Galien week of innovation

Dr. Michael Rosenblatt’s career has been in academia, pharma and biotech/venture.

He is a physician-scientist, now advising biotech and pharma companies, as well as serving on boards. Most recently, he was Chief Medical Officer of Flagship Pioneering, a Cambridge, MA-based firm that creates innovative biotech companies (Moderna is an example).

Previously he was Merck’s Chief Medical Officer. He also served as Dean of Tufts University School of Medicine, and before that, Robert Ebert Professor of Molecular Medicine and George R. Minot Professor at Harvard Medical School. He was President of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Director of the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology.

He graduated summa cum laude from Columbia, and received his M.D. magna cum laude from Harvard. Internship, residency, and endocrinology training were all at the Massachusetts General Hospital.

Phillip A. Sharp is an Institute Professor emeritus at MIT and member of the Department of Biology and the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research.

His research interests have centered on the molecular biology of gene expression relevant to cancer and the mechanisms of RNA splicing.

His work in 1977 provided the first indications of “discontinuous genes” in mammalian cells. This discovery fundamentally changed scientists’ understanding of gene structure and earned him the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

A native of Kentucky, Dr. Sharp earned a B.A. degree from Union College, Barbourville, KY, and a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana.

Dr. Sharp was a co-founder of Biogen (1978) and served as chair of its Scientific Advisory Board and member of the Board of Directors.

He co-founded Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (2002) and serves as chair of its Scientific Advisory Board and member of the Board of Directors.

Dr. Julie Louise Gerberding is the President and CEO of the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH), a non-profit organization that builds public-private-patient biomedical research partnerships to address important medical challenges in support of the NIH mission. She also co-chairs the CSIS Bipartisan Alliance for Global Health Security. 

Dr. Gerberding formerly served as President of Merck Vaccines and as Executive Vice President and Chief Patient Officer at Merck & Co., Inc. From 2003-2009, Dr. Gerberding led the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 

Dr. Gerberding is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and the adjunct faculties of the University of California, San Francisco, and Case Western Reserve University. Her current board service includes Mayo Clinic, Case Western Reserve University, Research!America, National Health Council, Hillevax, and Artidis. 

Diana W. Bianchi is the Director of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

She received her M.D. from Stanford University and her postgraduate training in Pediatrics, Medical Genetics and Neonatal- Perinatal Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

Her research focuses on noninvasive prenatal DNA screening and diagnosis and developing prenatal therapies for genetic disorders.

She is a Past President of the International Society for Prenatal Diagnosis (ISPD) and a former Editor-in-Chief of the society’s official journal, Prenatal Diagnosis.

Dr. Bianchi has received multiple awards, including election to the US National Academy of Medicine in 2013, the 2015 Neonatal Landmark Award from the American Academy of Pediatrics, the 2016 Maureen Andrew Award for Mentorship, the 2017 lifetime achievement award in Medical Genetics from the March of Dimes, and the ISPD’s 2019 Pioneer Award.

She received an honorary doctorate from the University of Amsterdam and the Health Public Service Visionary Award from the Society for Women’s Health Research in 2020. In 2022 she was a finalist for the Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medals and was named as one of Forbes.com “Fifty (women) Over 50” in the category “Impact”.

Dr. Mary-Ann Etiebet is a global health leader, healthcare executive, and staunch advocate for women’s health and health equity. She has spent more than two decades working across the public and private sectors to improve the health of underserved populations. As of mid-September 2024, she will become the President and CEO of Vital Strategies, a $110 million organization with a team of world-class talent and programs in over 80 countries.

Dr. Etiebet is joining Vital Strategies after a distinguished career at MSD (Merck in the USA and Canada), where she served as Associate Vice President of Health Equity & Partnerships and successfully spearheaded the development and implementation of the company’s first enterprise-wide health equity strategy. Her leadership was instrumental in expanding access to health care and advancing MSD’s innovative portfolio of medicines and vaccines in low- and middle-income countries. As Executive Director and Lead of MSD for Mothers, she led a $650 million global health initiative that increased access to high-quality and respectful maternal health care for over 30 million women in over 70 countries.

She is a member of the Center for Global Development Board of Directors, the Board of Trustees of Vital Strategies, and the Advisory Committee for the Pozen-Commonwealth Fund Fellowship in Health Equity Leadership at Yale University. She has also served as the private sector representative on the board of the World Health Organization-hosted Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health and the Investors Group of the World Bank’s Global Financing Facility.

After earning her undergraduate, M.D. and MBA degrees from Yale University, Dr. Etiebet completed her residency in Internal Medicine at New York-Presbyterian Weill Cornell and her fellowship at New York-Presbyterian Columbia University Medical Center, becoming board-certified in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases. While Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, she also served as the Senior Technical Advisor of the Institute of Human Virology-Nigeria, leading the development of their PEPFAR-supported HIV/AIDS public health and clinical service delivery programs. At New York City Health and Hospitals and as a Principal Consultant in the Population Health Management team at Premier, Inc. she was responsible for implementing various Medicaid and Medicare delivery system reforms and value-based payment initiatives in hospital systems across New York City and state.

Elizabeth Garner is a seasoned pharmaceutical executive with a career-long focus on addressing unmet needs in women’s health. Born and raised in Nigeria, she brings a global view to her work. Most recently, Dr. Garner was Chief Scientific Officer, Ferring Pharmaceuticals US. Her prior roles include Chief Medical Officer of the women’s health companies ObsEva and Agile Therapeutics, and leadership roles at Myriad Genetics, Abbott Laboratories, and Merck Research Labs. 

Dr. Garner is on the Boards of Directors of Kezar Life Sciences and Sermonix Pharmaceuticals, and is Board Chair of NUA Surgical. Garner is also the Immediate Past President of the American Medical Women’s Association (AMWA) a professional organization for women physicians. 

Beth received joint M.D. and M.P.H. degrees from Harvard Medical and Public Health Schools, trained in obstetrics and gynecology at Brigham and Women’s (BWH)/Massachusetts General Hospitals, and completed a fellowship in gynecologic oncology at BWH/Dana Farber Cancer Institute. Prior to transitioning into industry in 2007, she was Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School. Elizabeth has extensive experience as a media spokesperson and is a frequent panelist and speaker on a range of topics including innovation and investment in women’s health, women’s leadership, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), and diversity in clinical trials. She is a 2019 and 2023 awardee of the PharmaVoice 100 Most Inspiring Individuals in the life sciences industry and was the 2022 recipient of the AMWA Woman in Science Award. 

Dr. Sandra Milligan is an accomplished and dynamic C-suite pharmaceutical executive who integrates a unique background, diverse professional experience and leadership to drive results. 

With over 20 years of experience in large (Amgen, Genentech, Merck), mid (Organon) and small-cap (Aspira Women’s Health) companies, Sandra is a proven professional building and propelling forward product portfolios aligned with commercial and manufacturing priorities. 

Sandra’s experience expands across therapeutic areas and modalities, including oncology and non-oncology disease areas, small molecules, diagnostics, biologics and vaccines, reflected by stage gate advancement, new market approvals and product line extensions. 

Sandra received her medical degree from George Washington University, her law degree from Georgetown University and served in the Army medical corps.

Sanskriti Thakur is the Founder and Chairwoman of TOWER Capital Group and the pioneer of Generational Health. 

