ference. Among her many other honors, Dr. Abdulai was invited to the White House for President Obama’s Innovative Programs Summit, which highlighted impactful social entrepreneurship programs across the country. Her passions include ensuring digital health equity and increasing access to clinical trials for women and people of color. Her personal project in this area was chosen for the Harvard iLab Venture Incubation Program.

Kirsten Axelsen, M.S., works with leaders in health care and builds diverse and effective teams, helping to develop business practices that lead to affordable medicines, positive public perception, and sustained investment in scientific advancement. Ms. Axelsen was on the leadership team of Pfizer Inc.’s $30 billion global innovative pharmaceutical business, where she led strategy and business evaluation. Previously, Ms. Axelsen led Pfizer’s global policy team. She is currently a visiting scholar with the American Enterprise Institute, an Aspen Institute Health Innovator Fellow, and a consultant acting as a senior policy advisor to DLA Piper and Charles River Associates. She is a founder and the executive secretary of the Preparedness and Treatment Equity Coalition, an organization focused on identifying metrics and reimbursement pathways to achieve greater equity in health care.

Grace E. Colón, Ph.D., brings more than 25 years of experience in biopharma, genomics, health care, and industrial biotechnology. She is currently the chief executive officer (CEO), president, and director at InCarda Therapeutics, a clinical stage therapeutics company developing a new treatment for atrial fibrillation. She is also the executive chair (formerly CEO) of ProterixBio, and serves on the boards of CareDx, the MIT Corporation (MIT Board of Trustees), and the Biotechnology Innovation Organization. Formerly, she was a partner at New Science Ventures, a New York–based venture capital firm with more than $700 million under management, and served on the boards of Paradigm Diagnostics, PerceptiMed, and Cocoon Biotech, and on the Advisory Board of the Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship at Santa Clara University.

Previously, she co-founded Pyranose Biotherapeutics, a biologics discovery platform company. She was also the founding president of the Industrial Products Division at Intrexon Corporation, where she established a new division focused on leveraging synthetic biology for bioindustrial applications, such as biofuels and renewable chemicals. Prior to Intrexon, she was the head of clinical operations for Gilead Sciences, where she was responsible for the global execution of clinical trials. She also created and led both the Alliance Management and Commercial Strategic Planning groups. Prior to Gilead, she was the vice president of corporate planning at Affymetrix, where she was responsible for strategic planning and project management and where she also served as the chief of operations for the

International Genomics Consortium, a nonprofit medical research organization focused on cancer genomics. Earlier in her career she was a consultant with McKinsey & Co., where she served clients in health care, biotech, high tech, and venture capital. She was also an engineer with Merck & Co. in France and in Rahway, New Jersey.

Dr. Colón received her Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she was a National Science Foundation fellow. She also holds a B.S. in chemical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, where she was a Benjamin Franklin Scholar.

Robert K. Coughlin is the managing director of life sciences at JLL. Most recently, Mr. Coughlin served as the president and the chief executive officer at MassBio. In this role, his mission was to advance Massachusetts’ leadership in the life sciences to grow the industry, add value to the health care system, and improve patient lives. Over 14 years, he truly became a champion for patients by ensuring that innovative companies have the best environment possible to research, develop, and commercialize breakthrough therapies and cures for people around the world who need and deserve them. He played an integral role in making Massachusetts the best place in the world for the life science industry.

Mr. Coughlin has spent his career in both the public and private sectors. Before joining MassBio, he served as the undersecretary of economic development within Governor Deval Patrick’s administration, where he prioritized both health care and economic development issues and was a strong advocate for the life sciences industry in Massachusetts. Prior to that, he was elected as state representative to the 11th Norfolk district for three terms. He has also held senior executive positions in the environmental services, capital management, and venture capital industries.

In addition to his professional responsibilities, Mr. Coughlin is an active member in the community. He is a past board member of the Massachusetts Maritime Academy and the Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital and is currently serving on the board of directors for The Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare, Franciscan Children’s Hospital, and MassBio. He also serves on the board of directors of Synspira Therapeutics and Boston Analytical. Mr. Coughlin has served as the honorary chair of the Great Strides Cystic Fibrosis Walk since 1996. In years past, he co-chaired the Children’s Hospital Boston signature event, Champions for Children’s, and The Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare dinner. He is a graduate of the Massachusetts Maritime Academy, where he majored in marine engineering, and served as an officer in the U.S. Naval Reserve.

