DTx WEST 2021

YiDing Yu, MD, is an international keynote speaker, a Harvard physician, published researcher, and a serial entrepreneur in healthcare AI and digital tech. She is Chief Medical Officer of Verata Health, a venture-backed AI company that automates prior authorizations for providers and payers. 

Verata Health is used by thousands of physicians to automate prior authorizations for advanced imaging, surgeries and procedures, and specialty drugs, dramatically reducing staff burnout and streamlining the revenue cycle.

As a serial entrepreneur, Dr. Yu was honored by the Cartier Women’s Initiative Awards as woman entrepreneur of the year in 2018. She has won top innovation prizes from the American Heart Association, the American Medical Association, and the Cleveland Clinic for her ground-breaking work. Previously, Dr. Yu served as Chief Innovation Engineer of Atrius Health, a $2B multispecialty practice in Boston, MA.

In his nearly 30 years of broad international biopharmaceutical and medical-device experience, Kabir has shaped strategy to deliver results in complex, challenging business environments at the country, regional, and global level. Kabir joined Otsuka in March 2016 to head all commercial operations within the North American pharmaceutical businesses. Most recently, Kabir was appointed Senior Managing Director, Global Pharmaceutical Business at Otsuka, with overall operational leadership for the global pharmaceutical business, overseeing North America, Europe, Japan, and the rest of Asia, while continuing to have direct responsibility for the US business. Before joining Otsuka, Kabir held strategic and senior operational roles across several continents at Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS). He began his career in strategy consulting at Booz Allen & Hamilton before holding a wide range of operational and strategic roles at the medical technology company Smith + Nephew. Kabir holds an MA from King’s College, University of Cambridge, and an MBA with Distinction from INSEAD.

Throughout his career, Kabir has built bridges between cultures. His work has taken him across the globe, spanning 3 continents and multiple countries. Kabir has lived and worked in the United Kingdom, France, Spain, India, Singapore, China, and the United States. He has consistently inspired those around him to go beyond cultural and linguistic differences to bring new concepts and ideas to life, forging stronger partnerships rooted in diverse experiences. For Kabir, leadership is not about having all the answers, rather, it is about creating an environment where Otsuka-people are deeply connected to their purpose, and the patients and families they serve.

Adam is Director of Clinical Operations at Curebase, overseeing all Curebase’s clinical trials, including digital therapeutics. Adam has a range of therapeutic and research experience. He began his career as a coordinator and transitioned into monitoring and project management roles of increasing responsibility within CROs, academia, and pharma.

Adam received a master’s in clinical research from George Washington University and is active in his professional community.

Anand is a respected global digital health leader—most known for his insights on and experience with technology, strategy and regulatory policy. Anand has been instrumental in WellDoc’s success and the development of BlueStar®. Since joining WellDoc in 2008, he has held core leadership positions that included Chief Data Science Officer, President and Chief Operations Officer. He holds an MS and a PhD in electrical and computer engineering, and an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University.

Dr. Jin Lee is the Director of Digital Health Product/ Commercial Strategy at Astellas pharma. She was formerly at the innovation centers and venture arms of Humana, 4th largest health insurance company, and Providence St. Joseph Health, 3rd largest nonprofit hospital system, focused on series A & B digital health investments and pilots. Dr. Lee also cofounded and worked in multiple startups in maternal/child health, radiology, and education. Based in San Francisco, she advises multiple digital health startups and accelerator programs. Dr. Lee received her Ph.D in neuropsychology from the University of Oxford and BA in biology and neuroscience from the University of Pennsylvania.

Brent Vaughan is CEO of Cognito Therapeutics, a clinical-stage company leading the development of a new class of disease-modifying digital therapeutics to treat neurodegenerative disorders including Alzheimer’s disease. With more than 20 years of experience, he has a proven track record of success developing proprietary technologies and products across multiple domains, including digital therapeutics, medical devices and pharmaceuticals.

Prior to Cognito, Brent was Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder at Cognoa, an AI-based digital therapeutics company, where he established the company as a leader in digital therapeutics and pediatric behavioral health. Under his leadership, Cognoa was awarded FDA Breakthrough Designation for the first two products for autism and successfully completed the clinical development of the lead product. He was also co-founder at WellnessFX, a leading digital health company.

