Speakers & Panels – 2013 Health & Life Sciences Conference

FRIDAY, OCT 18TH, 2013

Keynote Speaker

Dr. Jain will discuss healthcare reform and innovation through the lens of three clinical vignettes.

Dedicated to harnessing the power of data, technology, medical science and collaboration to improve patient health, Sachin Jain, M.D., M.B.A., is chief medical information and innovation officer (CMIIO) at Merck. His charge includes developing strategies and global partnerships to leverage health data to improve patient health. Dr. Jain’s work emphasizes understanding of real-world patient experiences and outcomes and applying that knowledge to appropriate use of medications, medication adherence, and advancing medical discovery.

Medicine is at the core of his efforts, and in addition to his role as CMIIO at Merck, Dr. Jain continues to serve as an attending hospitalist physician at the Boston VA-Boston Medical Center, and is a lecturer in healthcare policy at Harvard Medical School.

Prior to joining Merck, Dr. Jain was senior advisor to the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), where he helped launch the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, briefly serving as its acting deputy director for policy and programs. He also served as special assistant to the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), supporting the agency’s implementation of the HITECH Provisions of the Recovery Act, which provide incentives for physicians and hospitals to become meaningful users of health information technology.

An advocate for faster translation of healthcare delivery research into practice, Dr. Jain has been drawn to the transformational relationship between a patient and caregiver, and ensuring patients’ access to both medicines and to caring, comprehensive treatment. To that end, Dr. Jain is a founder of several non-profit healthcare ventures including the Homeless Health Clinic at the Harvard Square Homeless Shelter; the Harvard Bone Marrow Initiative; and ImproveHealthCare.org. He also co-edited the book, “The Soul of a Doctor,” which has been translated into Chinese.

With expertise in the impact of reimbursement and access on patient health, Dr. Jain worked previously at WellPoint, McKinsey & Co, and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, and served as an expert consultant to the World Health Organization. He has authored more than 50 publications on healthcare delivery innovation and healthcare reform in journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, and Health Affairs, and is co-editor-in-chief and co-founder of Health Care: The Journal of Delivery Science and Innovation.

Dr. Jain graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College with a B.A. in government, and continued on to earn his M.D. from Harvard Medical School and M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. While completing his medical residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, he maintained a faculty appointment at the Harvard Business School and remains affiliated as a senior institute associate at the school’s Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness.

Health Economics Panel

External political, regulatory and economic forces are calling for greater collaboration amongst the leaders in the sector, despite industry lines. The Affordable Care Act has sanctioned changes to reimbursement and procedure-pricing models that affects how care is delivered. Along with regulatory changes, dwindling returns on R&D and increased scrutiny around drug and diagnostic approvals, traditional business models of health and life science companies are being challenged. Companies, hospitals and academic institutions have increasingly realized that they can improve the outcome for physicians and patients alike, by talking and engaging each other, more often and much earlier.

In this panel, experts representing payor, provider, industry and the government will provide insight into the reactive and proactive changes they have implemented to ensure a thriving ecosystem. Panelists will discuss the change in the dialogue amongst themselves as they work towards a more unified cost-saving healthcare model that streamlines treatment and maximizes limited government and private resources.

Kate Walsh became the president and CEO of Boston Medical Center (BMC) on March 1, 2010.

BMC is a private, not-for-profit, 496 bed, academic medical center with a community-based focus. The primary teaching affiliate of Boston University School of Medicine, Boston Medical Center has approximately 4,500 employees, 1,200 physicians and an annual operating budget of roughly $1.0 billion. BMC is a founder of Boston HealthNet, a network affiliation of the Medical Center, Boston University School of Medicine and 14 community health centers. Boston HealthNet is an integrated health care delivery system whose partners provide outreach, prevention, primary care, specialty care and dental services at sites throughout Boston’s neighborhoods and Quincy.

In addition to the Medical Center and its affiliated community health centers, BMC owns and operates the BMC HealthNet Plan, a statewide Medicaid Managed Care Organization with more than 260,000 members across the Commonwealth.

Prior to her appointment at Boston Medical Center, Ms. Walsh served as executive vice president and chief operating officer of Brigham and Women’s Hospital for five years. She served previously as the chief operating officer for Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research.

