Health Care & Benefits

Healthcare must become more accessible, cost-effective and patient-centered. We believe prevention and early treatment of diseases is by far the best option to not only improve patient outcomes but significantly lower the cost of healthcare everywhere. As the largest in-vitro diagnostics (IVD) provider in the world, Roche is committed to delivering diagnostic solutions that enable early detection and monitoring conditions. It costs much more to treat than to prevent diseases.

National healthcare costs grew 4.1% to $4.5 trillion in 2022, or $13,493 per person, and accounted for 17.3% of Gross Domestic Product. Only 3.5% of the annual spend is on prevention. This presents an opportunity to invest where we have a real chance to reduce healthcare spend through prevention and early diagnosis. Roche develops and produces medical tests and digital solutions that provide information to help healthcare professionals find the right treatment options for patients.

Reaching new heights since the pandemic, the shortage of skilled healthcare workers continues to be a challenge here in the United States and around the world. Nearly every healthcare delivery point has been affected, including diagnostic laboratories that provide insights to help healthcare providers find the right treatments for patients. 70% of the healthcare decisions made throughout a patient’s journey are supported by in-vitro diagnostics—tests that are completed using blood, tissue or urine.

With vacancy in labs hovering at 13% across U.S. hospitals, staff shortages are the No. 1 issue facing laboratories today. More concerning, the situation is projected to worsen as the demand for medical laboratory technologists and technicians is expected to increase by 11% between 2020 and 2030.

In training and education, the number of accredited laboratory training programs has decreased by 25% over the past 30 years, and fewer academic programs exist to provide this specialized training. To put this in perspective, the profession is currently educating less than half of the laboratory professionals needed to meet demand.

Addressing the root cause of this labor challenge requires building a pipeline of potential workers interested in and excited about a rewarding career in healthcare and diagnostics. From here, it will be up to businesses, educational institutions and community organizations to connect with middle and high school students—our future workforce—to promote the value of careers in STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics), and to introduce young people to these opportunities and the skills it takes to be successful in these fields.

Addressing future labor challenges equates to an overall improvement in healthcare. With this in mind, we at Roche are collaborating with organizations such as Project Lead The Way and Junior Achievement to offer experiential learning opportunities to middle- and high-school students, thus promoting the value of careers in STEAM. Roche’s Accelerated Development Program offers new college graduates an opportunity to explore different areas within Roche to help identify their ideal career paths.

At the higher-education level, we partner continually with the University of Indianapolis to create the Roche Academy. College students complete a paid summer internship with Roche, in which they receive work-based experiences in the life sciences industry and specialized training. Students successfully completing the program receive financial and educational incentives, including an opportunity for placement in early-career roles at the end of their summer internship.

In 2023, more than half the world’s population remained without essential health service coverage. This has to change.

Despite significant advances in cancer screening and innovative treatments, significant disparities remain regarding risk factors, prevalence, incidence and mortality. These variations are further impacted by social and economic development and local healthcare landscapes. One such disease area is cancer. Cancer care should not be determined by who you are or where you live: This inequity must be addressed urgently.

As part of Roche’s area of focus for cancer diagnostics, we recently received the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval for one of the first HPV self-collection solutions in the U.S., expanding access and screening options to help eliminate cervical cancer. Roche’s self-collection solution can help reduce these barriers by offering an alternative to clinician collection procedures, while also providing accurate and reliable results enabling clinicians to make patient care decisions. Once on the market, this self-collection solution could be available in the doctor’s office, pharmacy, public health clinic or mobile health van.

We have to make a seismic shift—moving from “sick care” to true “health care,” in a way that benefits patients, societies and healthcare systems. We must continue to push the boundaries of science, while exerting equal effort to ensure these innovations get to patients as quickly as possible. We have the ability and obligation to eradicate diseases and conditions like cervical cancer, HIV and tuberculosis. Even as we advance identification of Alzheimer’s disease and cancer before they appear, informing therapies for truly personalized care. At Roche, we are looking to ensure diseases can be detected earlier, treated earlier and monitored better, or prevented altogether—helping to improve health outcomes and reduce the cost of care.

Diagnosis, disease prevention, predictive treatment and monitoring are keys to transforming healthcare—now and in the future. There is power in knowing, even before there are therapeutic options available.

Roche has a global reputation and history of leading in the area of corporate sustainability. As an active member of the Indiana Department of Environmental Management’s Environmental Stewardship Program and Partners for Sustainability Program, our Indianapolis campus and employees have an equally strong record.

The Indianapolis campus is powered by 100% renewable electricity and has a recycling rate of 66.5%, which is two times the U.S. national average. Last year, we constructed our first CO2 Zero warehouse that operates with 100% renewable energy. In 2023, 94% of the waste generated on the Indy campus was either recycled or incinerated with energy recovery.

Our 172-acre campus landscape design includes native vegetation, bioswales and rain gardens that have reduced the site’s water usage by 10 million gallons a year. Our site utilizes a central chiller plant that does not use ozone-depleting (halogenated hydrocarbon) refrigerants and has allowed us to reduce our impact by replacing over 90% of ozone-depleting substances since 2006.

Sustainability is built into our business strategy. Our purpose is to do now what patients need next. How we identify and meet those needs—what we do every day—must be sustainable if we are to succeed.