The Patient Partnership Value Chain:

Jeremy Abbate is the Vice President & Publisher of Scientific American and all of its related titles. He founded Scientific American’s biotechnology brand extension, Worldview, as well as many other new programs and collaborative ventures in global health, medicine, planetary sustainability, energy, security, the environment and neuroscience.

Abbate appears frequently at conferences and events to facilitate high-level discussions on healthcare, innovative science and technology, policy, and scientific entrepreneurship. He has spearheaded co-branded partnerships with several international organizations and corporate entities, including The Carter Center, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Johnson & Johnson and Google Health.

His writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Psychology Today, and other national publications. Abbate penned the forward to the popular medical travel guide, Patients Beyond Borders. As a trained musician, performer and composer, he is passionate about the links between science and the arts.

He lives outside of New York city with his family and mini cockapoo.

Amy Abernethy, M.D., Ph.D., is cofounder of Highlander Health, an investment firm dedicated to advancing evidence generation and personalized healthcare for a new era of medical innovation. As an oncologist, entrepreneur, and leader in clinical research and health data science, Dr. Abernethy is passionate about breaking down barriers between clinical trials and real-world evidence, seeing both as essential parts of a unified ecosystem that delivers safer, more effective treatments to patients faster. Dr. Abernethy is at the forefront of reimagining clinical research, leveraging her lifelong work with longitudinal multimodal clinical data, artificial intelligence, and novel study designs to shift the healthcare industry towards practical integration of clinical research with everyday patient care to truly serve patients. 

Previously, Dr. Abernethy served as principal deputy commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, where she led initiatives to modernize clinical evidence generation and advance personalized healthcare, while also serving as the agency's acting chief information officer. This regulatory experience directly informs Highlander Health’s work in responsible AI and building modern evidence infrastructures.

More recently, Dr. Abernethy served as chief medical officer and president of product development at Verily, Alphabet’s precision health business, overseeing efforts to better connect clinical research and care. Prior to that, she was the first chief medical officer and chief scientific officer at Flatiron Health, and held key academic roles at Duke University, including; professor of medicine at Duke University School of Medicine, director of the Center for Learning Health Care at the Duke Clinical Research Institute, and, director of the Duke Cancer Care Research Program at the Duke Cancer Institute. Trained as a hematologist/oncologist and palliative medicine physician, Dr. Abernethy is also an active scholar with more than 500

Calaneet Balas was named CEO and President of the ALS Association in December 2017. She joined the organization in June 2016 as Chief of Strategy, leading all three mission areas including global research, public policy and care services, which work in an integrated fashion to find a cure, advance treatments and enhance the quality of life for people living with ALS.

In December 2018, she was elected as Chair of the International Alliance of ALS/MND Associations, where she served until 2025.

Prior to joining the fight against ALS, Calaneet served as CEO of the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance (OCNA). In this role she had numerous accomplishments, including helping to raise the profile of ovarian cancer by testifying before Congress and speaking with major news outlets, including the New York Times, Washington Post and NBC Nightly News. She collaborated with a partner organization to create the largest global organization dedicated to ovarian cancer research, advocacy and patients, Ovarian Cancer Research Fund Alliance, which merged in January of 2016.

Prior to these efforts, Ms. Balas also worked at the Arthritis Foundation, where she was part of an executive team that integrated and restructured four separately incorporated chapters into one region representing the Arthritis Foundation.

She served as Chief Strategy Officer of the newly created Mid-Atlantic Region of the Arthritis Foundation from 2009 until September 2012. Previously, she served as President and CEO of the Arthritis Foundation’s Metro DC Chapter from 2005-2009.

In addition, she has served as Chair of the Truman State University Foundation Board from 2023-2026 and currently serves as the immediate past chair. She was appointed to the Board of the National Health Council in 2024 and currently serves as the Vice-Chair.
Ms. Balas holds a Master of Business Administration from Herriot-Watt University, a Master of Science in Human Movement Science Education from the University of Memphis, and a Bachelor of Science in Exercise Science from Truman State University.

Ronald Bartek is Co-founder/President, Friedreich's Ataxia Research Alliance (FARA). He is a Board Member of the Critical Path Institute; Former Director & Chair, National Organization for Rare Disorders; past President and current member of the Board for the Alliance for a Stronger FDA; co-founder and Chair of the Board of the NCATS Alliance; co-founder and chair of the steering committee, Pediatric Inclusion Alliance; former Board Member, Alliance for Regenerative Medicine; Member of the Institute for Gene Therapy Patient Advocacy Advisory Council; 4-year member NIH/NCATS National Advisory Council; former Co-Chair, NCATS Cures Acceleration Network Review Board; and a 4-year member of the NIH Neurological Institute National Advisory Council.

