DTx East 2021

Innes Meldrum is SVP & Chief Commercial Officer at Otsuka Pharmaceuticals USA. Innes leads commercial success of Otsuka’s North American business which includes Neuroscience, Nephrology, and Digital products. Innes oversees Commercial Strategy and Commercial Operations including Market Access, Training and Development, Sales and Marketing Operations, as well as Business Insights and Strategy.

Debra is Founding CEO of Freespira, Inc. and has a history of  CEO and executive positions in medical device and digital therapeutics companies for more than 20 years.  Freespira is an FDA cleared, at-home digital therapeutic that treats panic disorder, panic attacks, and PTSD.  Debra’s expertise includes go-to-market strategies, business modeling, clinical studies, regulatory, reimbursement and fundraising.  Debra is on the board of Digital Therapeutic Alliance (DTA) and is Board Chair for 2021.

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

Lina Behrens is the Managing Director at Flying Health, the leading ecosystem for Next Generation Healthcare, based in Berlin. She is a Vice President of the German Startup Association and a Member of the Advisory Board „Junge Digitale Wirtschaft“ (Young Digital Economy) of the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Energy. Previously, Lina worked at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Social Finance UK and at Polymath Ventures, one of the largest company builders in Latin America. Lina holds an MPA from the London School of Economics and a BA in Economics and in International Affairs from the University of St. Gallen.

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

As Vice President of Marketing & Commercial Development at S3 Connected Health, Matt consults with life science companies on the development and execution of digital therapeutics and digital health solutions.

With over 20 years’ experience of bringing solutions to market for companies including P&G, GSK, and ResMed, Matt has a wealth of experience delivering solutions that capture RWD and RWE to help transform healthcare delivery and improve patient outcomes.

Matt’s current role involves the roll-out of patient and clinician focused digital health solutions across APAC, Latin America, and the US, resolving regulatory challenges and scaling across globally diverse regions.

Ranjan is passionate about using food and lifestyle as medicine. He successfully addressed his very own life-threatening cardio-metabolic disorder, which inspired him to help others address similar challenges. 

His Master’s degree is from Wharton and he’s educated in engineering and nutrition.

He began his career at Apple, and has since curated large data software, human resources services, and wellness businesses.

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

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

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

Tom Lemberg is the Founder & CEO of Curebase. Tom has an 8-year career focused entirely on healthcare and life science software development, spanning the cloud EMR space, precision oncology, and clinical trial decision support. He is a Y Combinator alum from 2018, and has led Curebase’s growth to 25 customers and $19M in venture funding. Prior to founding Curebase, Tom worked in product management for EMR data integrations, clinical trial matching engines, and tumor board workflows at Syapse, a real-world evidence startup in San Francisco. Tom received his undergraduate degree from Harvard University in computer science and molecular and cellular biology, and has a deep passion for applying a lifetime of software experience to the toughest problems in health and medicine.

Dr. Keisha Ross graduated from Saint Louis University with a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology. 

Dr. Ross provides clinical services to children, adolescents, and adults.  Her specialty areas include treating and understanding complex trauma, cultural competence with focus on race/ethnicity with the intersecting identities of religion/spirituality, gender, sexual orientation and disability.  She also is an educator, trainer, clinical supervisor, leader/advocate, consultant and innovator with subject matter expertise in race based stress/trauma. Her research interest includes grants focused improving health communication between providers and racially/ethnically diverse patients and development of culturally sensitive training tools. As Owner/Founder of New Horizon Psychological Services, LLC Dr. Ross provides national and international trainings on diversity, equity, and inclusion; and cultural competence with an emphasis on the impacts of historical/intergenerational trauma on health seeking behaviors among communities of color. She is a member of several local and national organizations holding executive membership and officer positions.  Dr. Ross is recipient of the 2018 Missouri Psychological Association (MOPA) Leadership Award, Inaugural awardee of 2020 St. Louis VA Advancing Diversity in Psychology Award (ADIP), and 2021 ADIP awardee.  She also provides expert testimony with an emphasis on the impacts of structural racism, implicit bias, and historical/intergenerational trauma as it relates to the intersection of mental health and criminal justice system and its influence on offending behaviors.  Her passion is in decreasing stigma about mental health with focus on advocacy/empowerment in urban minority areas and underserved populations.  