Brent has also held leadership positions in business development and product management in therapeutic and medical device companies including Saegis Pharmaceuticals, Nektar Therapeutics, and Roche. He received his M.B.A. from Santa Clara University and a B.S. in Biochemistry from the University of California, Davis.

Joris van Dam is a Digital Health intrapreneur with 15 years’ experience in Pharmaceutical Research & Development, focusing on the innovative use of digital technologies to improve and transform therapeutic innovation, patient engagement, and clinical trials operations. Joris is currently leading the Digital Therapeutics initiative at Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, including its collaboration with Pear Therapeutics on the development of therapies in schizophrenia and multiple sclerosis.

Prior to that, Joris launched a number of digital health innovation initiatives at Novartis, including the launch of the Trials of the Future program, the Patients-2-Trials Consortium (a pharma consortium project to facilitate clinical research navigation for patients), the Clinical Research Collaboration with Walgreens (running interventional clinical trials at local Walgreens Healthcare clinics), TriNetX (a platform for using electronic medical records for study planning and design), CentrosHealth (a platform for patient engagement Apps in clinical trials), and a mobile platform for bedside data collection for clinical trials in Africa.

Prior to joining Novartis, Joris spent 7 years at Janssen, where a.o. he worked in partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to launch a mobile health platform for improving treatment of HIV patients in various regions across India, and led Janssen’s participation to the EHR4CR program at the EU’s Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI). Prior to joining pharmaceutical research and development, Joris spent 7 years in consulting across industries and across Europe. Joris holds a PhD in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Amsterdam.

Susan Baumgartner offers a unique balance of clinical and business expertise with 25 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and digital health industries. She is currently the VP of Product Management & Regulatory Affairs at etectRx. Susan began her career with Merck & Co. and served in numerous leadership roles in marketing, sales, commercial operations, medical strategies and strategic planning. She also held key executive positions within technology startups with a focus on improving medication use and enhancing therapeutic outcomes. Susan earned a Doctor of Pharmacy and MBA degrees with highest honors from the University of Florida. She is an accomplished business executive with expertise in the successful development and commercialization of pharmaceutical products, medical devices and digital health solutions.

Elan is a Principal with JAZZ Venture Partners, focusing on healthcare and participates on boards in the space. JAZZ is a traditional venture capital firm typically leading or co-leading late seed through series B rounds. Previously Elan founded and grew several startups as an operator and adviser across digital health, neuroscience, and AI, including co-founding digital therapeutics companies Swing Therapeutics and Blue Note Therapeutics. Other past experiences include consulting for larger health institutions with the Boston Consulting Group and Monitor Deloitte. He received his bachelor’s degree from Tufts University and his MBA from the University of California, Berkeley.

Amir is an established neuroscientist specialized in digital medicine and clinical innovation. His strategic vision is empowered by real-world data that enable the discovery of clinical insights otherwise not possible solely based on conventional health records. Amir has boundless passion for accelerating novel therapies and creating a path for better patient experience. He brings an entrepreneurial zeal to the clinical world through disruptive technology and AI analytics from proof of concepts to scale-up solutions. Prior to pharma , Amir was a professor of Pediatrics and Epidemiology at Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health and served as a PI on numerous clinical trials with 200+ publications and conference presentations.

Dr. Parks’ research focuses on self-help methods for increasing well-being via books and digital technology. She is Chief Scientist for tech startup Happify, which brings the cutting edge in research-based well-being interventions to large businesses, health plans, and consumers. Her research spans across the whole spectrum of wellness, from non-distressed consumers to stressed employees, sufferers of chronic health conditions, and individuals with depression and/or anxiety. She works to pioneer new methodology in the study of digital therapeutics, especially when it comes to outcomes assessment. Her work has been published in peer-reviewed journals, and in addition to editing three books, she is also an Associate Editor at the Journal of Positive Psychology.

Prior to joining Big Health, Ankur led regulatory affairs activities for next generation sequencing based oncology diagnostics at Roche. Ankur has also previously served in regulatory affairs and quality systems roles at Abbott Laboratories, Medtronic and Johnson & Johnson. Ankur received his Master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles.

BAKUL PATEL is Director for Division of Digital Health, at the Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH), at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Mr. Patel is responsible for providing leadership, development, implementing, execution, management and setting strategic direction and regulatory policy and coordinate scientific efforts for digital health, software and emerging technologies.