He is recognized by the FDA Office of Orphan Product Development as one of “30 Heroes Changing Lives of Rare Disease Patients.” He is a former member, FDA/CTTI Patient Engagement Collaborative and former partner/president of the government affairs firm (Mehl, Griffin & Bartek).

He has 20 years in federal executive and legislative branch experience in defense, foreign policy, and intelligence, including six years on House Armed Services Committee staff; four years at the U.S. State Department, one year with the U.S. Delegation to Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty negotiations with the Soviet Union in Geneva; and six years as CIA analyst. After graduation from the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, he served four years as an Army officer, including a company commander in Korea and an Infantry and Military Intelligence officer in Vietnam. He received an MA/Russian Area Studies from Georgetown University.

Gil Bashe is Chair Global Health & Purpose at FINN Partners and an advocate for placing people at the center of health care. Across decades in communications, policy, innovation and advocacy, he has championed a core belief: better health begins by listening to patients, understanding their lived experience and designing systems around human need.

His commitment to patient-centered leadership includes service with the American Heart Association, Marfan Foundation, American Diabetes Association and Let’s Win Pancreatic Cancer, supporting communities navigating illness. These experiences have reinforced his belief that communication is not simply part of health care. Communication is care.
 
Bashe is the author of Healing the Sick Care System: Why People Matter, a bestseller exploring how health care can better connect science, innovation and human understanding to improve lives. The book highlights the power of prevention, communication, access, empathy and partnership to create a more connected and responsive health experience. At its heart is a simple belief: when people come first, health care works better.

A former elite-unit combat medic and father of a child living with a rare disease, Bashe brings personal experience and empathy to health leadership, connecting innovation with the lived experiences of patients and families.

Michael P. Boyle, MD, is president and chief executive officer of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Prior to his appointment as CEO, Dr. Boyle served as the Foundation’s senior vice president of therapeutics development from 2015 to 2019. In that role, he led the Foundation’s clinical research, overseeing the development of new treatments and providing strategic leadership to the CF Foundation’s Therapeutics Development Network, a nationwide group of academic research centers that partners with patients and families to advance new CF therapeutics.

Dr. Boyle is internationally recognized for his clinical research and contributions to improving care for adults with cystic fibrosis. He served as an investigator in the clinical study of Kalydeco®, the first treatment to address the underlying cause of CF, and as lead investigator of the first combination therapy that led to Orkambi®.

Dr. Boyle completed his medical training and fellowship in pulmonary and critical care medicine at Johns Hopkins before joining the faculty in 1999. He founded the Johns Hopkins Adult CF Program, one of the largest in the United States, and directed the center for nearly two decades. Today, he serves as an adjunct professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins and continues to see patients. 

As the Head of Patient Engagement, Michaela Dinboeck leads the Novartis global PE strategy and systematic implementation across the enterprise portfolio. Starting at early development stage, through to regulatory and value dossier submissions, patient input and Patient Experience Data (PED) inform key decisions. The team establishes long-term, strategic partnerships with the patient community and develops robust methods for Patient Experience Data (PED) generation. Clinical Representativeness (CR) ensures patients included in clinical trials represent the population new medicines are intended for. PE Governance, Capability building and Impact Measurement form the basis for this structured approach. Michaela’s vision is to make Patient Focused Drug Development a reality by systematically embedding the patient experience in decision making along the lifecycle of medicines.

Prior to her current role, Michaela held Commercial and General Management positions for over 20 years within the Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Industry at country, regional and global level. In her roles she worked across multiple disease areas in established and emerging health care systems. Michaela has lectured Business at Universities in Bolivia and Malaysia. In addition to her role as Head of Patient Engagement, she serves on the Board of the German Novartis affiliate, the Nomination Committee of the National Health Council (US) and on the Board of Patient Focused Medicines Development (PFMD). In the recently published book on Patient Involvement in Health Technology Assessment | Springer Nature Michaela co-authored the chapter on patient involvement in industry.

David Fajgenbaum, MD, MBA, MSc, is co-Founder & President of Every Cure and one of the youngest faculty members ever to receive tenure at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania.

