Diagnosed with type 1 diabetes on his ninth birthday, John sees diabetes as an opportunity, rather than a disability, to empathize with those who have chronic illness and provide solutions to fellow diabetics.
Having completed diabetes research projects within the Yale School of Medicine and Florida State University, paired with his extensive network in the JDRF, AdvaMed, and the American Diabetes Association, John leads the overall operations of Diatech, a medtech startup that implements innovative solutions to enhance and empower the lives of patients, families, and communities impacted by diabetes. Diatech is currently developing the world’s first intelligent insulin pump infusion set system. Through AI, SmartFusion can understand the infusion habits of the user and suggest when to change sites and replace the infusion set, helping them get more out of their disposables.
John’s leadership, vision, and personal insight into diabetes care is crucial for Diatech’s successful development of patient focused technology. His connection to Diatech’s product is not only based on issues he has personally faced with his insulin pump technology, but also based on the problems seen by peers within the diabetes community.
Chris Molaro, named a top 10 transformational leader of healthcare and a finalist for EY’s ‘Entrepreneur of the Year’ is the CEO and Co-Founder of NeuroFlow and on a mission to bridge the gap between mental and physical health. After five years of service and a tour of duty, he returned home to witness firsthand the devastating toll of an error-prone and inefficient mental health system in the United States. Afterwards, Chris went on to complete his MBA at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and launched NeuroFlow after graduating.
Chris is a regular speaker at numerous healthcare events, panels, and summits. Additionally, Chris has been a featured speaker for the American Psychological Association, Partners Health World Innovation Forum, interviewed on SiriusXM radio, NBC10, and in multiple healthcare and business focused podcasts, guest lectured at Penn’s Engineering school, and provided his expert opinion on CMS policies.
Dave Acosta is the Co-founder of EDC Solutions T1. Together with his wife Laura, EDC Solutions T1 was created in March, 2019. With a background in the firearms industry designing custom gun holsters, EDC stood for Every Day Carry. Today, it is even more appropriate for T1D.
Approached by a close family friend with T1D about creating a custom holster for his insulin pump, Dave was inspired to start creating personalized pump holsters for more T1D patients. It has given his family an opportunity to not only work hard, but to be a part of something bigger – opening their eyes to a whole community of people who fight for their health each day. It is an honor to be able to give individuals creative license to express themselves through customizing something so personal. Dave and his family put heart and soul into every aspect of what they do.
Hearing customers’ stories inspires them to continue to grow every single day. Dave and his family love what they do, and love customizing something that is unique as the individual wearing it. They are continually looking into the future and how they can continue to create and make life managing this disease less cumbersome for those with T1D and other challenges.
After losing her mother to metastatic lung cancer at age 11, Nicole resolved to find cures for diseases that interrupt young lives. She is co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of NeuScience, a cancer therapeutics company that leverages patient-derived cells and machine vision to target solid tumor cancers in a fundamentally new way. Nicole holds a Ph.D. in engineered tissue microenvironments from Stanford University, where she was awarded research fellowships from the National Science Foundation and Stanford for her work in regenerative medicine. She also brings deep expertise in machine learning and computer vision, having led the development of more than 10 machine learning products at startups as a Director of Data Science. In addition to her work at NeuScience, Nicole serves as a technical advisor for the Insight Artificial Intelligence Fellowship.
When Lucinda became her father’s caregiver at a young age, she struggled with the lack of resources available to her. Taking matters into her own hands, she created I Ally, an app for family caregivers that provides access to mutual aid, mental health services, financial & legal counsel, and peer support. She is a Founding Member of Tech Ladies, owns the social media marketing agency Got It Done Gal, and premiered a short film, Laura Point, at the Cannes Film Festival in 2016. Mrs. Koza is a committed advocate, speaker and thought leader on family caregiving, being a young caregiver, and the role of digital healthcare technology in transforming patient experience.
Dr. Valerie Vanhooren is the co-founder and CEO of ONA Therapeutics, a biotechnology spin-off of the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies and Institute for Research in Biomedicine. ONA Tx specializes in the discovery and development of therapeutic biologics targeting tumor metastatic-initiating cells and lipid metabolism, and potentially multiple metastatic cancers. Valerie’s specialties lie in drug development from early stage discovery to phase II clinical trials and generating biologics against targets in a broad range of therapeutic and diagnostic areas. Valerie completed her PhD in biotechnology and postdoctoral research at Ghent University-VIB. Prior to co-founding ONA Tx in May of 2019, Valerie led project developments at Ablynx, a nanobodies-focused subsidiary of Sanofi, Intelligent Pharma, acquired by the bioinformatics company Mind the Byte, and ProteoDesign, a protein engineering platform spin-out from Princeton University.