This includes responsibilities in leading the development on policies for mobile health, health information technology, cyber security, medical device interoperability, and medical device software.

Mr. Patel also led the creation of the globally harmonized regulatory framework for “software as a medical device” (SaMD) at the International Medical Device Regulators Forum (IMDRF). The concepts, principles and vocabulary created in harmonized regulatory framework has been used as a foundation in the European union, Japan, Canada, Brazil, Australia and USFDA.

Mr. Patel is the FDA liaison between the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC).

Mr. Patel is currently leading the effort for the agency in developing an innovative software precertification program in collaboration with all stakeholders to reimagine a regulatory approach for Digital health that that aims for patients and providers to have timely access to safe and effective digital health products.

Prior to joining FDA, Mr. Patel held key leadership positions in the telecommunications industry, semiconductor capital equipment industry, wireless industry and information technology industry. His experience includes Lean Six Sigma, creating long and short- term strategy, influencing organizational change, modernizing government systems, and delivering high technology products and services in fast-paced, technology-intensive organizations. Mr. Patel earned an MS in Electronic Systems Engineering from the University of Regina, Canada, and an MBA in International Business from The Johns Hopkins University.

Chihiro leads business development and manages relationship with partner venture capitals for Rx+ Business in Astellas.  Rx+ is a concept of new healthcare solution created by combining innovative new technology in different field and Astellas capabilities developed in pharma business.  In her role, Chihiro actively seeks partnership and investment opportunities in the growing field of Rx+ business, with high focus in digital health and medical device.  Chihiro has 15 years of industry experiences in research and Business Development in addition to Rx+ business.  She received an MSc from Waseda University and an MBA from Tsukuba University.

Dr. Andrey Ostrovsky was the former Chief Medical Officer of the US Medicaid program. He is the Managing Partner at Social Innovation Ventures where he invests in and advises companies and non-profits dedicated to eliminating disparities. He also advises federal and state regulators on how to incorporate human centered design into policy making. He previously operated a series of methadone clinics in Baltimore, Maryland. Prior to working on the front line of the opioid use disorder crisis, he served as the Chief Medical Officer for the Center for Medicaid and CHIP Services, the nation’s largest health insurer, where he advocated to protect the program against several legislative efforts to significantly dismantle the program. He also led efforts to streamline Medicaid and make it more customer-centric. Before leading the Medicaid program, he co-founded the software company, Care at Hand, an evidence-based predictive analytics platform that used insights of non-medical staff to prevent aging people from being hospitalized. Care at Hand was acquired in 2016 by Mindoula Health. Before Care at Hand, Dr. Ostrovsky led teams at the World Health Organization, United States Senate, and San Francisco Health Department toward health system strengthening. Dr. Ostrovsky has served on several boards and committees dedicated to behavioral health, interoperability standards, quality measurement, and home and community based services including the National Academies of Medicine, National Quality Forum, Institute for Healthcare Improvement, and the Commonwealth Fund.

Andrey holds a Medical Doctorate and undergraduate degrees in Chemistry and Psychology Magna cum Laude from Boston University and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Andrey completed his pediatrics residency training in the Boston Combined Residency Program at Boston Medical Center and Boston Children’s Hospital where he was a clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School. He is currently teaching faculty and attending physician at Children’s National Medical Center.

Dr. Liz Kwo is an experienced healthcare executive with 15+ years specialized in building and scaling digital healthcare products to provide high quality care, leveraging predictive and prescriptive analytics to improve outcomes. Her current role at Anthem is to create digitized, automated, and continuously improved frictionless patient and provider experience that drives down cost of care. She has worked in remote patient monitoring for Medtronic, American Well as the VP of Provider Networks for telehealth, and is an active angel investor in the healthcare community, with a specific interest in technology-enabled healthcare delivery such as RubiconMD. She founded multiple venture-backed companies in educational technology (sold to CVC private equity firm in 2014), digital healthcare, and healthcare supplies and is passionate about creating seamless tailored experiences for enrolling patients and building on-demand data driven insights to support national employer clients.