A physician-scientist and patient battling a deadly disease, he discovered and repurposed a treatment that saved his own life—a story he chronicled in his national bestselling memoir, Chasing My Cure, which is being adapted into a film by Forrest Gump producer Wendy Finerman. Dr. Fajgenbaum has since advanced 13 more repurposed treatments for cancers and rare diseases and co-founded Every Cure to unlock more hidden cures from existing medicines. Every Cure has received over $100M from ARPA-H and TED’s Audacious Project. He has been profiled by The New York Times, Good Morning America, TODAY, and Forbes 30 Under 30 and honored with awards including the Atlas Award alongside then-Vice President Joe Biden, Philadelphia Citizen of the Year Award, and named to the 2025 TIME100 Health list of the world’s most influential people in health.

Dr. Fajgenbaum earned a BS from Georgetown University, MSc from the University of Oxford, MD from the University of Pennsylvania, and MBA from Wharton.

In her 25 years of leadership at the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network (PanCAN), Julie Fleshman has been a global catalyst for change in the fight against pancreatic cancer. Her commitment began after she lost her dad to the disease, just four months after his diagnosis at the age of 52. Fleshman wanted to know why more wasn’t being done – why her dad and thousands of other patients were offered no treatment options and sent home to die.

The pancreatic cancer landscape back then was quite dismal when her dad was diagnosed. Very little was known about the disease, only a handful of researchers were studying it and the five-year survival rate was just 4%.

In 1999, Fleshman was hired as PanCAN’s first employee, became its first Executive Director in 2000 and in 2004, became President and CEO.

Under her leadership, PanCAN has grown from a staff of one with annual revenues of $228,000 to an employee team of over 130, raising more than $37 million annually.

During Fleshman’s tenure, advocacy and grassroots efforts have expanded to nearly 60 affiliates nationwide and yielded a 1185% increase in federal funding for pancreatic cancer research, and the organization has invested over $249 million in research to date.

Fleshman encourages collaboration and convening leading experts and stakeholders in the field – researchers, healthcare professionals, industry and key opinion leaders, patients, volunteers and supporters. This provides the opportunity to build a continually expanding community across the country who are focused on accelerating progress for patients.

Dr. Belén Fraile, MD, MSc, MBA is Chief Data & AI Officer and Senior Vice President, Data Science for Johnson & Johnson. She leads the data science and AI organization for R&D and is responsible for the end-to-end data, data science and AI strategy across the pipeline, from discovery through clinical development. She serves on the Innovative Medicine R&D Senior Leadership Team.

She co-chairs the Innovative Medicine R&D technology governance council, which sets the group's data, AI and technology priorities, and oversees the coordination of R&D and Johnson & Johnson Technology investment in
infrastructure, AI and reusable capabilities, including generative AI and agentic automation. She co-chairs the Johnson & Johnson Enterprise AI Council and leads Disruptive Technology Risk Management for the enterprise.

Belén is a physician and Fulbright Scholar with experience spanning pharma, medtech, and clinical care. She previously held leadership roles at Philips, Moderna, and Novartis, building data science and AI capabilities from the ground up. Earlier in her career, she led Population Health and Enterprise Analytics at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and practiced as an OB/GYN in Madrid, shaping her patient- and clinician-centered approach. She holds an MD from Complutense University of Madrid, an MSc from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and an MBA from MIT, and is a guest lecturer at Harvard University.

Tara Frenkl is a clinician, scientist and pharmaceutical leader dedicated to translating scientific innovation into better outcomes for patients. Today she leads the Global Medical & Evidence organization at Bayer. , and hHer experience spans clinical practice, drug development, medical affairs and global pharmaceutical leadership, uniquely equipping her to examine how emerging sources of evidence can advance innovation responsibly.

With broad therapeutic experience, Tara is known for leading and building high-performance drug development teams in complex, global, and multi-disciplinary organizations, and she has had repeated success designing and executing creative yet practical strategies leading to drug approvals globally across different therapeutic areas. 

Across her career Tara has built partnerships among industry, academia, healthcare systems and patient communities, with a consistent focus on connecting medical innovation to public health impact. She has also worked with the WHOWorld Health Organization to expand access to life-saving treatments for postpartum hemorrhage in resource-limited settings, underscoring her commitment to ensuring that advances in medicine reach the patients and communities that need them most.