Bettina F. Drake, Ph.D., M.P.H., is a professor of surgery at the Washington University School of Medicine and the Siteman Cancer Center. As an epi-

demiologist, she has focused on identifying preventive strategies to reduce health disparities in cancer and other chronic disease outcomes. In addition, she co-leads the Prostate Cancer Community Partnership, a community partnership of PECaD, which seeks to reduce prostate cancer disparities in the region. She is most interested in how her community-based work informs and strengthens her epidemiology findings. Information gained from community-based studies informs both study design and recruitment strategies. In turn, the results of the cancer prevention work can be disseminated in collaboration with community partners. Dr. Drake also teaches intermediate clinical epidemiology in the Master of Population Health Sciences program. Dr. Drake earned her Ph.D. in epidemiology at the University of South Carolina Arnold School of Public Health and completed postdoctoral studies at the T.H. Chan Harvard School of Public Health.

Ken Ehlert is the chief scientific officer, leading UnitedHealth Group’s research and development (R&D) function, an innovation engine intended to positively impact patient health on a global scale. UnitedHealth Group’s R&D efforts are driven by math, data, and clinical science, but also focus on the human connections required to understand, manage, and prevent the chronic diseases that afflict nearly half of the world’s population. Mr. Ehlert has worked with UnitedHealth Group since 2004 and became the chief scientific officer in 2017. Previously the co-founder and the chief executive officer of Savvysherpa, Mr. Ehlert has spent his career building products and businesses that improve the health care system.

Robert J. Heine, M.D., Ph.D., FRCP, joined Lilly Diabetes in January 2008. He was the vice president of global medical affairs for Lilly Diabetes until 2014. In his current position, he is responsible for the medical and scientific strategy, development of external research partnerships, and global medical education. Before joining Lilly he was a professor of diabetology in the Department of Endocrinology and the director of the Diabetes Centre at the VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam. His main research areas included epidemiology and type 2 diabetes pathophysiology. Dr. Heine has held several key positions within the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD), including as the honorary treasurer and a member of the executive committee, and was the president of the Organizing Committee for the 2007 Meeting of the EASD, Amsterdam. Dr. Heine has served as associate editor of Diabetic Medicine, and has been a member of the editorial boards of several diabetes journals. To date, he has authored or co-authored more than 450 peer-reviewed papers and reviews.

Elizabeth Kunkoski, M.S., currently works in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research’s Office of Med-

ical Policy. She oversees several projects involving digital health technologies and electronic health records and storage in clinical investigations. She worked for 15 years in the Center for Devices and Radiological Health in guidance document development and as a branch chief overseeing the review of orthopedic devices. She earned an M.S. in biomedical engineering and a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Michigan.

Qi Liu, Ph.D., M.S., is a senior science advisor in the Office of Clinical Pharmacology (OCP) at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). At FDA, Dr. Liu contributed to the review of more than 200 New Drug Applications/Supplemental New Drug Applications, 20 Biologics License Applications/Supplemental Biologics License Applications, and numerous Investigational New Drug Applications. Dr. Liu co-authored about 40 manuscripts and presented on many topics at advisory committee meetings and scientific conferences. She worked on several working groups for FDA guidances and the Manual of Policies & Procedures development. Dr. Liu is the lead of OCP’s Innovative Data Analytics program and was the vice chair of the OCP Biologics Oversight Board. Dr. Liu is on the editorial board of Clinical and Translational Science, Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics, and the AAPS Journal. Before joining FDA, Dr. Liu was a senior pharmacokineticist at Merck. She obtained a Ph.D. in pharmaceutics and an M.S. in statistics from the University of Florida.

Chronis Manolis, R.Ph., oversees the pharmacy programs for the Health Plan’s Medicare, Medical Assistance, and commercial products. Mr. Manolis has more than 30 years of experience in the pharmacy and managed care industry. He previously held management positions with Medco Health Solutions and Stadtlanders Specialty Pharmacy Services. Mr. Manolis is also an adjunct instructor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy. He holds a bachelor’s degree in pharmacy from the University of Pittsburgh.

Jason Mellad, Ph.D., is a scientist entrepreneur passionate about translating innovative technologies into more effective therapies and better patient outcomes. He founded Start Codon to identify and recruit high-potential and disruptive health care startups worldwide, seed fund them, and leverage the exceptional resources of the Cambridge (United Kingdom) Cluster with an aim to minimize risk and drive their success. Previously, Dr. Mellad was the chief executive officer of Cambridge Epigenetix, which has developed a proprietary epigenetic biomarker discovery platform for the development of new diagnostic assays and the identification of novel drug targets. While at Cambridge Epigenetix, he transformed the research tools company into a leading liquid biopsy player and led two successful fundraisers

(Series B and C) for a total of $49.8 million. Dr. Mellad was awarded a Marshall Scholarship to obtain his Ph.D. in medicine from the University of Cambridge with a focus on the molecular mechanisms regulating vascular remodeling within coronary artery bypass grafts.