Her career has been focused on Life Science, Health and Economic Transformation, exemplified by: leading pandemic disaster response, serving on World Economic Forum councils, heading life science research 

for a sixty billion dollar consultancy, and redefining Generational Health for the global market. 

Prior to founding TOWER, Sans spent two and one half years as Chief Growth Officer of Medable, a digital clinical trials company, supporting its double unicorn status. Prior to Medable, Sans was the Global Head of Life Science Research at Accenture and led therapeutic, patient, market, technology and innovations research across twenty-four markets. Prior to 2013 and her tenure at Accenture, she had operated life science business units, operational initiatives and investment strategies between $5-10B USD in size. Additionally, she served on the World Economic forum Councils of Healthcare, and Longevity and continues to serve on the Women’s Health platform today. 

Overall, Sans is a life science and health industry leader with domain expertise in therapeutics, diagnostics, digital health, women’s health and longevity. This set of experiences fuels Sans’s category leadership of Generational Health both ethically and scientifically. 

Sans has undergraduate and graduate degrees in life and physical sciences and an MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business. She lives in New York with her family of four.

Rohit T. “Rit” Aggarwala was appointed Commissioner of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection and the City’s Chief Climate Officer in February 2022. 

Under his leadership, DEP has embraced a leadership role on both stormwater and coastal resilience, streamlined its procurement processes to be able to invest more money in infrastructure each year, and improved DEP’s water revenues by reducing accounts receivable and delivering revenues $250 million above budget in his first year. 

As Chief Climate Officer, he also led the development of New York City’s most recent sustainability plan, PlaNYC. 

Prior to the Adams administration, Aggarwala served as the first Director of the New York City Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability under Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, where he led the creation of the first PlaNYC. 

He later founded the environmental grantmaking program at Bloomberg Philanthropies and served as president of the Board of Directors of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group. 

He was part of the founding team at Sidewalk Labs—Google’s urban technology startup—and more recently was a senior urban tech fellow at the Jacobs Cornell-Technion Institute. 

He has co-chaired the Regional Plan Association’s Fourth Regional Plan for the New York metropolitan area and is an adjunct professor at Columbia University. 

Aggarwala holds a PhD, MBA, and BA from Columbia University and an MA from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. 

Dr. Balbus is the Director of the new Office of Climate Change and Health Equity within the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health and the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Climate Change and Health Equity.

A physician and public health professional with over 25 years of experience working on the health implications of climate change, Dr. Balbus has served as HHS Principal to the U.S. Global Change Research Program and co-chair of the working group on Climate Change and Human Health for the U.S. Global Change Research Program since he joined the federal government in 2009.

Before coming over to the new Office, Dr. Balbus served as Senior Advisor for Public Health to the Director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS).

Prior to joining NIEHS, Dr. Balbus was the Chief Health Scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund and an Associate Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health at the George Washington School of Public Health and Health Services.

He received his MPH degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, his MD degree from the University of Pennsylvania, and his undergraduate degree in Biochemistry from Harvard University.

He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2021.

Specialist in Infectious diseases and Bacteriology- Virology. Former Senior Minister to the President of the Republic of Senegal. She is the Chair of Galien Africa, which organizes annually the Galien Forum Africa and Prix Galien Africa. 

Prof. Coll Seck has been twice Minister of Health in Senegal (2001-2003 / 2012-2017). She was named “Best Minister in the World” in Dubai in February 2017 at the World Government Summit. 

She had the responsibility of directing the Department of Infectious Diseases at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, Senegal. Prof. Coll Seck was Executive Director of the Roll Back Malaria Partnership (RBM) from 2004 to 2012 and Director of the Department of Policy, Strategy and Research of UNAIDS (1996-2001). 

She is on the Board of Directors of: Resolve to Save Lives, AFRIVAC, GAVI-the Vaccine Alliance, Grand Challenges Canada, Exemplars in Global Health,… 

Professor Awa Marie Coll Seck is a member of the Noguchi Prize for Africa (Japan), of the Virchow Prize (Germany) and of the Africa Young Innovators for Health Award. She is also a member of the Advisory Board of the Harvard Ministerial Leadership Program (USA) and of steering committee of the ANRS | Emerging infectious diseases (France). 

She has received numerous honors, including Chevalier de l’Ordre du Mérite of Senegal, Burkina Faso and Gambia, as well as the the Palmes académiques, Ordre du Mérite and the Légion d’Honneur of France. She has also received the decoration of the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star of Japan. 

Professor Awa Marie Coll Seck is the author of more than 150 scientific publications.

Dr. Draghia-Akli’s career began in human genetics, rare diseases, gene therapies and nucleic acid vaccines in the early stages of that research. 

Throughout her career, she contributed to the discovery, development, and commercialization of novel products, for both public health and business success. 

She leverages her abilities to strategize and innovate, to integrate science and business impact, while delivering the next generation of medicines and vaccines. 

Most recently, at Johnson & Johnson, she had the privilege of building a world class, diverse Global Public Health R&D organization, delivering groundbreaking innovation to address climate-related, emerging, and entrenched health threats, such as Dengue, coronaviruses, antimicrobial resistance, tuberculosis, and leprosy. 

She is known for building exceptional partnerships and collaborations that further medicine, led the European Commission Health Programs of Research and Innovation, including the creation and implementation of successful public-private partnerships, such as the Innovative Medicines Initiative and the International Rare Diseases Research Consortium. 

She served as Co-Chair of the Therapeutics Clinical Working Group for ACTIV, Accelerating COVID-19 Therapeutic Interventions and Vaccines, a public-private partnership spearheaded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, and is currently the Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of INTREPID Alliance, a consortium of innovative biopharmaceutical companies dedicated to accelerating the pipeline of antiviral treatments to help protect the world ahead of future pandemics.

Jodi Sherman, MD, is Associate Professor of Anesthesiology of the Yale School of Medicine, Associate Professor of Epidemiology in Environmental Health Sciences, and founding director of the Yale Program on Healthcare Environmental Sustainability in the Yale Center on Climate Change and Health. Dr. Sherman also serves as the Medical Director for Yale New Haven Health Center for Sustainable Healthcare. 

Dr. Sherman is an internationally recognized researcher in the emerging field of sustainability in clinical care. Her research interest is in life cycle assessment of environmental emissions, human health impacts, and economic impacts of drugs, devices, clinical care pathways, and health systems. Her work seeks to establish sustainability metrics, paired with health outcomes and costs, to help guide clinical decision-making, professional behaviors, and organizational management toward more ecologically sustainable practices to improve the quality, safety and value of clinical care and to protect public health. 

Dr. Sherman routinely collaborates with environmental engineers, epidemiologists, toxicologists, health economists, health administrators, health professionals, and sustainability professionals. Dr. Sherman is a member of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change and was contributing analyst for the UK National Health Service Net Zero Initiative, and serves on the National Academy of Medicine Action Collaborative for Decarbonization of the U.S. Health Sector. She also co-leads the Lancet Commission on Sustainable Healthcare.

Ezekiel J. Emanuel, MD, PhD, is the Vice Provost for Global Initiatives and the Diane v.S. Levy and Robert M. Levy University Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. 