Eddie is CEO/co-founder of Akili Interactive, a leading digital therapeutics company creating treatments for people living with cognitive impairments. Akili was founded on the belief that medicine should not just be safe and effective, but fun and engaging. Akili’s products are delivered through immersive action video game experiences and the company is working to transform the patient experience. Prior to starting Akili in 2011, Eddie co-founded two other health-focused start-ups and helped to launch PureTech Health’s DH initiative. He is a former Kauffman Entrepreneur Fellow, he completed his graduate work at Yale University in the Departments of Pharmacology and Molecular Biophysics & Biochemistry and received his B.S. in Biochemistry from Providence College, and his M.Phil. and Ph.D. from Yale University. Eddie frequently serves on discussion panels for industry and academic events and appears in top-tier media reports on healthcare innovation. Akili has received recognition including the 2014 Future of Health Tech product award, 2015 50-on-Fire Boston, #1 health company in Entrepreneur magazine’s 100 Brilliant Companies of 2016, CNS Summit 2017 Innovation Award winner, and finalist for 2018 Bostonfest Coolest Companies and 2018 Business Intelligence Best Places to Work.

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

Matthias is a physician by training and holds a medical doctorate degree from the University of Ulm, Germany. He has gained both inpatient and outpatient medical expertise in various healthcare systems around the world. Matthias joined GAIA 17 years ago and takes the responsibility for the national and international business development and licensing activities with payer and physician organisations as well as industry partners. And when not travelling the world for business, he travels the world for leisure.

Mette Dyhrberg is a digital health innovator committed to improving the quality of life for those with chronic disease. She is the founder and CEO of Mymee, a digital program that is rethinking autoimmunity. The Mymee protocol eases the symptoms of autoimmune disease through data analytics and health coaching.  As an authority on autoimmune issues, Mette is a frequent speaker at industry events and conferences such as Stanford Medicine X and Exponential Medicine.

Mette holds MS in economics and is a certified health coach. An economist turned diagnostician, she’s the Sherlock Holmes of anamnestic data. She first entered the functional medicine arena in an attempt to tackle her own chronic health issues. In her early twenties, she became severely ill. For years, Mette battled an ever-expanding array of medical diagnoses ending up with six different autoimmune diseases simultaneously. Mette took matters into her own hands, hacked her own health and in doing so, she created a tool that solved her health problems and soon began helping others do the same.

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

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

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

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

Melissa Saw is currently the Director of Marketing Procurement in Bayer. In this capacity she leads the
relationship between the Consumer Health’s Marketing Organization and Global Agencies to ensure
best in class innovation and value creation from these power partnerships.

While at Bayer, she has held various positions in Sales, Marketing and in Digital Transformation. She has
worked and lived across Malaysia, Australia, Germany, Switzerland and is now based in the United
States.

She graduated from Charles Sturt University, Australia with a Bachelor of Business in Finance and holds a
Master of Business Administration in Marketing from the Australian Institute of Business.

Laura Yecies is an experienced CEO, Marketer and Strategist with proven ability to develop and
market award-winning products, scale businesses as well as profitably exit. She currently is
working with a select group of medical technology companies with breakthrough innovations to
improve health outcomes. Laura is leading marketing strategy at Fabric Genomics, working with
Akili Interactive on Business Development and is a Board Member at Bone Health Technology.
Previously she was CEO of SyncThink a medical diagnostic company, Catch, which she sold to
Apple and SugarSync which was acquired by J2Global. Earlier she led the Browser division at
Netscape, was general manager of Yahoo Mail and VP of Marketing at Check Point. Laura
received her MBA from Harvard, has an MSFS from Georgetown and her AB in Government from
Dartmouth.

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

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

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

Melinda Decker is Chief Commercial Officer of Mymee, the leading provider of 100% remote, digital care programs designed to help people with autoimmune disease reclaim their health. Mymee’s commercially validated trigger identification platform combines mobile technology, data analytics and personalized coaching to find the unique diet and environmental triggers behind each person’s disease symptoms and guide meaningful improvements in quality of life. Mymee currently offers it’s program directly to individuals, as well as through large self-insured employers and health plans.

Melinda also serves as an advisor to MIT’s Health Science & Technology program and to several companies focused on digital health. She previously held leadership roles at AstraZeneca and Pfizer, spanning commercial and R&D.  Melinda holds an MS in Biochemical Engineering and an MBA in Finance and Marketing.

