presentation in LaRose Digital Theatre May 3. Details...
Powell took questions from a panel of business students and the audience about his career and his current work with Living Microsystems, a start-up company that is developing a new blood test that would replace amniocentesis for expectant mothers.
“What’s exciting for me is to see the ways technology is changing medicine,” Powell said. In 1997, Powell left LabCorp and established the medical products company that is known today as Tri-Path. “At Tri-Path, we changed the way the Pap smear had been done for 50 years,” Powell said.
Powell is also excited about PCR technology, which was pioneered by Roche Biomedical. PCR is “the lynch pin of all the understanding we have of the human genome,” Powell said. PCR allows scientists to map DNA in humans and is useful in detecting and treating diseases such as cancer and hepatitis at an early stage, allowing doctors to target specific, mutated cells.
“If you get cancer, you have chemotherapy, followed by some x-rays and then you get surgery,” Powell said. “The treatment of cancer is still a shotgun approach to a very specific disease. We may look back in 50 years and say that PCR had the biggest impact on our society because of what it could mean to cancer treatment.”
He also shared his thoughts on the state of the U.S. health care system and advised students to take advantage of the opportunities he believes upcoming changes will offer.
“I’m convinced that we’re going to have a pretty big overhaul of our health care system. It’s broken and it doesn’t work. I think we’re going to have some sort of national health care plan, and we need it. There are tremendous opportunities to be involved in this overhaul we’re going to have.”
Though he has “quasi-retired” on several occasions, Powell said the lure of new discoveries keeps him looking for new challenges. “It’s what I like to do. I tried retiring, but the excitement is not there like it is in the daily machinations of running a company.”
Business students at Elon will have a tremendous advantage entering the workforce, Powell said, noting his one regret is that he didn’t finish his MBA degree during his Army service.
“You learn a lot of different things in business—you learn this, you learn that,” Powell said. “But you don’t always know how it fits together. That’s what a formal education gives you, a framework to hang all of that information on.”
The Legends of Business Series at the Martha and Spencer Love School of Business brings successful business leaders to campus to share their experiences with students and the community.
Powell grew up in a home adjacent to the Elon campus and has been an invaluable member of the university community. He has served as a member of the board of trustees since 1979 and recently completed a term as chair. He chaired the successful fundraising campaign for the Ernest A. Koury, Sr. Business Center, which features the James B. and Anne Ellington Powell Lobby, named in honor of Powell and his wife.