Dr. Emanuel is an oncologist and world leader in health policy and bioethics. He is a Special Advisor to the Director General of the World Health Organization, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, and member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He was the founding chair of the Department of Bioethics at the National Institutes of Health and held that position until August of 2011. From 2009 to 2011, he served as a Special Advisor on Health Policy to the Director of the Office of Management and Budget and National Economic Council. In this role, he was instrumental in drafting the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Emanuel also served on the Biden-Harris Transition Covid Advisory Board. 

Dr. Emanuel is the most widely cited bioethicist in history. He has over 350 publications and has authored or edited 15 books. His recent books include the books Which Country Has the World’s Best Health Care (2020), Prescription for the Future (2017), Reinventing American Health Care: How the Affordable Care Act Will Improve our Terribly Complex, Blatantly Unjust, Outrageously Expensive, Grossly Inefficient, Error Prone System (2014) and Brothers Emanuel (2013). 

Dr. Emanuel regularly contributes to the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, and often appears on BBC, NPR, CNN, MSNBC and other media outlets. 

He has received numerous awards including election to the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academy of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Association of American Physicians, and the Royal College of Medicine (UK). He received –but refused— a Fulbright Scholarship. Most recently he became a Guggenheim Fellow. 

He has been named a Dan David Prize Laureate in Bioethics and is a recipient of the AMA-Burroughs Wellcome Leadership Award, the Public Service Award from the American Society of Clinical Oncology, Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society of Bioethics and Humanities, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation David E. Rogers Award, President’s Medal for Social Justice Roosevelt University, and the John Mendelsohn Award from the MD Anderson Cancer Center. 

Dr. Emanuel has received honorary degrees from Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Union Graduate College, the Medical College of Wisconsin, and Macalester College. Dr. Emanuel is a graduate of Amherst College. He holds a M.Sc. from Oxford University in Biochemistry and received his M.D. from Harvard Medical School and his Ph.D. in political philosophy from Harvard University. 

Ariel Katz is the CEO and Co-founder of H1, the connecting force for global HCP, clinical, scientific, and research information.

H1 works with the top Pharma and BioTech companies to deliver AI-powered insights to Medical Affairs and Clinical Operations to accelerate the discovery and engagement of industry experts, drive equitable research, access groundbreaking science, and get life-saving treatments to patients faster.

Ariel and team work directly with clients to help them apply healthcare data to solving vexing issues such as which treatments are the most promising, and which experts influence a particular market.

Ariel started his first company in college, ResearchConnection, to help connect students with research opportunities.

That company grew to over 40 universities and was eventually acquired by the Jefferson Accelerator Fund, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Ewing Kauffman Foundation.

Dan Mendelson is CEO of Morgan Health, a business unit at JPMorganChase focused on accelerating the new care models that improve the quality, affordability, and equity of employer-sponsored health care. Since its founding in 2021, Morgan Health has invested $160M with portfolio companies focused on primary care, care navigation, value-based care, women’s health, and clinical analytics. The team also collaborates with the JPMorganChase benefits team to drive innovation, and engages in policy advocacy for better employer-sponsored care. 

Dan was previously Founder and CEO of Avalere, a health care advisory company based in Washington, D.C. From inception in 2000 to Dan’s exit in 2020, Avalere grew to 250 employees and served the health care community with class-leading business and policy guidance. The company also developed deep data capabilities for care management, patient navigation, and pharmaceutical purchasing. Prior to Avalere, Dan served as associate director for Health at the White House Office of Management and Budget. 

Dan currently serves on the boards of apree, Champions Oncology, and the Alliance for Health Policy, and is adjunct professor at the Georgetown University McDonough School of Business. He previously served on the boards of Coventry, HMS Holdings, Pharmerica, Partners in Primary Care, Centrexion and Audacious Inquiry. Dan has been investing in healthcare companies since 2000. 

Dan holds a BA from Oberlin College, and an MPP from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. 

John M. O’Brien, PharmD, MPH, is President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Pharmaceutical Council (NPC), a 70-year-old health policy research organization in Washington, DC. NPC’s research contributes to the scientific foundation for informed discussions about healthcare access, coverage, appropriate use, and value.

Dr. O’Brien’s experience spans the private sector, academia, and government. Prior to joining NPC, Dr. O’Brien was senior advisor to the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services and deputy assistant secretary of planning and evaluation (health policy). He has also held senior roles in the life sciences and managed care industries, was a career official at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) during the Obama administration, and served as a health policy fellow in the U.S. Senate.

Dr. O’Brien earned his doctorate in pharmacy at Nova Southeastern University, his master’s degree in public health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, studied pharmacy and public policy at the University of Florida and is a graduate of the AHIP-Kellogg Certified Health Insurance Executive program.

He has held a number of academic appointments, including senior fellow at the USC-Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics, clinical assistant professor at the Rutgers Pharmaceutical Industry Fellowship program, and assistant professor of clinical and administrative sciences at the Notre Dame of Maryland University College of Pharmacy, the first program of its kind created by a U.S. women’s college.

Dr. O’Brien has served on the boards of Pharmacy Quality Solutions, Kennedy Center Circles, and the Congressional Chorus and is an instrument-rated private pilot.

Janet Woodcock recently completed a long career at FDA. She served as Director of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research for over twenty years in several stretches. 

Most recently she served as Principal Deputy Commissioner and prior to that as Acting FDA Commissioner. 

She held multiple other senior positions at FDA including at the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. 

She was the therapeutics lead for “Operation Warp Speed” during the COVID pandemic. 

Her most recent effort was spearheading a major reorganization of FDA’s foods program and the Office of Regulatory Affairs. 

Dr. Woodcock completed many major regulatory initiatives during her FDA tenure. 

She was instrumental in getting the biosimilars legislation enacted and worked to ensure adoption in the clinical community. 

Additionally, she worked with industry and Congress to bring about the first GDUFA. 

After passage of the legislation, she oversaw an extensive reorganization of the generic drug review program at CDER, that successfully met the aggressive targets of the legislation and led to eventual reauthorizing, with elimination of backlogs and approval of thousands of generic drugs. 

Joel S. Marcus, JD, CPA, is Executive Chairman and Founder of Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. (NYSE: ARE), a REIT that pioneered life science real estate and transformed it from a specialty niche to a mainstream asset class. Alexandria is the preeminent, largest, and longest-tenured owner, operator, and developer uniquely focused on collaborative mega campuses in AAA life science innovation clusters.

Since co-founding Alexandria in 1994 as a garage startup with $19 million in Series A capital, Mr. Marcus has led its remarkable growth into an S&P 500 company that has become the leading REIT focused on the life science industry, with a total market capitalization of $33.1 billion and an operating asset base of 42 million square feet as of September 30, 2024. Alexandria, which celebrated its 25th anniversary on the NYSE in May 2022, has a total stockholder return of 1,459% from its IPO in May 1997 through September 30, 2024.

In 1996, Mr. Marcus founded Alexandria Venture Investments, the company’s strategic venture capital platform, and he continues to lead its investments in disruptive life science companies. He introduced Alexandria’s thought leadership vertical in 2011 when he co-founded the renowned Alexandria Summit®.