Joseph P. Menetski, Ph.D., is an associate vice president of research partnerships and the director of the Biomarkers Consortium at the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Menetski received his Ph.D. from the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine with Dr. Stephen Kowalczykowski and completed his postdoctoral training at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases at the National Institutes of Health with Dr. Martin Gellert. He then started his career in industry in 1993 in the Immunopathology Department at Parke-Davis (later Pfizer), where he established a discovery research program in cellular inflammation that eventually transitioned to the molecular study of osteoarthritis. Dr. Menetski moved to Merck in 2004. His first position was in the Department of Immunology, where he was involved in the osteoarthritis new targets and biomarker program. While at Merck he was a member of the Molecular Profiling group, the Knowledge Discovery and Knowledge Management group, and finally a director in global competitive intelligence. Over the years, he has been a key contributor to many basic research and clinical programs in the areas of arthritis, sarcopenia, osteoporosis, and asthma. He has served as a core research team member on several external basic research projects for identification of new targets and molecular biomarkers. His industry research and development (R&D) experiences include target identification, compound selection, translational biomarker identification, clinical study design and analysis, and external scientific collaborations. In the commercial space, he has been intimately involved in opportunity and asset identification and qualification, and in assessing the competitive landscape of disease areas that he is supporting. During this time, he has been recognized by multiple R&D awards for his contributions.

John J. Ngai, Ph.D., is the director of the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH’s) Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative. Dr. Ngai earned his bachelor’s degree in chemistry and biology from Pomona College, Claremont, California, and Ph.D. in biology from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena. He was a postdoctoral researcher at Caltech and at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons before starting his faculty position at the University of California, Berkeley. During more than 25 years as a Berkeley faculty member, Dr. Ngai has trained 20 undergraduate students, 24 graduate students, and 15 postdoctoral fellows in addition to teaching

more than 1,000 students in the classroom. His work has led to the publication of more than 70 scientific articles in some of the field’s most prestigious journals and 10 U.S. and international patents. Dr. Ngai has received many awards, including from the Sloan Foundation, The Pew Charitable Trusts, and the McKnight Endowment Fund for Neuroscience. As a faculty member, Dr. Ngai has served as the director of Berkeley’s Neuroscience Graduate Program and the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute. He has also provided extensive service on NIH study sections, councils, and steering groups, including as previous co-chair of the NIH BRAIN Initiative Cell Census Consortium Steering Group. Dr. Ngai will oversee the long-term strategy and day-to-day operations of the NIH BRAIN Initiative as it takes on the challenges of the next 5-year plan.

Russ Paulsen, M.A., is the chief operating officer (COO) of UsAgainstAlzheimer’s and UsAgainstAlzheimer’s Action, which bring all of us together to win the fight against Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. As COO, Mr. Paulsen leads the program, fundraising, finance, and government relations and policy teams. Before joining UsAgainstAlzheimer’s, Mr. Paulsen held executive positions at the United Way and the American Red Cross, working on nationwide challenges in social service and public health. His team helped tens of thousands across the Gulf Coast and created the model for Red Cross long-term recovery programs when he headed up recovery after Hurricane Katrina. Then, the public health campaign his team created around reduction of deaths and injuries from home fires has saved more than 800 lives and made more than 870,000 American homes safer since 2014.

Andrew Radin, M.S., combining his experience as an entrepreneur and a technologist with his passion for social responsibility, co-founded Aria Pharmaceuticals to develop life-saving medicines to help treat patients in need. Prior to co-founding Aria, Mr. Radin held chief technology officer roles at several early-stage companies where he managed teams as large as a hundred technologists throughout the world. Mr. Radin developed the company’s proprietary platform and as the chief executive officer is focused on overall company strategy, product development, and fundraising. Mr. Radin studied biomedical informatics in Stanford University’s SCPD graduate program and holds an M.S. and a B.S. in computer science from the Rochester Institute of Technology.

Michelle Rohrer, Ph.D., is the global head of product development regulatory at Roche. Dr. Rohrer joined Genentech, a member of the Roche group, 28 years ago as a postdoctoral research fellow and later became a clinical scientist before moving to regulatory in 1999. Dr. Rohrer has held

a number of leadership positions over the years within product development and regulatory, including the head of U.S. regulatory and site head for product development at the South San Francisco site. Prior to becoming the global head of product development regulatory, she held the position of global head of regulatory regions and policy. In her current position, Dr. Rohrer leads the global regulatory organization overseeing Roche’s regulatory development strategies and policy efforts worldwide.