Dr. Kwo has extensive experience in healthcare technology product development and commercialization, P&L, B2B/B2C marketing & sales, strategic partnerships, & post-merger integration. A practicing physician in urgent and preventive care, Dr. Kwo’s clinical expertise allows her to translate ideas from bench to bedside. She is also a lecturer in the Harvard-MIT HST Program and an Instructor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Kwo has an MD from Harvard Medical School, MBA from Harvard Business School, MPH from Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, and a BA from Stanford University. She completed her residency at Harvard Preventive Care and is Board Certified in Preventive Care and Occupational Medicine.

Lucia Savage is a nationally-recognized thought leader on health information privacy and HIPAA. Using strategic advice to advance digital technology to deliver health care while protecting privacy, she drives Omada Health’s continued commitment to advancing digital health, including the safe, secure, and effective handling of participants’ personal health information. Prior to joining Omada, she served the Obama Administration as Chief Privacy Officer at the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT. She first implemented HIPAA for Stanford University in 2000, and later oversaw the HIPAA compliance and data strategy for California’s pre-ACA health insurance exchange, PacAdvantage, where she served as General Counsel. In addition to her work at Omada, Lucia serves as Vice-Chair and Chair-Elect of the Committee on Advocacy and Public Policy at Academy Health.  Lucia has a B.A. with Honor from Mills College and received her Juris Doctor summa cum laude from New York University School of Law.

Dr. Marisa Cruz is the Chief Medical Officer for Limbix. She previously served as the Senior Medical Advisor for the Digital Health Unit in the Center for Devices and Radiological Health at the US Food and Drug Administration, providing leadership in the development and implementation of digital health policy for medical devices. Prior to joining CDRH, Marisa served as a senior advisor to the Associate Commissioner for Public Health Strategy and Analysis. She received her M.D. from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, completed an Internal Medicine residency and Endocrinology fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco, and continues to provide clinical care at George Washington University.

Ross Muken is Chief Financial Officer at Click Therapeutics, where he works to guide Click’s future growth and financial strategy. Mr. Muken was previously Partner, Senior Managing Director and Head of the Healthcare Services & Technology Research Team at Evercore ISI, widely recognized as the #1 independent equity research franchise on Wall Street. He provided thoughtful insights on over 50 companies across the Healthcare Technology & Distribution, Life Science Tools & Diagnostics, Managed Care & Facilities and Medical Supplies & Devices sub-sectors. Ranked amongst the top analysts by Institutional Investor over the past decade, Mr. Muken is well-known for his proprietary fundamental research and highly accurate financial modeling as well as his work with emerging and disruptive technologies across the healthcare continuum. Prior to joining Evercore ISI, Mr. Muken served as a Managing Director at Deutsche Bank Securities, where he helped build the healthcare platform into a top franchise at the company. Previously, Mr. Muken spent time in the Equity Research division of Thomas Weisel Partners and began his career as an M&A Investment Banker at Bank of America Securities. Mr. Muken earned his B.S. in Business Administration, magna cum laude, at Boston University.

Megan Coder, PharmD, MBA, is Executive Director of the Digital Therapeutics Alliance. DTA’s mission is to broaden the understanding, adoption, and integration of clinically-evaluated digital therapeutics into mainstream healthcare through education, advocacy, and research.

With more than a decade of experience in the healthcare industry, Megan’s expertise extends from strategic growth and partnership development within the digital health sector, to the direct delivery of patient care. Prior to joining DTA, Megan worked with Voluntis, Iodine, the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, and the Pharmacy Technician Certification Board.

A proud Badger, Megan graduated from the University of Wisconsin—Madison School of Pharmacy and completed an Executive Residency in Association Management & Leadership with the American Pharmacists Association.

Simon Lin, MD, MBA, is the Chief Research Information Officer at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. To transform the IT department at large organizations, Dr. Lin developed a formula for success: “Digital Leadership = Delivery x (Data + AI) x Ethics”. He has been a keynote speaker and panelist at a number of events, including CIO Summit, Becker’s Healthcare IT + Revenue Cycle, HIMSS Analytics, and IEEE Smart Health. He authored over 120 publications and edited five books.

As leader of Australia’s peak body for digital health, Dr Louise Schaper, is a passionate advocate for the transformation of healthcare, enabled by technology. As CEO and Fellow of the Australasian Institute of Digital Health she brings together world-class clinicians, researchers, innovators and organisations from across the biomedical, health and technology spectrum who are committed to the improvement of health outcomes enabled through innovative uses of technology and information. She is a facilitator, an innovator and a change agent who explores and leverages the convergence of people, systems and technologies in the transformation and future of health and medicine.