He also leads Alexandria’s corporate responsibility initiatives, which aim to address some of the nation’s most urgent challenges, including mental health and addiction. To reverse the trajectory of the opioid epidemic, Alexandria partnered with Verily, an Alphabet company, to pioneer OneFifteen, an evidence-based full continuum of care model to treat addiction.

Mr. Marcus serves on the boards of several public and private biotechnology companies and non-profits, including the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, Emily Krzyzewski Center, National Medal of Honor Museum, Navy SEAL Foundation, Office of Strategic Services Society, and TOPGUN Association. He received his BA and JD from UCLA.

Lynne Zydowsky, PhD, Chief of Science of Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc./Alexandria Venture Investments, President and Co-Founder of the Alexandria Summit, and President of Zydowsky Consultants, is an experienced executive in the life science industry who has been involved in the launching and building of several successful companies. With over 25 years of experience, she has played key roles in corporate development, operations, and finance. She is a longstanding advocate for biomedical research and the advancement of global health.

In 2003, Dr. Zydowsky founded Zydowsky Consultants, a consulting practice offering services to life science companies. Prior to that, Dr. Zydowsky was Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Renovis, Inc. (now Evotec) and served as Vice President of Pharmaceutical Business Development at Exelixis, Inc. As part of their executive management teams, she contributed to the growth and development of both companies, which led to their initial public offerings.

The Alexandria Summit, a neutral, interactive platform co-founded in 2011 by Mr. Joel Marcus, Dr. Zydowsky, and Ms. Deeda Blair, convenes a diverse group of visionary stakeholders for transformative discussions and collaborations that help drive the discovery and development of novel, cost-effective therapies; shape policy to advance innovation that saves lives and cures disease; and inspire new ways of addressing the urgent need to transform our healthcare system.

Dr. Zydowsky currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Reagan-Udall Foundation for the FDA (since October 2018); the Board of Trustees for Butler University (since September 2016); and the boards of two private animal health companies. She also serves as a Board Observer for OneFifteen, a non-profit learning health system dedicated to the full and sustained recovery of people living with opioid addiction, on behalf of Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc./Alexandria Venture Investments.

Dr. Zydowsky is personally engaged in critical philanthropic efforts as a member of the West Coast Board for the international non-profit buildOn, an organization focused on breaking the cycle of poverty, illiteracy, and low expectations through its after-school programs for urban teens based on changing lives and communities through service locally and globally.

Dr. Zydowsky earned her PhD in Chemistry from The Ohio State University and was a National Institutes of Health postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at Harvard Medical School. She has a Bachelor of Science degree in Pharmacy from Butler University.

Steve Harr, MD, is President and Chief Executive Officer of Sana Biotechnology. Prior to co-founding Sana, he served as Chief Financial Officer and Head of Corporate Development for Juno Therapeutics until its acquisition by Celgene in early 2018. He was a member of the Board of Directors of Loxo Oncology prior to its acquisition by Eli Lilly in early 2019. Dr. Harr also was a co-founder and member of the Board of Directors of JW Therapeutics, a cell therapy company in China. Prior to joining Juno, he was at Morgan Stanley, as Managing Director and Head of Biotechnology Investment Banking, and previously as a biotech research analyst and co-head of global healthcare research. Dr. Harr currently serves on the board of directors at Repertoire Immune Medicines and The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

Dr. Harr obtained a BA in Economics from College of the Holy Cross and an MD from The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He was an Internal Medicine resident at the University of California, San Francisco and performed research at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital.

Thomas J. Lynch Jr., MD, is a world-renowned scientist, highly respected oncologist, and successful leader of National Cancer Institute–Designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers. As president and director of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Dr. Lynch sets the strategic direction of the center, oversees centerwide initiatives, and represents the Hutch’s interests to major partners and governmental bodies. He also directs the Fred Hutch/University of Washington/Seattle Children’s Cancer Consortium and is principal investigator of its Cancer Center Support Grant.

Before taking over as the Hutch’s sixth president in February 2020, Dr. Lynch was most recently chief scientific officer of Bristol-Myers Squibb. Prior to that, he held leadership roles as CEO of Massachusetts General Physicians Organization, director of Yale Cancer Center, physician-in-chief at Yale’s Smilow Cancer Hospital, chief of hematology-oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital, and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Lynch is a member of the American Association for Cancer Research, the American Society of Clinical Oncology, and the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer. Earlier in his career, he was part of the first research team to discover how targeted therapies could dramatically change outcomes for lung cancer patients with mutations in the EGFR, or epidermal growth factor receptor, gene.

Priya Singhal, MD, MPH is an accomplished physician, scientist and business C-suite leader committed to developing drugs across diverse therapeutic areas that can transform the lives of patients and their caregivers. She is the Executive Vice President (EVP), Head of Development. In this role, she has accountability of the entire Biogen clinical and marketed portfolio. Dr. Singhal rejoined Biogen in 2020 to lead Global Safety & Regulatory Sciences as well as Japan and China R&D. She has had several roles of increasing responsibility at Biogen during her prior tenure from 2012-2018, and made significant leadership and technical contributions to the Biogen portfolio, R&D strategy and governance, as well as the filings and approvals of nine products.

Prior to her return to Biogen in 2020, Dr. Singhal served as Head of R&D and Manufacturing at Zafgen Inc., a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company leveraging its proprietary knowledge of MetAP2 systems biology to develop novel therapies for patients affected by a range of metabolic diseases. From 2008-2012 she held roles of increasing seniority in Global Patient Safety at Vertex Pharmaceuticals managing the Hepatitis C portfolio and served as the Vice President, Medical Affairs for the HCV and Cystic Fibrosis portfolio. She began her drug-development career at Millennium Pharmaceuticals where she led benefit-risk for Velcade and early projects in the development portfolio.

Dr. Singhal completed her MPH in International Health at Harvard School of Public Health and obtained her training in Internal Medicine in Mumbai, India. Priya is an invited speaker at Academic and Industry Forums for Drug Development and a guest faculty member at Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Michael Rosenblatt’s career has been in academia, pharma and biotech/venture.

He is a physician-scientist, now advising biotech and pharma companies, as well as serving on boards. Most recently, he was Chief Medical Officer of Flagship Pioneering, a Cambridge, MA-based firm that creates innovative biotech companies (Moderna is an example).

Previously he was Merck’s Chief Medical Officer. He also served as Dean of Tufts University School of Medicine, and before that, Robert Ebert Professor of Molecular Medicine and George R. Minot Professor at Harvard Medical School. He was President of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Director of the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology.

He graduated summa cum laude from Columbia, and received his M.D. magna cum laude from Harvard. Internship, residency, and endocrinology training were all at the Massachusetts General Hospital.

Dr. Noubar Afeyan is founder and CEO of Flagship Pioneering, a company that creates bioplatform companies to transform human health and sustainability. An entrepreneur and biochemical engineer, Afeyan holds more than 100 patents and has co-founded more than 70 life science and technology startups during his 36-year career. He is co-founder and chairman of the board of Moderna, the pioneering messenger RNA company. 

Afeyan entered biotechnology during its emergence as an academic field and industry, completing his doctoral work in biochemical engineering at MIT in 1987 after completing his undergraduate studies at McGill University. He was a senior lecturer at MIT’s Sloan School of Management from 2000 to 2016, a lecturer at Harvard Business School until 2020, and he currently serves as a member of the MIT Corporation, the Institute’s board of trustees. He teaches and speaks around the world on topics ranging from entrepreneurship, innovation, and economic development to biological engineering, new medicines, and renewable energy. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2022.