As an industry representative to the FDA’s Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee (ODAC), Tara brings firsthand insight into the rigor and judgment required in regulatory decision-making. Combined with her work as a pharmacist, surgeon and drug developer, she offers a unique, multifaceted perspective on how AI-enabled insights and real-world evidence can complement established evidence standards, help regulators assess rapidly evolving science and support more efficient pathways to patients.

Her work underscores that realizing the promise of AI and real-world evidence will depend not only on technology and data, but also on trusted collaboration, meaningful patient input and shared accountability across the health ecosystem.

Atul Gawande, MD, MPH, is a renowned surgeon, author, and public health innovator. He holds the John and Cyndy Fish Chair in Surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and is the Samuel O. Thier Professor of the Practice of Surgery at Harvard Medical School.

He was Assistant Administrator for Global Health at USAID from January 2022 to January 2025. Prior to that, he co-founded and chaired Ariadne Labs, a joint center for health systems innovation where he is now Distinguished Professor in Residence, and Lifebox, a nonprofit organization making surgery safer globally.

From 2018-2020, he was CEO of Haven, the Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JPMorgan Chase healthcare venture. Dr. Gawande is also a longtime writer for The New Yorker magazine and has written four New York Times best-selling books: Complications, Better, The Checklist Manifesto, and Being Mortal. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and has won two National Magazine Awards, AcademyHealth’s Impact Award for highest research impact on healthcare, and a MacArthur Fellowship.

And he is executive producer for three documentary films: the Emmy-nominated adaptation Being Mortal (2016), the Oscar-nominated film To Kill A Tiger (2024), and The New Yorker film Rovina’s Choice (2025).

Jan Geissler is Founder and CEO of Patvocates, a social consultancy and think-and-do tank in patient engagement across all indications, and Founder and Managing Director of the European Patient Advocacy Institute (EPAI). He is the former Director of the European Patients’ Academy on Therapeutic Innovation (EUPATI).

Being a leukaemia patient since 2001, Jan has been a leading patient advocate and social entrepreneur for more than two decades. He is co-founder and Chair of the Acute Leukaemia Advocates Network, Co-Founder and Steering Committee Member of the CML Advocates Network, Founder and Chair of LeukaNET e.V., Founder and Former Trustee of the Leukaemia Patient Advocates Foundation, and Board Member and Past Chair of WECAN, the Workgroup of European Cancer Patient Advocacy Networks.

Jan represents patients on various advisory boards and committees, including those of the European Cancer Organisation (ECO), the European Haematology Association (EHA) and the German National Decade Against Cancer (NDK).

In 2026, he was awarded the Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany for his remarkable work in patient engagement.

Kathy Giusti is a three-time cancer survivor, business leader, and healthcare disrupter. Named as one of Timemagazine's 100 Most Influential People and FortuneMagazine’s World's 50 Greatest Leaders, Giusti is recognized as a pioneer in precision medicine. Most recently, she is the author of Fatal to Fearless: 12 Steps to Beating Cancer in a Broken Medical System published by Harper Collins.

Kathy founded the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation (MMRF) in 1998 and led the organization for decades driving the development of innovative models in tissue banking, genomics, big data, clinical trials, and venture philanthropy. Today, myeloma is on the path to a cure. Kathy serves on the Board of Directors.

Kathy also co-chaired the Harvard Business School (HBS) Kraft Precision Medicine Accelerator which she helped found as a senior fellow at HBS. The Accelerator, funded by Robert Kraft, brought together best-in-class leaders from the entire healthcare ecosystem to share best practices in driving toward cures.

Giusti has worked under three U.S. presidents to fight and cure cancer including the National Cancer Advisory Board under President Bush, the Obama Precision Medicine Initiative and the Biden Moonshot. She has been featured in nearly every press outlet including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Good Morning America, CNN, and Bloomberg.

Margaret (Peggy) Hamburg is an internationally recognized leader in public health and medicine. She is co-president of the InterAcademy Partnership, a consortium of over 150 academies of science, medicine, and engineering from around the world. She recently served as vice-chair of the President's Intelligence Advisory Board and on the Foreign Affairs Advisory Board to the Secretary of State.

Prior to this, she was Foreign Secretary for the U.S. National Academy of Medicine and President/Chair of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). She previously served as Commissioner of the U.S. FDA and founding Vice President/Senior Scientist at the Nuclear Threat Initiative. Other positions include assistant secretary for planning and evaluation at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, NYC Health Commissioner, and Assistant Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Hamburg is an elected member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the UK Academy of Medical Sciences.