In 2013, Dr. Rohrer was named by the SF Business Times as one of “The Most Influential Women in Bay Area Business.” In 2014, she was selected by PharmaVOICE as one of the 100 most inspiring leaders in health care. Dr. Rohrer served on the Genentech Foundation Board for 3 years helping to oversee Genentech’s charitable giving. Since 2014, she has served on the Science Advisory Board for the University of California, San Francisco–Stanford Center for Excellence in Regulatory Science. In 2015 she was selected and served as one of the industry representatives to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration–industry team, which negotiated the Prescription Drug User Fee Act VI draft agreement, which is now under legislative review. In 2016 she joined the Board of TransCelerate Biopharma and currently serves as the board chair. Dr. Rohrer received her Ph.D. in nutrition science with a minor in physiological biochemistry from the University of California, Davis.

Howard B. Rosen, M.B.A., is an independent consultant and serves on the board of directors of AcelRx Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; Alcobra, Ltd., where he has served as the chair since 2014; ALDEA Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; Entrega, Inc.; Kala Pharmaceuticals, Inc., where he has served as the chair since 2014; and PaxVax, Inc., where he has served as the chair since 2011. From 2004 to 2008, he was the vice president of commercial strategy at Gilead Sciences, Inc., where his responsibilities included strategic marketing, global brand management, health economics, competitive intelligence, market research, and Gilead’s overall portfolio and business planning.

Prior to joining Gilead, Mr. Rosen was the president of the ALZA Corporation, where he was responsible for all aspects of managing ALZA as an independent 1,000-person operating company within the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies. Previously at ALZA, as the vice president of product development, he was responsible for product development activities, portfolio management, and corporate and new product planning. Over his 10 years at ALZA, Mr. Rosen also had responsibilities for mergers and acquisitions, research and development planning, and technology ventures. Prior to joining ALZA, Mr. Rosen managed the West Coast practice of Integral, Inc.; was the director of corporate development at GenPharm International, Inc.; and was a consultant in the San Francisco office of McKinsey & Co. Mr. Rosen was a member of the Stanford University Advi-

sory Council on Interdisciplinary Biosciences from 2003 to 2011 and the Stanford School of Engineering Advisory Council from 2004 to 2007. Mr. Rosen is a member of the Biomedical Engineering Advisory Board at the City College of New York and the board of directors of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Club of Northern California. Previously he was a member of the board of directors of CNS Therapeutics, Inc.; CoTherix, Inc.; NTF Therapeutics, Inc.; and Pearl Therapeutics, Inc., where he served as the interim president and the chief executive officer from June 2010 to March 2011, and Pharsight Corporation.

Mr. Rosen is a lecturer in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Stanford University and a lecturer in management at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He is also a member of the National Academy of Engineering, where he is the chair of the Bioengineering Section, and a fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. He is the co-inventor on seven U.S. patents. Mr. Rosen received an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he graduated first in his class as the Henry Ford II Scholar. Mr. Rosen has an M.S. in chemical engineering from MIT, and he graduated with distinction from Stanford University with a B.S. in chemical engineering.

Susan Schaeffer founded the Patients’ Academy for Research Advocacy in 2018 after spending 15 years informing and educating biopharma industry stakeholders on best practices and new thinking in clinical development, regulation, pricing, and market access. In 2002, Ms. Schaeffer dedicated her career to learning about and improving drug development after the loss of a close friend to breast cancer at a very early age. She joined the biopharmaceutical industry journal BioCentury as a staff writer in 2003, with no background in science or the biopharmaceutical industry, learning about the business and science of developing drugs by interviewing chief executive officers and scientists about their work. Ms. Schaeffer became the managing editor of BioCentury and the daily news digest BioCentury Extra in 2004, led BioCentury’s product discovery and development coverage as the senior editor from 2010 through 2012, and took the helm of the publication in 2012. As the chief editor, Ms. Schaeffer became an early champion of patient-centered research and development (R&D) as an essential practice for translating great science into medicines that patients really want and society will pay for. Her work has been cited in regulatory filings and has influenced global biopharmaceutical companies to begin working on pricing experiments that can improve access to health care innovation.