Ms. Walsh began her career in health care as a summer intern at Brookside Health Center in the Boston neighborhood of Jamaica Plain. Upon finishing graduate school, she held positions in a number of New York City hospitals including Montefiore, Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, Saint Luke’s – Roosevelt Hospital Center and the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation. She relocated to Boston and joined Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) as an assistant general director in medical services and was promoted to vice president of medical services and primary care and then to senior vice president of medical services and the MGH Cancer Center.

Ms. Walsh received her bachelor’s of arts degree and a master’s degree in public health from Yale University. She is a member of the Boards of Trustees of Emmanuel College, the YMCA of Greater Boston, the Boston Public Health Commission, the Massachusetts Hospital Association, the Council of Teaching Hospitals, and the Yale University School of Medicine. She is also a member of the Advisory Board of the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center, the Health Care Institute and the Boston Green Ribbon Commission.

Ms. Walsh, a native of Brookline, is married and has two children.

Bruce Bullen is Chief Operating Officer (COO) for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, the largest private health plan in Massachusetts and one of the largest independent, not-for-profit Blue Cross Blue Shield plans in the country. Founded by a group of civic leaders in 1937, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts now provides coverage to nearly 3 million members. Consistently recognized for standards of service excellence that are among the highest in the nation, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts is the choice for health care consumers seeking reliable and high-quality health care coverage.

As COO, Bruce works directly with President and CEO Andrew Dreyfus to advance the company’s highest priority of making quality health care affordable. He’s responsible for the company’s key operational divisions including sales, marketing and product development, member services, health management, information technology, and contracting with physicians and hospitals.

Bruce joined Blue Cross after more than a decade in senior management positions at Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, serving as the company’s interim CEO from 2009-2010. Prior to that, Bruce served as Senior Vice President and COO of Harvard Pilgrim, helping to lead the company’s extraordinary financial and operational turnaround.

Prior to Harvard Pilgrim, Bruce spent two decades in senior roles in Massachusetts state government, including ten years as the commissioner of the Medicaid program. In that role, he eliminated a $300 million deficit and led the design and implementation of a groundbreaking health reform initiative that extended health coverage to 300,000 uninsured Massachusetts residents.

Bruce serves on the board of the Boston Healthcare for the Homeless Program, and the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. He’s also held board positions with the Neighborhood Health Plan, the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities, the Massachusetts Medicaid Policy Institute, Hebrew Rehabilitation Center, and Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates. He is a past Chairman of the National Association of State Medicaid Directors and Vice President of the American Public Human Services Association.

Bruce holds a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from the John F. Kennedy School at Harvard University and an undergraduate degree from Williams College.

John McNamara has functioned for the past 2.5 years as the Senior Director of Reimbursement, US Commercial for Shire HGT. In this role, he has led a team of field based associates whose responsibilities include government affairs, patient advocacy groups; all US based public payers, all commercial insurers’ wholesaler-trade relations and specialty pharmacy organizations. During this period, Shire HGT has experienced double digit growth within the US marketplace fueled by the successful launches of ultra orphan products Vpriv (Gaucher Disease) and Firazyr (HAE).

Prior to this, John was Executive Director of Reimbursement at AMAG Pharma as well as a National Sales Director in a nephrology startup. He was the third commercial person to join this organization of 100 plus associates Previous to AMAG, John spent 3 years at Santarus Pharma, a GI pharma start up, as a Senior Director of Sales, where he was instrumental in building its commercial organization from inception as well as involved in the successful launch of its flagship GI agent, Zegrid.

John spent 25 years with Aventis and its legacy companies in a variety of commercial leadership roles including sales, sales management, marketing, managed markets, government affairs and human resources He has been involved in over 15 new product introductions in the US marketplace and has attended graduate school at Boston College, WPI, Rockheurst University (Kansas City MO) as well as undergraduate school at University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

Jeffrey Wetherhold, M.Ed., is the Director of Educational Design for the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI). In this capacity he leads IHI’s efforts to develop new ways of integrating its knowledge into the daily work of health care professionals through virtual, in-person, and hybrid learning opportunities. This includes collaborating closely with IHI’s innovation team to ensure that this work is supported and complemented by a vibrant, user-driven innovation process, and with IHI’s evaluation team to ensure that the organization is constantly learning about how to improve its work.

Mr. Wetherhold also manages IHI’s innovation networking activities, which serve as a platform for shared learning and testing across partner organizations. He has previously managed innovation and improvement projects with national, regional and local partners in both healthcare and higher education.