She sits on numerous boards and is the recipient of multiple honorary degrees and awards. She graduated from Harvard College and Medical School, and completed her medical residency at Weill Cornell Medical Center.

Daphne Koller is CEO and Founder of insitro, a causal AI therapeutics company focused on discovering and advancing novel, transformative medicines.

Daphne was the Rajeev Motwani Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University, where she served on the faculty for 18 years. She was also the co-CEO and President of Coursera, an online education platform that touched over 150M learners, and the Chief Computing Officer of Calico Labs.

She is the author of over 300 refereed publications with an h-index of over 150. Daphne was recognized as one of TIME Magazine’s 100 most influential people in 2012 and 100 most influential people in AI in 2024.

She received the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 2004, the ACM Prize in Computing in 2008, the ACM AAAI Allen Newell Award in 2019, and the AnitaB.org Technical Leadership Abie Award Winner in 2022.

Daphne was inducted into the National Academy of Science in 2023, into the National Academy of Engineering in 2011 and elected a fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence in 2004, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2014, and the International Society of Computational Biology in 2017.

In addition to his position at Ovid, Dr. Levin is concurrently the chairman of Ceryvyn Therapeutics Ltd.

Before founding Ovid, he was President and CEO of Teva Pharmaceutical Industries. At Bristol-Myers Squibb, as a member of the executive committee, he was the architect of the String of Pearls strategy, which transformed the company and helped set the immuno-oncology revolution in motion. He joined Bristol from Novartis, where he led global strategic alliances.

He has served on the boards of Biocon and Lundbeck, and is a past chairman of BIO. He was selected by Endpoints in 2021 as one of the 60 living pioneers of the industry and the recipient of the Albert Einstein Award for Leadership in Life Sciences and the B’nai B’rith Award for Distinguished Achievement.

He edited the 2020 bestseller Biotechnology in the Time of Covid-19 and published Biotech in the Balance: Saving a Strategic Industry in an Age of Distrust in May 2026.

He holds a doctorate in chromatin structure from Oxford and medical and surgical degrees from Cambridge, and has practiced medicine in England, South Africa, and Switzerland. He received the Albert Einstein Award for Leadership in Life Sciences.

Thomas Lines is an entrepreneur, scientist, and inventor who serves as Founder, CEO, and Chairman of Quercis Pharma AG, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Zug, Switzerland.

Lines has more than 20 years of success founding, building, and scaling companies.  He previously founded the California-based FRS Company after creating and patenting the FRS Formula, and founded FRS International LLC in 2004.  In 2022, Quercis Pharma was named a "Top Ten Biotech Startup in Europe" by Life Sciences Review.  In 2025, Dr. Lines and Quercis Pharma were nominated for the Prix Galien USA Award in the "Best Startup" category.

Dr. Lines is recognized for his expertise on naturally occurring small molecules as disease prevention agents with a specific emphasis on flavonoids, and has authored numerous scientific publications. He has authored multiple drug patents and trademarks, and has managed collaborations with large multinationals including Coca Cola, Merck, Novartis, and GSK, as well as the U.S. Department of Defense. Since 2010, his family companies have managed an experimental agricultural program to improve sustainable crop growth in developing countries.

He was awarded a Doctor of Science (D.Sc. h.c..) fot his pioneering work in biotechnology.

Cheryl Lubbert is a visionary leader and driver of transformation in the healthcare and biopharmaceutical industries. With over 30 years of executive leadership experience at industry giants such as Abbott Laboratories, Amgen, Immunex, and Bristol-Myers Squibb, she has consistently spearheaded innovative strategies that reshape market dynamics.

At Abbott, Cheryl led the Immunology Division, advancing key therapies including HUMIRA into important new therapeutic areas. Earlier, at Immunex and Amgen, she played an instrumental role in the commercialization of ENBREL, helping introduce biologic therapies to dermatology and rheumatology at a time when biologics were largely unfamiliar within those specialties. She developed strategies to educate physicians, patients, and other healthcare stakeholders about the value of biologic medicines, helping establish the foundation for their adoption across broader patient populations. Cheryl also successfully navigated complex product supply constraints while supporting the introduction of biologics for rare conditions, contributing to the transformation of biologic therapies from emerging innovations into a new standard of care.