He has received multiple awards for his passionate advocacy for the contributions of immigrants to economic and scientific progress, including the Great Immigrant honor from the Carnegie Corporation in 2016. He is the co-founder of the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative & Prize and a number of other philanthropic projects.

Kenneth C. Frazier is the former Chairman and CEO of Merck, following his retirement from more than 30 years with the company, including a decade-long tenure as CEO. Currently, he is chairman of Health Assurance initiatives at the venture capital firm General Catalyst where he advises on investments and partnerships for companies that are well-positioned to help transform the healthcare industry through collaborative and responsible innovation. 

Upon his retirement from Merck, Ken has committed himself to organizations dedicated to leading social change and building greater equity for all people. He is the co-founder and co-chair of OneTen, a coalition of leading organizations committed to upskilling, hiring, and promoting people without four-year degrees into family-sustaining jobs with an emphasis on Black Americans. 

Ken serves on the boards of Eikon Therapeutics, Paradigm, and Transcarent, as well as a number of non-profit boards, including Cornerstone Christian Academy in Philadelphia, PA, the Harvard Corporation, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, the National Constitution Center, and Weill Cornell Medicine. He also is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Bar Association, the American Philosophical Society, the College of Physicians of Philadelphia of which he is a Fellow, the Council of the American Law Institute, and the Legal Services Corporation’s Leaders Council, of which he is co-chair. Ken also serves on the ABA Task Force on American Democracy. 

Ken received his bachelor’s degree from The Pennsylvania State University and holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School. 

Phillip A. Sharp is an Institute Professor emeritus at MIT and member of the Department of Biology and the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research.

His research interests have centered on the molecular biology of gene expression relevant to cancer and the mechanisms of RNA splicing.

His work in 1977 provided the first indications of “discontinuous genes” in mammalian cells. This discovery fundamentally changed scientists’ understanding of gene structure and earned him the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

A native of Kentucky, Dr. Sharp earned a B.A. degree from Union College, Barbourville, KY, and a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana.

Dr. Sharp was a co-founder of Biogen (1978) and served as chair of its Scientific Advisory Board and member of the Board of Directors.

He co-founded Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (2002) and serves as chair of its Scientific Advisory Board and member of the Board of Directors.

At Amgen, Dr. Deshaies serves as strategic advisor and ambassador for Amgen Science. Previously, he was SVP and head of Global Research from May 2017 through July 2024 and led the team responsible for all preclinical science and drug discovery up through filing of an IND application. Prior to joining Amgen, he was a professor at the California Institute of Technology and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His lab at Caltech/HHMI investigated the cellular machinery that mediates protein degradation by the ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS), and how this machinery regulates cell division. 

In addition to his academic work, Dr. Deshaies co-founded Proteolix in 2003 and Cleave Therapeutics in 2011. Proteolix discovered and initiated development of Kyprolis®. 

Dr. Deshaies received his bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from Cornell University and Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of California, Berkeley. In 2011, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 2016 to the National Academy of Sciences. In 2023 Dr. Deshaies along with Dr. Craig Crews (Yale) received the Jacob and Louise Gabbay Award in Biotechnology and Medicine for their discovery of proteolysis-targeting chimeric molecules (PROTACs).

Pushkal Garg, MD, is the Chief Medical Officer and Executive Vice-President of Development and Medical Affairs at Alnylam Pharmaceuticals. During his tenure at Alnylam, he has overseen the global development and registration of an entirely new class of medicines based on RNA interference, including ONPATTRO® (patisiran) and AMVUTTRA (vutrisiran) for ATTR amyloidosis, GIVLAARI® (givosiran) for acute hepatic porphyria, and OXLUMO® (lumasiran) for primary hyperoxaluria, Type I, as well as the early development of LEQVIO® (inclisiran) for hypercholesterolemia. 

Prior to joining Alnylam, Dr. Garg served as Vice-President, Global Clinical Research at Bristol-Myers Squibb. There, he was the therapeutic head of the Immunoscience franchise and oversaw the development and approval of Nulojix® (belatacept) for kidney transplant, and Orencia® (abatacept) SC for rheumatologic diseases. Dr. Garg began his industry career at Millennium Pharmaceuticals. 

Dr. Garg received a B.A. in Biochemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, and his M.D. from the University of California, San Francisco. He completed residency training in Internal Medicine at UCSF, was a fellow in the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program at Johns Hopkins University and served on the faculty of Harvard Medical School and the Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston prior to joining industry. 

George D. Yancopoulos, MD, PhD, co- Founder, Board co-Chair, President and Chief Scientific Officer, has built and managed Regeneron alongside Dr. Leonard Schleifer since 1989.

Dr. Yancopoulos, along with key members of his team, is the principal inventor of Regeneron’s twelve FDA-approved and authorized medicines and important foundational technologies, including the TRAP technology, VelociGene® and VelocImmune®.

He has been named an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year and has been pivotal in creating the science-driven, collaborative and highly productive R&D culture at Regeneron.

This unique environment has earned the company widespread recognition, including repeatedly being named as a “top workplace for innovators” by Fast Company magazine and consistent inclusion in Science magazine’s list of Top Employers.

Dr. Yancopoulos was the 11th most highly cited scientist in the world in the 1990s, and in 2004 he was elected to be a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Yancopoulos attended the Bronx High School of Science and received his MD and PhD from Columbia University.

Jane Grogan, Ph.D. is Executive Vice President (E.V.P.) and Head of Research at Biogen. 

Dr. Grogan joined Biogen in 2023, bringing nearly two decades of experience leading biotech research, including fifteen years with Genentech. 

Dr. Grogan most recently served as the Chief Scientific Officer at Graphite Bio and ArsenalBio, both cell and gene therapy companies. 

During her time at Genentech, she served in several increasingly senior roles across Immunology and Immuno-oncology, covering research strategies and drug development across RA, Lupus, MS, IBD and Cancer. 

Preceding her career in the Biotechnology Industry, Dr. Grogan completed her Ph.D. in immunology at Leiden University and her B.Sc in Biochemistry and Pharmacology from the University of Melbourne. 

Alan Moses received a BS from Duke University and an MD from Washington University School of Medicine prior to training at Barnes Hospital in St. Louis, MO, the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD, and Tufts-New England Medical Center in Boston.

Dr Moses is board-certified internist with subspecialty certification in Endocrinology and Metabolism. During his academic career at Harvard Medical School, Dr. Moses contributed to basic and clinical research, clinical research administration, and training. He served as the Chief Medical Officer and Senior Vice President of the Joslin Diabetes Center. He joined Novo Nordisk, Inc in 2004 where he served in several roles before becoming Senior Vice President and the Global Chief Medical Officer focusing on diabetes and obesity drug development. He retired from Novo Nordisk in June 2018 to pursue independent consulting.

He has published over 100 papers and articles on the treatment of diabetes, co-edited the Fourteenth edition of Joslin’s Diabetes Mellitus and has been recognized for clinical care in diabetes and for his research in diabetes and growth factors. He currently serves Chairman of the Board of Directors of The diaTribe Foundation and member of the Board of the Joslin Diabetes Center. Dr. Moses serves as a consultant for several biotechnology and diabetes healthcare delivery companies.

