Evidence-Based Digital Health in Pharma Summit

Celine Marquez is the Global Medical Director of Digital Health at Genentech. She is physician trained in radiation oncology, and passionate about research, design thinking, innovation and the application of technology to improve patient outcomes and quality of life throughout lifespan.

Celine was awarded the UCSF Health Care Innovation Accelerator Award (which provides UCSF physicians with funding and startup experience for innovative ideas at the intersection of technology and medicine) and Isadora Rosenbaum Champion of Service Award in 2018.

Meri Kay Scott is the Associate Vice President of Digital Health Research & Development at Eli Lilly. More than 20 years of global clinical development experience has provided Meri Kay with a breadth of work experiences in drug development, management, leadership, clinical trial development/execution, Clinical Project Management, Global Clinical Operations across therapeutic areas, and external partnerships (CRO, Alliances). Over this course of time, she has gained experience from early drug development to the market with a focus on Phase 2-4 programs in diabetes. She continually strives to have an impact, add value at all levels, and succeed in bringing new medicines to patients.

Kelly H. Zou, Ph.D., PStat® is Head of Medical Analytics, RWE, and HEOR, Viatris Inc. She is an elected Fellow of the American Statistical Association and an Accredited Professional Statistician. Previously at Pfizer Inc, she was Vice President and Head of Medical Analytics & Insights; Senior Director of Real World Evidence, Group Lead of Methods & Algorithms and Analytic Science Lead; Senior Director of Statistics. She was Associate Professor of Radiology at Harvard Medical School, as well as Director of Biostatistics at its affiliated teaching hospitals. She was Associate Director of Rates at Barclays Capital. She received both MA and PhD degrees in Statistics from the University of Rochester. She completed her Postdoctoral Fellowship at Harvard. Her research interests include health policy, real world evidence, signal detection, and artificial intelligence, with over 150 professional articles and 5 books. She was featured as an Outstanding Woman in Data Analytics by Forbes, an Inspirational Women in Statistics & Data Science by Wiley, and an Accomplished Woman in Statistics and Data Science by the American Statistical Association. She was the winner of the Chief Data and Analytics Officers’ Forum’s Future Thinking Award and Reuters Events Pharma USA’s Most Valuable Data & Insights Initiative Team Award.

Dr Alex Condoleon, MBBS MBA, is a globally experienced healthcare leader who is passionate about the intersection of digital healthcare & the life science industry in pursuit of transforming the healthcare experience.

John Nicol is a senior software engineering leader with over 30 years of experience in Boston’s dynamic high-tech sector. He joined the Digital Health Center of Excellence at FDA as a Digital Health Specialist in Nov. 2023 where he is now shaping Artificial Intelligence standards and best practices for the delivery of safe and effective AI medical devices. John previously held key engineering leadership positions with prestigious companies including Google, Fitbit, Bose, Akamai, Polycom, and Avaya, and his extensive background and leadership have positioned him as a trusted authority in the high-tech industry. John holds Ph.D. and B.Sc. degrees in Computer Science from Lancaster University and Strathclyde University, respectively.

Adam is an Executive Investment Director and is based in Boston. He focuses on investments in the digital health space. He is a trained scientist with a PhD in neuroscience from University of Geneva, University of Lausanne and EPFL, Switzerland. He has published several articles in international peer reviewed journals and lectured at international conferences on developmental neuroscience and retinal degeneration.

Adam started his career with Boehringer Ingelheim Corporate Market Access Team in 2012 as a Senior Global Payer Strategy Manager in Ingelheim, Germany. He was managing global pricing and market access strategies for the HCV and oncology portfolio and driving the development of innovative market access approaches and payment schemes. He then moved to the UK and Ireland in 2015 to head the Pricing and Contracting Team, working across the whole Boehringer Ingelheim prescription medicines portfolio. Adam returned to Germany in 2018 to lead the Strategic Market Access Initiatives as well as Tech Partnerships within the Global Healthcare Affairs and Patient Engagement Team. Prior to joining Boehringer Ingelheim Adam worked as a life sciences strategy consultant for IQVIA, IBM Watson Health Consulting and Simon-Kucher & Partners in Belgium, France, Germany, Poland and The United States. He also worked as a research assistant at Jules Gonin Eye Hospital in Lausanne, Switzerland and as a Junior Project Leader at AnalyCen in Poland and Sweden.

Ofer Waks is a Director of Digital Strategy and Innovation at Pfizer, where he leads cross-functional, scalable innovation programs, as well as digital product scoping, development, and management. He also leads external digital health company assessments, strategic partnership generation, and use case development from ideation and scoping to refinement and implementation. Ofer received a Bachelor of Pharmacy from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, before going on to gain an MBA in Healthcare Management from The Wharton School.

Cris joined Sanofi Ventures as Partner in 2020 to lead venture capital investments and strategy in Digital Health & Data Science Innovation, globally. He holds a 20 year track record of building and launching emerging technologies, startups and innovation platforms with some of the largest organizations in the world. 

Prior to Sanofi, Cris was a founding team member of Johnson & Johnson Innovation and Global Head of Digital Innovation since 2013. He held chief digital and data responsibilities, driving strategy and external tech collaborations throughout J&J’s Innovation Centers, JLABS incubators and JJDC corporate ventures across the Pharmaceutical, Consumer and Medical Device businesses. Previously, Cris led emerging technology programs within Research Informatics at Novartis for 6 years. 

With entrepreneurial DNA, Cris is most notably known for his role in the innovation economy since Co-Founding Ultra Light Startups, the oldest and largest startup-investor pitch accelerator in Boston and New York City with additional chapters in Silicon Valley and London. ULS accelerated 700+ bootstrapping startups with 26% having gone on to raise angel/venture funding, leading to multiple acquisitions by companies such as Apple, Trip Advisor and Singapore Telecom.