Her breadth of experience in pharma has cultivated a unique perspective—one that is deeply embedded in the Reverba Global approach and technology platforms for patient and scientific engagement. By blending cutting-edge, tech-enabled solutions with real-world insights from patients, physicians, and payors, Cheryl ensures that Reverba Global strategies anticipate the evolving needs of the global healthcare ecosystem.

Founder and CEO, Peter Cohen Foundation, operating as EverythingALS.org and EverythingAD.org.

Indu Navar is a Silicon Valley technologist, serial entrepreneur, and investor with more than two decades of experience building software companies, leading successful exits, and advising organizations on financing and mergers and acquisitions.

After losing her husband, Peter Cohen, to ALS in 2019, Indu dedicated herself to transforming brain-disease research through citizen-driven science, open innovation, and AI-powered platforms. She founded the Peter Cohen Foundation, which brings together patients, families, researchers, clinicians, technology leaders, and industry partners to accelerate biomarker discovery and therapeutic development.

Through a first-of-its-kind nonprofit–for-profit model, Indu also founded CureUs.ai to translate these research innovations into scalable clinical solutions. Together, these platforms engage more than 7,000 patients and families, reach over 500,000 people globally, and collaborate with 31 academic institutions and more than 24 pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.

Previously, Indu served as Managing Director at Woodside Capital Partners, where she advised software companies on financing and M&A. She was also the founder and CEO of Serus Corporation, which was acquired by E2open, and held leadership roles at WebMD and Silicon Graphics. She began her career at NASA.

Indu holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and an M.S. in Computer Science and is currently completing a Ph.D. in Neuroscience.

Becky Quick is co-anchor of “Squawk Box”. She also leads CNBC Cures, a multi-platform initiative dedicated to showcasing the voices, research, and progress surrounding rare diseases.

Quick is known for her hard-hitting interviews and profiles of some of the world’s richest and most influential investors, including Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Alan Greenspan, T. Boone Pickens, Jamie Dimon, Charlie Munger and many others. She also has interviewed three U.S. presidents and has hosted panels at some of the most prestigious conferences in the world such as the Microsoft CEO Conference, Fortune’s Most Powerful Women’s Conference and the Allen & Co. Sun Valley Media Conference.

Quick was formerly anchor of the nationally syndicated “On the Money,” which was produced by CNBC, and also authored a regular column for Fortune magazine. Prior to becoming an anchor, Quick covered the Wall Street beat for CNBC as part of the network’s partnership with Dow Jones.

Before joining CNBC in February 2001, Quick covered various beats for The Wall Street Journal, including retail, e-commerce and the Internet. She also played a crucial role in the launch of The Wall Street Journal Online, while serving as the site’s International news editor.

Quick graduated from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J. She serves on the board of the Economic Club of New York and previously served on the board of The Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital.

Vardit Ravitsky is President and CEO of the Hastings Center, an independent, nonpartisan bioethics research institute that is among the most prestigious bioethics and health policy institutes in the world. She is a Senior Lecturer on Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Previously, she was a Full Professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Montreal.

She is Past-President of the International Association of Bioethics, and a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. Her research focuses on the ethics of genomics and reproduction, as well as the ethics and governance of health AI. She is particularly interested in the various ways in which cultural frameworks shape public debate and policy around bioethical issues.

She has published over 250 articles and commentaries on bioethical issues and has given over 300 talks world-wide and over 400 media interviews. Ravitsky holds a BA from the Sorbonne University in Paris, an MA from the University of New Mexico in the U.S., and a PhD from Bar-Ilan University in Israel. She has also been a Fellow at the Department of Bioethics at the NIH and faculty in the School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Kate Sasser, PhD, is Chief Scientific Officer at Tempus AI, where she leads scientific and technical teams to deliver precision medicine for patients, physicians, and drug developers. With more than 25 years of experience across academia, biopharma, and healthcare technology, she has led global, cross-functional teams in translational research, precision medicine, diagnostics, clinical development, and health technology. Her focus has always been on leveraging science and the power of great teams to solve healthcare's biggest challenges.

Prior to Tempus, Dr. Sasser held senior R&D and scientific leadership roles at Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine and Genmab. She's built and scaled scientific and technical organizations supporting drug discovery through all stages of discovery, clinical development and approval. In the last 20 years, she's been lucky enough to have contributed to numerous drug approvals, including blockbusters like Imbruvica, Darzalex, Rybrevant, and Epcoritamab. She is also an accomplished scientific author and inventor, with numerous publications, patents, and industry recognition. She received her BS from Oregon State University, and a PhD from Ohio State University.