In January 2020, Ms. Schaeffer was appointed as member of the Forum on Drug Discovery, Development, and Translation, a group of leaders organized by the the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to address issues related to drug R&D. She is a frequent speaker

at private and public meetings, including the annual BIO International Convention, The Leaders in Global Health and Technology (LIGHT) Forum, the rEVOLUTION Symposium for CSOs, and the Milken Institute’s Future of Health Summit. She holds a B.F.A. in painting from the San Francisco Art Institute.

James P. Smith, M.D., M.S., is the deputy director of the Division of Clinical Policy in the Office of New Drug Policy in the Office of New Drugs (OND) at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In this capacity, he primarily works on clinical and scientific policy priorities of OND. He was previously responsible for overseeing development programs targeting lipid disorders and obesity as the deputy division director of the Division of Metabolism and Endocrinology Products. Prior to joining FDA in February 2011, he was a faculty member in the Division of Nephrology of the University of Michigan Health System. Dr. Smith is a graduate of the University of Michigan Medical School, and he completed his residency in internal medicine at the same institution. Subsequently, he completed fellowships in both nephrology and clinical pharmacology at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center and a master’s degree in clinical research design and statistical analysis at the University of Michigan School of Public Health.

Christin Veasley is the co-founder and the director of the Chronic Pain Research Alliance. She has lived with chronic pain since surviving a near-fatal accident in her teens. Her health experiences led her to pursue a B.S., spend time conducting neuroscience research at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and join the research advocacy community. Her life’s work has been to advocate for the acceleration of rigorous multidisciplinary pain research and the translation of research findings into meaningful change for people with chronic pain—with a special emphasis on pain conditions that are common in women and frequently co-occur. She has been a passionate advocate at the congressional and federal agency levels for bringing about public awareness of the profound impact of chronic pain, the urgent need for an increased federal research investment to address this public health crisis, and the long-overlooked value of including patient perspectives in all aspects of the research continuum. For more than 20 years, she has served in several nonprofit management and leadership positions. She holds advisory positions for numerous critical pain initiatives within federal agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. She is also involved in academic pain research studies and various collaborative alliances and public–private partnerships working to promote pain research, treatment, and education. Ms. Veasley has authored journal articles, op-eds, book chapters, continuing medical

education programs for health care providers, patient tutorials, and self-help guides. To promote awareness, she speaks openly about her experience with chronic pain and its profound impact on her life. Ms. Veasley has been a presenter at more than 30 medical, research, and policy conferences, as well as federal agency meetings, and has been interviewed for print, television, and radio media.

Karen Winkfield, M.D., Ph.D., is the executive director of the Meharry-Vanderbilt Alliance, a strategic partnership between the Meharry Medical College and the Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Her primary responsibilities include working closely with the Vanderbilt University Medical Center and the Meharry Medical College to ensure that their investigators have access to expert faculty collaborators, core resources, and services to catalyze innovative research. She is a national expert in community engagement, with research focused on the design and implementation of programming to reduce sociocultural and economic barriers that contribute to disparate health outcomes for racial/ethnic minorities and underserved populations.

Previously, Dr. Winkfield was an associate professor of radiation oncology at Wake Forest University, the associate director for community outreach and engagement, and the director of the Office of Cancer Health Equity at the Wake Forest Baptist Comprehensive Cancer Center. Prior to joining Wake Forest in August 2016, Dr. Winkfield was a radiation oncologist at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center. She specializes in the use of radiation therapy in the treatment of hematologic malignancies (lymphoma, leukemia, multiple myeloma, bone marrow transplantation) and breast cancer. She developed the first comprehensive clinical program focused on hematologic malignancies in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital. With support of collaborating oncologists, she also established the first multidisciplinary clinic for patients with hematologic disorders. While at Massachusetts General Hospital, Dr. Winkfield was a co-principal investigator of a $3 million grant that established the Lazarex–MGH Cancer Care Equity Program, a program designed to improve clinical trial access and enrollment in vulnerable populations. She was responsible for the community outreach and education component of the grant, and continued that work at Wake Forest.

Erica Woodahl, Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences in the Skaggs School of Pharmacy at the University of Montana. Dr. Woodahl received a B.S. in biochemistry at the University of Notre Dame in 1998 and a Ph.D. from the Department of Pharmaceutics at the University of Washington in 2004. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship in clinical pharmacokinetics at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research

Center in Seattle. She joined the faculty at the University of Montana in 2007 as an assistant professor and was promoted to associate professor in 2012 and a professor in 2020. Dr. Woodahl teaches pharmacokinetics and pharmacogenomics and uses community-based participatory research to address complex and important challenges in conducting precision medicine research with underserved populations.