Dr. Michael Stein is the CEO of Valo Therapeutics, a developer of novel cancer immunotherapies with a unique approach to delivering a highly immunogenic and rapidly adaptable tumor vaccination platform. Dr. Stein is a business leader and strategic advisor with C-suite experience in healthcare. Prior to joining Valo TX, Michael was the founding CEO of OxStem, an award-winning biotechnology spin-out from the University of Oxford, which broke the UK record for a seed round fund-raise. In addition, Michael has served as the founding CEO for Doctor Care Anywhere, acquired by Synergix. In 2001, he co-founded the Map of Medicine with University College London. As founding CEO, and later CMO, the Map was nationally licensed across NHS England and acquired by Hearst Business Media, after which Michael transitioned to executive vice-president of healthcare innovation. Michael graduated from the University of Cape Town as a medical doctor with Honours and biochemist with First Class Honours, and from the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar with a doctorate in Physiological Sciences, Immunology. He subsequently was appointed as a Junior Research Fellow in Medicine at Trinity College, Oxford, subsequently lecturing part-time in Immunology and Pathology at Balliol College, Oxford. As a medical scientist, Michael first described the alternative pathway of macrophage activation. In addition, he has co-authored the best-selling UK medical handbook.
Dr. Cesare Spadoni is the founder and Chief Operating Officer of Oncoheroes Biosciences, a biotechnology company exclusively focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of new treatments for cancers in children and adolescents. Following the passing of his daughter Laura in 2006, Cesare founded the aPODD Foundation, a London-based charity focused on accelerating pediatric oncology drug development. As aPODD’s chairman and trustee, he is actively involved on a voluntary basis in drug repurposing projects, advocacy efforts and research collaborations with other childhood cancer charities. Frustrated by the lack of progress in new drug development for pediatric cancers, he then set out to take matters into his own hands by founding Oncoheroes. Cesare has over 20 years of experience in drug development in both scientific and commercial roles. Previously,he held senior business development positions at AMRI, Aptuit Laurus, ThalesNano and Auxiliis BV. Cesare started his career as research scientist in a pharmaceutical company (Eisai, London) and in academia (Institute of Enzymology, Budapest).
Cesare received his MSc in applied molecular biology and PhD in neuroscience from University College London, as well as his MBA from Central European University, Budapest.
Dr. Niranjan Sardesai is the co-founder of Geneos Therapeutics, a stand-alone venture backed biotherapeutics startup developing exquisitely personalized immunotherapies for cancer based on its proprietary GT-EPIC™ platform. Geneos’ approach treats solid tumors by targeting patients’ tumor specific neoantigens. Niranjan initially launched Geneos through Inovio Pharmaceuticals after building Inovio into a Phase III cancer and infectious disease immunotherapy company serving as its COO. Niranjan has over 25 years in biotech and is passionate about developing novel diagnostics and therapeutics for the treatment of cancer. He is driven in his pursuit to make cancer treatments more efficacious, cost effective, and time efficient after seeing many close family members and colleagues succumb early to cancer. Prior to Inovio, Niranjan founded a consulting firm to provide strategic counsel to entrepreneurial life science companies and served as Director of Research and Development at Fujirebio Diagnostics. Niranjan received his PhD in Chemistry from the California Institute of Technology and MBA from Wharton. He was awarded the Shils-Zeidman Award in Entrepreneurship, fellowships at both the Scripps Research Institute and MIT, has published over 120 peer-reviewed manuscripts, and holds multiple patents. He was recognized by PharmaVoice magazine as one of the top 100 most influential and inspirational leaders across the life sciences industry (2015). Niranjan lives in Blue Bell, PA, USA with his wife and their two sons they are raising to be responsible global citizens.
Quayce Thomas is the Founder of Timsle, a social accountability network he built after being diagnosed with bipolar disorder and psychosis while studying architecture. Through Timsle, Quayce explores how data and technology, combined with the support of friends and family can help others with mental health disorders functionally overcome their illness as well. Quayce graduated from Carleton University’s Born Social Fellowship, University of Ottawa’s Patient Safety & Quality Improvement Leadership program, and interned at IBM Center for Advanced Studies. Although he is usually coding, he maintains his health through running and biking (even in Ottawa winters!).