Prior to joining Novo Nordisk, Stephen was Professor of Diabetes and Head of the Oxford Centre for Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism (OCDEM). His research interests resided in the fields of the genetics of autoimmune disease, glucose homeostasis, and incretin biology in pancreas whole organ and islet transplantation. Since joining Novo Nordisk, he has provided senior medical opinion in diabetes, obesity and Rare Dand now leads Global Medical Affairs. Aside from responsibilities at Novo Nordisk, Dr Gough served on the BoD of the World Diabetes Foundation from 2020-2022. 

FORMER POSITIONS 

Current position: 
2018-2024
Senior Vice President and Global Chief Medical Officer, Novo Nordisk 

2015-2018
Senior Principal Clinical Scientist, Chief Medical Office, Novo Nordisk 

2010-2015
Professor of Diabetes to the University of Oxford, UK 

1996-2010
Professor Of Medicine, University of Birmingham, UK 

EDUCATION 

1978-1983
MB ChB University of Leeds 

1996
MD University of Leeds 

1999
FRCP (UK) Royal College of Physicians UK 

Dr. Mark Hartman serves as a Vice President in the Diabetes, Obesity & Cardiometabolic Research therapeutic area of Lilly Research Laboratories. His responsibilities include phase 1 and phase 2 clinical trials in obesity and metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD), including the recently published phase 2 results with tirzepatide and retatrutide in participants with MASLD. In addition, Dr. Hartman serves as a consultant for other Lilly programs related to liver disease. He is active in multi-stakeholder efforts, such as the Liver Forum, that seek to facilitate drug development for patients with liver disease.

An endocrinologist by training, Dr. Hartman joined Eli Lilly and Company in 1998 and has held various positions in medical affairs, global patient safety and early clinical development. Prior to joining Lilly, Dr. Hartman was an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism at the University of Virginia School of Medicine where he conducted NIH-sponsored clinical research in growth hormone physiology. His training includes an A. B. from Dartmouth College, an M. D. from the University of Connecticut, an Internal Medicine residency at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center and an Endocrinology and Metabolism fellowship at the University of Virginia.

Anthony Hollenberg, MD, is the President of Boston Medical Center and a Professor of Medicine at Boston University Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine. Before assuming his current role, he was appointed John Wade Professor and Chair of the Department of Medicine at the same institution and served as the Physician-in-Chief at Boston Medical Center. From 2018 to 2022, he was Chair of the Joan and Sanford I. Weill Department of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine and Physician-in-Chief at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City.

Dr. Hollenberg, a native of Toronto, received his bachelor’s degree from Harvard College and his medical degree from the University of Calgary. He completed his residency in Internal Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, followed by a clinical and research fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Internationally known for his contributions to Endocrinology, Dr. Hollenberg’s work focuses on thyroid disorders, investigating the physiological and molecular mechanisms by which thyroid hormones regulate metabolism, including body weight. Additionally, his laboratory explores the underpinnings of thyroid gland development. Gough Medical Officer and Senior Vice President of Global age: Dr. Gough is of British nationality, born 1960 Novo Nordisk, Stephen was Professor of Diabetes OCDEM). His research interests resided in the fields pancreas whole organ and islet transplantation. obesity and RareD and now leads Global Medical the BoD of the World Diabetes Foundation from Vice President and Global Chief Medical Officer, Principal Clinical Scientist, Chief Medical Office, Professor of Diabetes to the University of Oxford, UK Professor Of Medicine, University of Birmingha

Jeff McIntyre is the Vice President of Liver Health Programs for the Global Liver Institute in Washington, DC. As Vice President, Jeff supervises GLI’s diverse liver health program portfolio - including NAFLD/ NASH, liver cancer, pediatric and rare diseases, and GLI’s worldwide ‘Liver Health is Public Health’ campaign. Working with GLI Program Directors, Jeff identifies patient advocacy opportunities in all areas of patient and care pathways including drug development, regulatory input, biomarker development, and awareness and educational opportunities while addressing disparities in screening and treatment in the US and globally.

He has frequently given invited testimony before U.S. Senate and House of Representatives Committees, and multiple federal agencies, and spoken at the Global NASH Congress, EASL Liver Congress, AASLD Liver Meeting, Paris NASH, and the NAFLD and NASH Primary Care Summit, and Biomarkers for NASH Symposium.

Jeff’s publications include articles in the Journal of the American Behavioral Scientist, Journal on Discovering Popular Culture, The Oxford Handbook of Media Psychology, Runner’s World, and the National Enquirer.

Dr. Tabas, Richard J. Stock Professor of Medicine, Columbia University, completed his M.D./Ph.D. at Washington University and his clinical training at Columbia. 

His research has focused on the integrated area of cardiometabolic disease, where he has elucidated signaling pathways in macrophages that contribute to atherosclerosis and in hepatocytes that contribute to type 2 diabetes (T2D) and metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH). 

His papers have appeared in Cell, Nature, Science, Nature Cell Biology, Cell Metabolism, Journal of Clinical Investigation, PNAS, and other top journals, and he served on Science’s Board of Reviewing Editors from 2011-2023. 

Dr. Tabas has patents related to atherosclerosis, T2D therapy, and MASH, and he is co-founder of Tabomedex Biosciences, which is developing drugs for these disorders. 

His awards include election to ASCI/AAP; AHA Established Investigator Award; Columbia University Lamport Award and Irene & Arthur Fishberg Prize; AHA/ATVB Council Special Recognition Award; Washington University Alumni Achievement Award; Society of Leukocyte Biology Bonazinga award, which is the society’s highest honor for excellence in leukocyte biology research; Harrington Discovery Institute Innovator-Scholar Award; the AHA Ross Lectureship Award; 2019 NHLBI Outstanding Investigator Award; Keynote lecturer for the 2019 Gordon Research Conference on Phagocytosis; 2019 Dean’s Distinguish Lecture, Columbia University Medical Center; 2019 Hugh Sinclair Memorial Lecture, British Atherosclerosis Society; and 2020 Journal of Lipid Research Award Lecture, Deuel Conference on Lipids. 

Dr. Tabas has been supported by multiple NIH R01/P01 grants without interruption for the last 30 years, including a recent R35 Outstanding Investigator Award from the NHLBI. 

Senior Vice President and Global Head of CardioMetabolic Diseases Research at Boehringer Ingelheim Pharma GmbH & Co. KG. 

The German and US based organization conducts research in Cardiovascular- Renal- Metabolic diseases and one of the focus areas is MASH. 

Before joining Boehringer Ingelheim in 2019 Dr. Tullin was Corporate Vice President and member of research management at Novo Nordisk A/S. 

The scientific focus of Dr. Tullin’s career has always been Cardiovascular-Renal- Metabolic diseases.

Petra Jantzer leads Accenture’s Life Sciences Business globally and is the Account CEO for Novartis. Previously she led Accenture Life Sciences Europe, R&D Europe, and Life Sciences DACH. Before joining Accenture, Petra was a senior Partner at McKinsey & Company, where she led the R&D practice globally and the Pharmaceuticals & Health practice in Switzerland. Petra is also serving on the Boards of Directors for both Accenture AG Switzerland and Accenture Services Switzerland. 