Jeff Elton is leader of Global Life Science Management Consulting and Precision Health Intelligence. Jeff has over 20 years of experience as a global executive and consultant in the biopharmaceutical and healthcare sectors. Jeff serves clients in pharmaceutical, biopharmaceutical, diagnostics, devices and health provider sectors. Jeff helped found and co-leads Accenture’s business services in health derived data and analytics.

Recently, Jeff was founding CEO of a Personalized Oncology Company, and Board member and senior advisor to four early stage companies in protein therapeutics, diabetes, oncology therapeutics, and oncology diagnostics.

From 2004 through 2009, Jeff served as Senior Vice President of Strategy and Global Chief Operating Officer at Novartis Institutes of BioMedical Research, Inc. (NIBR) in Cambridge, MA. He led the definition of therapeutic area strategies, formed strategic partnerships, and oversaw global operations in the US, Europe, and Asia.

Prior to Novartis, Jeff was a senior partner with McKinsey & Company for pharmaceutical & medical products practice where he focused on healthcare delivery strategies, new product launches, global commercial management structures, and R&D performance.

Jeff is currently a board member of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council and faculty member of the Boston University Questrom School of Business, Health Management Program.

New Business Models Panel

A silver lining among major changes to the health sector has been the rise of nimble start-ups that now fuel a flagging sector. Although investments have been cautious, venture capital money is making a comeback in the health sector. These start-ups include drug companies that address rare diseases, medical device companies that are enabling companion diagnostics and patient friendly devices, patient-centered solutions that increase connectivity with physician, and companies that facilitate infrastructure development for hospitals adapting to the digital world.

This panel explores how pressures on the sector have called for “out of the box” solutions and business models to continuously produce innovative products. This panel will also shed light on how – and if – the bigger players can adapt these business models to ultimately deliver greater value in patient treatment. Experts from life science-focused venture capital firms, biomedical labs, and consultancies will lead this interactive discussion.

As Chief Medical Informatics Officer & Chief Technology Officer for PCCI, Joe Frassica, MD is responsible for furthering the PCCI technical vision and leading key aspects of technology and product direction. As the business group’s technology executive, his focus is on product innovation and playing an integral role in the strategic direction, development and future growth of PCCI. In addition he is the primary interface for the PCCI business group to Philips Research.

Dr Joe Frassica earned his MD from Boston University School of Medicine, and his DDS from Case Western Reserve University School of Dental Medicine. Joe completed residencies in Pediatrics and in Anesthesiology at the Boston City Hospital/Boston University School of Medicine and a fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School in Pediatric Critical Care.

Immediately prior to joining Philips Healthcare as PCCI Chief Medical information Officer, Joe served from
2006 to 2010 as Chief Medical Officer at Holtz Children’s Hospital in Miami, Florida; Chief Medical Information Officer and Executive Medical Director of Aero-Medical Transport for the Jackson Health System – one of the nation’s largest publicly funded health systems; and Associate Chair for Clinical Affairs in the Department of Pediatrics and Professor of Clinical Pediatrics and Anesthesiology at the University of Miami, Miller School of Medicine. In this role, Joe served as the clinical informatics leader for Jackson’s six-hospital, 2,482-bed public health system along with its integrated health care delivery network of Miami-Dade Neighborhood Health Centers, public schools, corrections facilities, and mobile clinics. In this role, Joe was responsible for clinical oversight of the roll-out of a new core enterprise EMR with CPOE, documentation, and decision support; implementation of system-wide PACS and Radiology Information Systems; and updates of the system’s best of breed Anesthesia Information System. He was also responsible for the clinical direction of one of the nation’s largest and most comprehensive children’s hospitals.

Joe has served in a variety of other academic and clinical leadership roles, including:

  • Attending Pediatric Intensivist, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston MA
  • Visiting Scientist, Massachusetts Institute of Technology – Harvard – MIT Division of Health Sciences Technology
  • Director, Division of Pediatric Critical Care and Attending Anesthesiologist at UMass Memorial Medical Center
  • Medical Director, Inpatient Services at Children’s Medical Center, UMass Memorial Medical Center
  • Attending Pediatric Intensivist, Baystate Medical Center, Springfield, Massachusetts
  • Attending Anesthesiologist, Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Boston
  • Chief, Department of Anesthesia, Franciscan Children’s Hospital, Boston
  • Staff Physician, Neonatal Medicine, South Shore Hospital, Weymouth and Mount Auburn Hospital, Cambridge, Massachusetts
  • Director of Dental Anesthesia for the Harvard School of Dental Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts

Since 2004, Joe has been a Research Affiliate at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard – MIT Division of Health Sciences Technology’s Laboratory of Computational Physiology, where he continues to be involved in ground-breaking advanced clinical decision support work such as Integrating Data, Models, and Reasoning in Critical Care. In addition to his other roles, Joe also serves as Senior Consultant at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

Paulina Hill is a Senior Associate at Polaris Venture Partners. Paulina joined Polaris in 2011 and focuses on investments in healthcare. Prior to joining Polaris, Paulina completed her postdoctoral fellowship in the Chemical Engineering department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In the laboratory of Bob Langer, Paulina worked on developing novel biomaterial scaffolds and drug delivery systems for neural applications.

Paulina was the founding president of the MIT Postdoctoral Association, served on the MIT Intellectual Property Presidential Committee, and is on the fundraising committee of the nonprofit Women Entrepreneurs in Science & Technology (WEST). Paulina completed her PhD in Molecular Medicine with a Tissue Engineering focus at Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

Her graduate school work resulted in over 40 published abstracts, awards and peer reviewed manuscripts. Her research contributed to numerous patents and the formation of the startup KeraNetics to commercialize the platform technology. Paulina graduated magna cum laude from East Carolina University with a quadruple major in biochemistry, neuroscience, biology and chemistry. She attended East Carolina on an athletic scholarship where she was captain of the women’s tennis team.

Tim Gustafson is a Principal at Innosight focusing on helping healthcare clients develop innovative solutions that lead to high-growth businesses. He has experience in all sectors of the healthcare space, including providers, payers, and pharmaceutical and medical device companies.

Prior to joining Innosight, Tim spent four years as a consultant at McKinsey & Company, where he led high priority projects for CEOs and other senior leaders of Fortune 100 and 500 healthcare companies, and major Academic Medical Centers. His work at McKinsey mainly focused on growth strategy within the medical device and hospital industries. Tim also lead significant portions of a special initiative of the firm’s Global Managing Director on McKinsey’s problem solving approaches and methodologies. Between McKinsey and Innosight, Tim served as Director of Business Operations for an early stage contract research organization, where he oversaw a broad portfolio of Continuous Improvement initiatives.

Tim graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Williams College, attended medical school at the University of Pennsylvania, and completed his internship at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City. He has authored a number of scientific articles published in peer-reviewed journals and is a Volunteer Area Director for the Myelin Repair Foundation, a non-profit focused on accelerating the pace of multiple sclerosis research.

Andrey is a practicing physician and social entrepreneur who is the CEO and Co-Founder of Care at Hand, a digital health startup that empowers $10/hr home care workers to prevent $10,000 hospitalizations. Care at Hand technology supports the transition from acute care to community based care and aims to achieve higher value care delivery by empowering community health workers to practice at the top of their license. Andrey leads Care at Hand’s executive management and strategic vision.

Prior to Care at Hand, he led teams at the World Health Organization, United States Senate, and San Francisco Health Department toward health system strengthening through technology. Andrey has contributed to legislation at the city and national level to advance care delivery for vulnerable populations. He is a published researcher in digital health innovation and public health informatics. His most recent academic work looks at the role of digital health in improving care coordination in patients with complex care needs. He also focuses on strengthening the role of academic medical centers in supporting innovation in health care delivery redesign through incubation and innovation training.

Andrey holds a Medical Doctorate and undergraduate degrees in Chemistry and Psychology with Magna cum Laude honors and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Andrey is completing his pediatrics residency training in the Boston Combined Residency Program at Boston Medical Center and Boston Children’s Hospital and is a clinical instructor at Boston University School of Medicine and Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Mark Philip is the Founder and President of Mark Philip Consulting LLC, currently serves as the Acting Chairman and President of BBI, consults to several biopharmaceutical and diagnostic companies and is on the Faculty of Boston University Questrom School of Business.

Mark has over 25 years experience in the biopharmaceutical industry and has served as CEO or President with several biotech and medical device companies, developing products and creating value for his shareholders. He has a BSc (Biology) and PhD (Stem cell research) from Nottingham Trent University and was the Leukemia Research Fund Postdoctoral Fellow at Nottingham University in Michael Langman’s Lab. Mark earned his MBA from Lake Forest Graduate Questrom School of Business, Chicago, USA