With a background as an occupational therapist, Louise has a PhD in technology acceptance among health professionals, is a graduate of Stanford’s Executive Leadership Program, a Certified Health Informatician, a Salzburg Global Seminar Fellow and a Fellow of the International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics.

Louise holds Adjunct Fellow positions at the University of Melbourne and Macquarie University and is a Board Director of Asthma Australia. Louise is an in-demand speaker and writes for academic and industry publications. She is host of the popular Dissecting Digital Health podcast, she is always online, and yes, she does have the coolest job!

Raj is a Medical Doctor, Professor, Technology Futurist, renowned Global Speaker, International Healthcare Volunteer & Entrepreneur -practicing ‘Healthcare Democratization’ by supporting disruptive Life sciences initiatives globally that can impact the planet

A globetrotter, Raj visited 7000+ Hospitals & Specialty Centers in 50+ countries, and continually served many Private Life Sciences Investment Committees, Venture Capital funded Consortium’s, Startup-Advisory Boards and many Government lead Digital Health wings across North America, Africa and Asia-Pacific regions.

With close to 2 decades of experience in Consumer Health, Connected Health , Wireless technologies, Devices & Platforms, Precision Medicine, Tele-Medicine, Digital Therapeutics and Startup’s Ecosystems, with specialization in Strategy & Leadership, Innovation & Corporate Development, Raj Pallapothu is currently heading ‘Bio 9 Ventures’, an international boutique firm offering services in the areas of Sovereign fund divestments in Healthcare

Sarah Jackson is Chief of Staff at Click Therapeutics, where she operates across business development, alliance management and strategy. In her role, Sarah actively seeks partnership and licensing opportunities, supports deal execution, and manages collaboration relationships and operations. Sarah holds a B.A. cum laude in Cognitive Neuroscience and Evolutionary Psychology from Harvard College.

Dr. Khandwalla has co-authored research papers on heart failure and has conducted research on mitral valve disease. He has an avid interest in complex valvular disease, as well as developing strategies for effective lifestyle modification. He is particularly interested in the use of mobile technology to help patients monitor and change their habits in order to reduce their cardiovascular risk.

Dr. John Krakauer leads all scientific discovery and validation for MindMaze following the acquisition in 2018 of the medtech company he founded called Neuro Motor Innovations.

In addition to serving as Chief Medical Advisor for MindMaze, John is also:

• John C. Malone Professor and Professor of Neurology, Neuroscience, and Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

• Co-director of the Brain, Learning, Animation, and Movement (BLAM) Lab

Valerie Sullivan brings significant experience in the pharma, digital health and pharma services industries to her role as President and CEO of etectRx. Innovative and forward thinking, she is passionate about creating meaningful, cost-effective solutions across the healthcare ecosystem by leveraging patient engagement and digital technology to support greater outcomes, more therapeutic impact and the potential to serve an unmet need.Prior to joining etectRx, she served as President of InVentiv Patient Access Solutions, a tech-enabled patient support services company. In addition, she served as Vice President and General Manager of the Patient Service Center at Pear Therapeutics, a program that she envisioned and built from the ground up. She began her career in healthcare working at Pfizer for over 15 years. Sullivan serves as an independent member on the board of directors at CareMetx and Two Labs Pharma Services, and is Chairman at the Group Insurance Commission, a quasi-state agency in the Commonwealth of MA. She is on faculty at Bentley University as an adjunct professor in the Management Department. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry and Economics from College of the Holy Cross and an MBA in Finance and Marketing from Northeastern University.

Alex is a senior level global bio/pharmaceutical business leader with 27+ years of experience with large pharmaceutical, fully integrated biopharmaceutical and startup organizations.

He has a proven record of building and leading business strategy and operations. In his career, Alex has driven enterprise value from portfolio strategy through to commercial launch. In previous roles, Alex has architected the structure and growth of several divisions at Biogen and helped to shape the emerging biosimilar market at Epirus Biopharmaceuticals.

Alex has also worked in numerous commercial and operations roles at Genzyme, Astra Zeneca, Pfizer and Bristol-Myers Squibb.