Petra’s professional roots are in basic science, she holds a PhD in Tumor-immunology and a master’s degree in molecular biology. Petra’s mission is to support global Life Science Leaders in bringing innovative medicines to patients and ultimately achieve better health outcomes. 

Dr. Jantzer has more than 25 years’ experience in the bio-pharmaceuticals sector, both as an advisor and as a researcher. She has profound industry and R&D knowledge, deep business process understanding, and two decades of C-level counseling experience to help clients (digitally) transform their businesses. 

Petra believes that diversity is critical to the success of companies, economies, and societies. This belief motivated her to co-found «Advance - gender equality in Swiss business», a cross-industry association of 150+ mostly blue-chip company members in Switzerland with a joint mission to increase the share of women in senior leadership positions in the Swiss economy. She is honored to represent Switzerland in the G20 EMPOWER initiative to drive gender-equality globally. 

Petra is a passionate people developer and firmly believes that leaders need to nurture the next generation to be better than the one before it. During her career, she has been a role model for gender equality in the workplace and beyond and is viewed as a strong force in fostering talent - both male and female.

Dr. Michael Rosenblatt’s career has been in academia, pharma and biotech/venture.

He is a physician-scientist, now advising biotech and pharma companies, as well as serving on boards. Most recently, he was Chief Medical Officer of Flagship Pioneering, a Cambridge, MA-based firm that creates innovative biotech companies (Moderna is an example).

Previously he was Merck’s Chief Medical Officer. He also served as Dean of Tufts University School of Medicine, and before that, Robert Ebert Professor of Molecular Medicine and George R. Minot Professor at Harvard Medical School. He was President of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Director of the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology.

He graduated summa cum laude from Columbia, and received his M.D. magna cum laude from Harvard. Internship, residency, and endocrinology training were all at the Massachusetts General Hospital.

Dr. Noubar Afeyan is founder and CEO of Flagship Pioneering, a company that creates bioplatform companies to transform human health and sustainability. An entrepreneur and biochemical engineer, Afeyan holds more than 100 patents and has co-founded more than 70 life science and technology startups during his 36-year career. He is co-founder and chairman of the board of Moderna, the pioneering messenger RNA company. 

Afeyan entered biotechnology during its emergence as an academic field and industry, completing his doctoral work in biochemical engineering at MIT in 1987 after completing his undergraduate studies at McGill University. He was a senior lecturer at MIT’s Sloan School of Management from 2000 to 2016, a lecturer at Harvard Business School until 2020, and he currently serves as a member of the MIT Corporation, the Institute’s board of trustees. He teaches and speaks around the world on topics ranging from entrepreneurship, innovation, and economic development to biological engineering, new medicines, and renewable energy. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2022.

He has received multiple awards for his passionate advocacy for the contributions of immigrants to economic and scientific progress, including the Great Immigrant honor from the Carnegie Corporation in 2016. He is the co-founder of the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative & Prize and a number of other philanthropic projects.

John F. Crowley is the President and CEO of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), the world’s largest biotechnology advocacy organization. Crowley, a longtime BIO board member, was most recently the Founder and Executive Chairman of Amicus Therapeutics, a global biotechnology company focusing on developing treatments for rare genetic diseases. He served as Chief Executive Officer of Amicus from 2005 to 2022.

John’s decades of biotech experience and deep passion for the field have made him a strong supporter of policies that empower innovation, enable entrepreneurship, and put people and patients first. His involvement with biotechnology stems from the 1998 diagnosis of two of his children with Pompe disease—a severe and often fatal neuromuscular disorder.

John and his family have been profiled numerous times by The Wall Street Journal. The 2010 major motion picture, Extraordinary Measures, starring Brendan Fraser, Harrison Ford, and Keri Russell, is inspired by the Crowley family journey. John also served as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve from 2005-2016. He is a veteran of the global war on terrorism, and his assignments included service with the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), the Naval Special Warfare Development Group (NSWDG), and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

John attended the U.S. Naval Academy and went on to earn a B.S. in Foreign Service from Georgetown University, a J.D. from the University of Notre Dame Law School, and an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School.

As Chief Scientific Officer, President, Pfizer Research & Development, Mikael leads Pfizer Research & Development, focused on discovery and early- and late-stage clinical development for Vaccines, Inflammation and Immunology, Internal Medicine, and Infectious Diseases, as well as Non-Malignant Hematology and Rare Neuromuscular Diseases. Mikael also oversees medical, safety and regulatory support for the entire pipeline and all commercially available medicines and vaccines, pharmaceutical sciences, and external science and innovation. 

Mikael earned his PhD in tumor immunology and MD from the University of Lund in Sweden, where he was Adjunct Professor in Tumor Immunology and is a Visiting Professor to advise on science and technology strategies. He is a member of the boards of Agilent Technologies, Research ! America, and Vimian. Additionally, Mikael is a member of the Board of Overseers for the Scripps Research Institute and a Foreign Member of The Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences. Since 2014, Mikael has co-chaired the Accelerating Medicines Partnership with National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director, Francis S. Collins, and now with Principal Deputy Director, Lawrence Tabak. He serves on the PhRMA Research & Development Leadership Forum and, until late 2022, served on the PhRMA Foundation Board of Directors. Mikael advised the Obama Administration on R&D, as well as then Vice President Biden’s Cancer Moonshot Initiative to accelerate cancer research. 

Mikael is a named inventor on several patents and has published approximately 150 articles in international journals.

Dr. Katherine High trained in internal medicine, hematology, and molecular genetics. 

Her pioneering bench-to-bedside studies of gene therapy for hemophilia led to a series of basic and clinical investigations that characterized the human immune response to AAV gene delivery vectors. 

A long-time member of the faculty of the Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania, she was also an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. 

In 2013 she co-founded Spark Therapeutics, which she joined full-time as President and Chief Scientific Officer in 2014. 

At Spark she led the team that achieved the first FDA approval of a gene therapy for genetic disease, Luxturna, for a rare form of inherited blindness, and also led the successful Phase 1/2 studies for a gene therapy for hemophilia B, now an approved product (Beqvez) following a Pfizer-sponsored Phase 3 study. 

Dr. High is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, the Royal College of Physicians (London), and the National Academy of Sciences. Currently she is a Visiting Professor at Rockefeller University, a member of the Board of Directors of CRISPR Therapeutics and Incyte Pharmaceuticals, and an Advisor to GV. 

Kate is Moderna’s Vice President of Immune Therapeutics and focuses on the discovery and development of therapeutic and prophylactic approaches to autoimmunity, inflammation and hematology using Moderna's proprietary mRNA technology. Prior to joining Moderna, Kate directed an academic laboratory at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital for 10 years as an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard, a John Lawrence MGH Research Scholar, a faculty member of Harvard Immunology, Harvard Virology and MIT Microbiome Centre for Microbiome Informatics and Therapeutics and a member of the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT.

She received a Bachelor of Science from the University of Melbourne, Australia in 2001 and completed her Ph.D. in Immunology at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney, Australia in 2006. She performed her postdoctoral research in Immunology and Epigenetics at The Rockefeller University in New York City under a CJ Martin National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) fellowship 2007-2012.