Cris holds a Master of Science in Computer Information Systems from Boston University and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration Ecommerce from Suffolk University. He is a recipient of multiple healthcare innovation awards, including 40 under 40 Innovator by the Boston Business Journal, and Top 40 Healthcare Transformer by MM&M Magazine. Cris currently serves on the boards of Empatica. Nucleai, Medisafe, Click Therapeutics, Omada Health, and Aetion. He is also on the advisory boards of the American Telemedicine Association, SXSW Health, Voice by Amazon Alexa and the Boston University School of Public Health Innovation Council.

Sarah is the Partnerships Lead at Digital Medicine Society (DiMe), a non-profit organization that operates at the intersection of healthcare and technology to advance the ethical, effective, equitable, and safe use of digital medicine to redefine healthcare and improve lives. Sarah not only manages relationships within the life sciences vertical, but also drives business development and strategy for engagement across key stakeholder groups in our community.

Viviktha Ramesh is a physician expert in digital health currently working in the neurology and cardiology spaces at Roche to accelerate digital tool adoption. She is customer obsessed and passionate about supporting digital tool development through evidence generation, financial modeling and customer co-creation. Prior to her current role, she has launched 2 drugs at Genentech and scaled a digital health start up (THB) in India.

Jennifer Joe MD is the Population Health Director within global medical affairs, where she sits at the intersection of population health, digital, education, and clinical trials. Her role is disease state agnostic, and her current work is supporting the amyloidosis teams. She believes in putting the voice of the patient at the center of every discussion. Trained in nephrology at the Harvard-affiliated Mass General and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, she currently practices part-time at the Boston VA healthcare center.

Amir is a Digital Health Advisor and a Board Member who helps Pharma and Medtech companies develop and implement innovative solutions in clinical research and medicine. He sits on the Advisory Board of multiple startups and holds strategic consulting roles with pharmaceutical companies.

Amir brings over 20 years of clinical experience in the biotech and healthcare industries. He leverages his expertise in medical devices, wearable technology, AI, and data intelligence to digitize disease monitoring and enable the detection of various diseases much earlier than is currently possible within the conventional healthcare system.

Amir’s mission and goals are to go beyond the pill, make home the new clinic, automate medicine with AI, accelerate personalized therapies, improve patient care, and create a path for better patient experience using digital technology.

During his time at Pfizer, Amir led the development of digital solutions for gene therapy trials, primarily in rare diseases. Prior to pharma, Amir was a PI on numerous clinical trials as a Neurology Faculty and Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School.

Norah Xiao is the Director of Digital Health Partnership in Global Commercial Digital Health at AstraZeneca. As a digital product strategist, patients’ needs are her north start. She leads the development of global commercial digital health strategy with Global Medical Affair and Global Brand and the implementation with marketing companies by building partnerships with external ecosystems. Amyloidosis is the rare disease she is currently working on.

Kaitlin is the Lead Clinical Analyst on the Clinical Innovation team at Point32Health, the parent

organization of Tufts Health Plan and Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare. The Clinical Innovation team is responsible for collaborating with a variety of partners within the healthcare ecosystem to explore emerging technologies and solutions that challenge current thinking and standard of care. Kaitlin leads all analytics and outcomes evaluations for the team and has extensive experience using claims data to validate the clinical and economic utility of solutions. Prior to Clinical Innovation, Kaitlin was an analyst on the Medical Cost Management team at Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare where she completed ROI savings valuations for both internal and vendor-managed programs. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Biology from Bowdoin College and a Master of Public Health concentrating in Epidemiology from Brown University.

Sophie joined the Bayer Digital Strategy team under the Board of Management for Innovation leading the strategy and development for broader organizational digital transformation. For over a decade, she has held various leadership roles within the healthcare industry through consulting and leading NGOs, multinational corporates, and advising two White House Administrations in not only developing their digital health growth and investment strategy, but also launching innovation frameworks and programs both in the United States and abroad. She is a key thought leader in digital health internationally on digital health economics, investments, scalability, and innovation programs. She is passionate about public health and advancing sustainable and equitable access for individuals through technology. She is currently serving as the Managing Director of Bayer’s G4A Investments and Partnerships team. 

Miles Gerson is the Executive Investment Director & Partner at Takeda Ventures, Inc., the strategic investment arm of Takeda Pharmaceuticals, and is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  He has more than 20 years of experience in life science venture investing, business development, licensing, technology transfer, and corporate engagement for innovation. He has specialized in company formation and investment diligence for both US and European-based venture firms and has served as strategic advisor to startup executives and board members.  He has held multiple operational roles spanning founding management, finance, business development, and legal for venture-backed and publicly traded companies, and previously served as UCLA’s Managing Officer of Business Development. Miles holds both a Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree in Neuroscience from Wesleyan University, as well as a JD/MBA in Strategic Management in Life & Engineering Sciences from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.  Miles currently serves as a director on the boards of Catamaran Bio, Harness Therapeutics, Integra Therapeutics, Zebra Biopharma, and Zelluna Immunotherapy.

Jessica Lipschitz, Ph.D, is a behavioral scientist, the Associate Director of the Digital Behavioral Health & Informatics Research Program at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School. Her research focuses on implementation and optimization of digital behavioral health tools/interventions and she has specific clinical expertise in anxiety and mood disorders. Dr. Lipschitz has worked extensively with the VA on national digital health rollout initiatives and has consulted and conducted research in partnership with industry aimed at improving and implementing digital health solutions for behavioral health.