Yentli Soto Albrecht, PhD, is an MD-PhD candidate at the University of Pennsylvania and a C9orf72 repeat expansion carrier, the most common genetic cause of both ALS and frontotemporal dementia (FTD).

Her father, Frank Albrecht, was diagnosed with C9 ALS in June 2023 and died fourteen months later; she learned she carried the same mutation months before he died. She considers herself a patient: a presymptomatic carrier with pathology in her blood and tissues, no disease yet, and no prevention trial to join despite her approximate 95% chance of developing ALS or FTD in the next 30 years.

Six months after her father's death she redirected her career to C9orf72 disease and has since built a dozen international collaborative research projects, spanning biomarkers, therapeutics, and the first commercial C9orf72 stem cell biorepository, which begins with her father's cells and her own and returns a share of proceeds to the carrier community via End the Legacy, where she serves as community science liaison.

She co-founded the CureC9 Program within EverythingALS, governed by an independent scientific advisory board that is planning the first prevention trial for genetic ALS and FTD. She has raised more than $280,000 for cure research and secured a similar amount in grants for her collaborators including a Longitude Prize on ALS Discovery Award.

She brings the science back to patients through her video series Search for a Self Cure. This year, she shared her story on both the Breakthrough Prize and Nobel Laureate Meeting stages, growing awareness for familial ALS and FTD. Yentli draws on her position as patient, scientist, and physician-in-training to accelerate therapies for ALS and FTD within her lifetime—hopefully in time to save herself, her family, and her patients.

Sheri Strahl, MPH, MBA, is President and CEO of the ALS Network, one of the largest ALS patient advocacy organizations in the nation. She brings more than two decades of nonprofit leadership experience and is a leading voice in advancing integrated models that connect care, research, and advocacy.

At the ALS Network, Sheri leads efforts to support more than 4,000 people living with ALS each year while driving a global research portfolio and a robust advocacy platform. Her work focuses on strengthening the connection between patient experience, clinical care, and scientific discovery to accelerate the development of new therapies and improve health outcomes.

Sheri is particularly focused on advancing patient-centered innovation at scale, including building community-driven approaches that more directly connect patients, clinicians, and researchers. With a background in public health and business, she brings a systems-level perspective to shaping the next generation of more integrated, patient-centered models of care and research.

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.

Tania Simoncelli joined the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative in 2017 with a vision to build a program committed to centralizing essential leaders in the biomedical research ecosystem: patients. In service of this goal, she launched
the Rare As One Project, a first-of-its-kind program that supports patient communities in their quest to accelerate research through grantmaking, capacity building support, and the development of new tools and partnerships. Her commitment to this work is grounded in more than twenty years of experience in advocacy and policy to address complex challenges at the intersection of science, technology, law and ethics. Previous roles include serving as Senior Advisor to Dr. Eric Lander at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard; Assistant Director of Forensic Science and Biomedical Innovation at the White House Offi ce of Science and Technology Policy; Special Assistant to Commissioner Margaret Hamburg at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration; and Science Advisor to the American Civil Liberties Union.
Simoncelli holds a B.A. in Biology and Society from Cornell University and an M.S. in Energy and Resources from UC Berkeley and is co-author with Sheldon Krimsky of Genetic Justice: DNA Data Banks, Criminal Investigations and Civil Liberties (Columbia University Press: 2011). In 2013, Simoncelli was named by the journal Nature as “one of 10 people who mattered” for her work in spearheading the ACLU’s successful Supreme Court case challenging the patenting of human genes. In 2021, she was elected to the rank of AAAS Fellow “for remarkable, high impact contributions to developing strategies and policies for improving the public value of science.

Aaron Leibtag is the CEO and Co-Founder of Pentavere (a Healwell AI company), a globally recognized healthcare AI company built on a Patient-First philosophy.

Inspired by the tragic loss of his partner’s mother to an overlooked medical detail, he co-founded Pentavere to ensure no patient is ever missed.

Under his leadership, the company’s AI innovations led to the invention of a major AI patent, impacted more than one million lives, and were published and validated in over 40 leading medical journals.

Pentavere was recognized by Newsweek for advancing health equity through AI and awarded the 2024 Prix Galien USA Award for Best Digital Health Startup.

Its success ultimately led to acquisition by Healwell AI, where it now serves as a cornerstone for advancing disease detection and preventative care worldwide.