Her work on innate immunity, epigenetics, the commensal virome and autoimmune and inflammatory disease is highly published and cited including in Cell, Cell Host Microbe, Cell Reports, Nature, Science, Nature Immunology, Science Immunology. She is also the recipient of multiple awards including the Garvan Institute most outstanding Ph.D. thesis, the Rockefeller Women in Science Award, Kenneth Rainin Foundation Innovator Award, Claflin Distinguished Scholar Award and MGH Research Scholar Award.

Dr. Zhen Li cofounded ADARx Pharmaceuticals in 2020 and is the President and CEO of ADARx.

She has more than two decades of experience in research and development in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries.

Prior to ADARx, Dr. Li served as Senior VP at Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals where she led discovery, research and non-clinical development of Arrowhead’s RNA delivery platform and multiple product candidates.

Previously, Dr, Li was a director at Merck and led a team dedicated to siRNA development.

Dr. Li received her PhD in Chemistry and Chemical Biology from Harvard University and her B.S. from Peking University.

Dr. Kinnari Patel is President, Head of R&D and Chief Operating Officer for Rocket Pharma, overseeing the global R&D and Technical Operations leadership team with oversight spanning discovery through late-stage development and manufacturing. This includes regulatory, clinical, global program teams, CMC, quality and the development organization. Dr. Patel has more than 20 years of R&D experience in rare diseases and across several therapeutic areas including immuno-oncology, oncology, respiratory, virology, transplantation, cardiology and metabolism at leading pharmaceutical companies including BMS, Roche, Novartis and AstraZeneca.

Dr. Patel has played a pivotal role in raising approximately $1 billion in financing and helped grow Rocket from a three to about 300-person company with a diverse and inclusive culture. She also spearheaded the development of the Rocket manufacturing site headquartered in Cranbury, NJ from its inception to a fully operational facility.

Dr. Patel received the dual degrees of B.S. in Biology and Doctorate of Pharmacy from the USciences in Philadelphia, PA. She also completed a two-year Post- Doctoral Regulatory Affairs Fellowship through Rutgers University with Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer. Additionally, she received her Executive MBA from NYU Stern School of Business. Most recently, she graduated from the C-Suite Harvard Business School Advanced Management Program.

Beyond her dedication to Rocket, Dr. Patel is a member of the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine’s (ARM) Board of Directors and serves on the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association (HBA) Global Advisory Board.

Isaac “Zak” Kohane, MD, PhD, is the inaugural chair of Harvard Medical School’s Department of Biomedical Informatics, whose mission is to develop the methods, tools, and infrastructure required for a new generation of scientists and care providers to move biomedicine rapidly forward by taking advantage of the insight and precision offered by big data. 

Kohane develops and applies computational techniques to address disease at multiple scales, from whole health care systems to the functional genomics of neurodevelopment. 

He also has worked on AI applications in medicine since the 1990’s, including automated ventilator control, pediatric growth monitoring, detection of domestic abuse, diagnosing autism from multimodal data and most recently assisting clinicians using whole genome sequence and clinical histories to diagnose rare or unknown disease patients. 

He is the inaugural Editor-in-Chief of NEJM AI and co-author of a recent book “The AI Revolution in Medicine “. 

He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the American College of Medical Informatics.

Ajay is the Global President and Head of Siemens Healthineers Ultrasound. In this role, he has end-to-end responsibilities for the Ultrasound business and is focused on driving for growth and scalability. He has been instrumental in prioritizing AI across the ultrasound portfolio to make exams easier, faster and less variable to improve clinical insights. 

Ajay has more than 20 years of experience in the healthcare industry. Before joining Siemens Healthineers, Ajay spent two years at KKR, a top-tier global private equity firm, leading their healthcare operations group. 

Previously, Ajay spent over 12 years at McKinsey & Company as a partner leading the group’s international medical operations practice. 

Ajay has a background in electrical engineering and started his career designing electrical machines and electronic components in the automotive industry. 

He received his MBA from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. 

For over 40 years, John D. Halamka, M.D., M.S., has been dedicated to the technology and policy that enable information exchange among clinical, educational and administrative stakeholders. In particular, Dr. Halamka is focused on bringing people together for multidisciplinary collaboration and career development at all levels. He works across government, academia and industry to form consortia that accelerate progress in informatics and patient care.

As Dwight and Dian Diercks President of the Mayo Clinic Platform, Dr. Halamka is currently collaborating with Young J. Juhn, M.D., M.P.H., on research addressing algorithmic bias. This work has profound implications for artificial intelligence (AI) research and health equity and is a high priority of the Mayo Clinic Platform and Mayo Clinic as a whole.

Dr. Halamka also is dedicated to educating the next generation of health care technology professionals. His expertise has given him the opportunity to teach extraordinarily diverse audiences, ranging from medical students to international policymakers.

Before transitioning to Mayo Clinic, he served as a professor at Harvard Medical School for 25 years.

Dr. Halamka’s research and clinical background, combined with his passion for teaching, have enabled him to implement innovative technologies in local, regional, national and international settings.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, he served as co-leader of the COVID-19 Healthcare Coalition and the national convalescent plasma effort, The Fight Is In Us. He also was an active participant in Harvard’s Clinical and Translational Science.

As the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Medable, Dr. Michelle Longmire is mission-driven to accelerate the development of new therapies for disease. 

A Stanford-trained physician-scientist, Dr. Longmire witnessed firsthand the critical barriers to drug development – including the time and costs associated with clinical trial participation. 

She founded Medable to pioneer a new category of clinical trial technologies that remove traditional roadblocks to participation and radically accelerate the research process. 

Medable is now the industry leader in decentralized and direct-to-patient research, with the ability to serve patients in over 120 languages, 60 countries, and across all therapeutic areas. 

In addition to having raised over $500M in venture capital and driving Medable to an industry-leading position, Dr. Longmire has received recognition as a leading innovator and businesswoman, including being named as one of the 100 most creative people in business by Fast Company. 

Chris Mansi, MD is CEO and Co- Founder of Viz.ai, the leader in AI-powered disease detection and care coordination. Today, the Viz.ai One Platform has 30 care pathways, is adopted in more than 1,600 hospitals and collaborates with 7 of the leading, global pharmaceutical and medical device companies, improving access to life saving treatments for more than 230M people. 

Dr. Mansi co-founded Viz.ai out of Stanford in 2016 with a mission of using artificial intelligence to increase access to life-saving treatments. Under his leadership, Viz.ai has achieved several AI industry milestones, including two de novo approvals by the FDA for AI computer aided triage in 2018 and cardiovascular machine learning-based notification software in 2023. Viz.ai was also the first AI company to be granted CMS reimbursement via the New Technology Add-on Payment (NTAP) for AI in 2020.

Erika Stanzl is a Partner in the Zurich office of McKinsey, where she is a leader for McKinsey’s Digital and Analytics in Research and Development service line.

She focuses on various topics in diagnostics, biopharma, and personalized healthcare, including AI/ML-based use case strategy and implementation, data strategies, diligence activities, and R&D strategies.

She is originally from the United States, where she started her time at McKinsey in Silicon Valley working with both large and small biotech companies. Before joining McKinsey, she co-founded a company in the oncology space.

She is a scientist by background, with a PhD in Organic Chemistry from Stanford University.