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

Ian Marcus is Team Lead for the Digital Health Policy Leadership and Development Team in FDA’s Digital Health Center of Excellence (DHCoE), Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH). In this role, he leads the development and implementation of new policies and guidance documents, helps stakeholders navigate the regulatory landscape for novel and complex digital health technologies and innovations, and develops new regulatory approaches to address the unique considerations these technologies raise.

Ian began his FDA career in 2015 as a Biomedical Engineer and Lead Reviewer in the Office of Neurological and Physical Medicine Devices, leading interdisciplinary teams to review more than 200 pre- and post-market medical device submissions that covered a range of novel technologies, including wearables, mobile apps, electrical stimulators, exoskeletons, and brain computer interfaces.

Before joining the FDA, Ian worked as a Research Engineer at the Center for Injury Biomechanics at the Wake Forest School of Medicine. He received his bachelor’s degree in Engineering Science and Mechanics with a Biomechanics Focus from Virginia Tech in 2013 and received his master’s degree in Engineering Mechanics from Virginia Tech in 2014.

Meg is passionate about driving change by collaborating with physicians, technology leaders and solution innovators to improve health care. She has served in product development and business development leadership roles at the AMA and most recently is responsible for driving the roadmap of initiatives that support the AMA’s digital health and medicine strategy. In addition, she has led partnerships and innovation related initiatives, such as the inaugural AMA Healthier Nation Innovation Challenge, the establishment of the AMA Interaction Studio at MATTER, the AMA Physician Innovation Network that enables entrepreneurs and physicians to collaborate on the development of new solutions, the AMA Digital Health & Telehealth Implementation Playbook series, AMA Digital Health research and The Telehealth Initiative with collaborators. She participates on the Advisory Board for MATTER, MassChallenge HealthTech, HealthTech Arkansas, Together.Health and as a TEDMed Research Scholar. She also participates on the Editorial Review Board of The Telehealth and Medicine Today Journal.

Meg has spoken at national conferences such as Health 2.0, Connected Health, HLTH, American Telemedicine Association National Conference, AMA State Advocacy Conference and contributes as speaking faculty for Columbia Business School’s Digital Health program curriculum. She has articles published in Health Affairs, Harvard Business Review and Nature Digital Medicine.

Prior to AMA, Meg worked in the Consumer Product & Retail vertical at Capgemini and at SmithBucklin Corporation for various business and health care clients.

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

Derk Arts MD, PhD has over fifteen years of experience in medicine, research and technology. He founded Castor to solve the biggest issues in clinical research: a lack of inclusivity, patient focus and impact of data. Castor enables sponsors worldwide to run patient-centric trials on a unified platform, that helps them maximize the impact of research data on patient lives.

Dr. Derk Arts believes the key to achieving lasting change in the industry is through scalability and standardization. Technology to run better trials and maximize the impact of data should be available to all researchers.

Over the past 12 months, Castor provided pro-bono support to over 300 COVID-19 trials, and provided the entire infrastructure for the World Health Organizations’ Solidarity Trials.

Julia Strandberg serves as Chief Commercial Officer at Pear Therapeutics, responsible for crafting and implementing patient-, clinician-, and payer-centered strategies to accelerate the adoption of Prescription Digital Therapeutics (PDTs). She draws on extensive experience in developing and commercializing innovative medical technologies. From medical devices and RFID technologies, to consumer electronics, she has championed novel technologies and innovative business models to transform healthcare and advance the healthcare industry.

Prior to joining Pear, Julia served as Medtronic’s Vice President & General Manager for the Health Informatics & Monitoring division. She also has served as Vice President of Global Marketing for the Patient Monitoring franchise for Covidien. Julia joined Covidien in the Strategy & Portfolio group for Sleep Diagnostics and Therapy. She began her career at 3M Company, where she held multiple engineering and marketing positions in the Optical Systems and Track and Trace solutions division.

She earned her MBA from University of Minnesota, Carlson School of Management, and her undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering at Purdue University.

Scott is a digital health and eClinical technology expert, business leader and entrepreneur, with experience at market leading companies such as Boston Scientific, IQVIA and ERT as well as new start-ups such as CentrosHealth and OM1. He’s worked extensively with medical devices and sensor integration, patient engagement and UX, and clinical outcomes assessment. Volunteer activities include serving as a board member for the New England chapter of HIMSS and as a mentor at a Boston technology accelerator. He’s now leading a new business and technology platform at Cenduit.