AI Initiative Strategic Committee

Pat Baird

Regulatory Head of Global Software Standards, Philips

Pat Baird works at Philips as the Head of Global Software Standards. Baird likes to think of his job as “Policy Engineering” – understanding the unmet needs (and frustrations) of regulators and  developers, and developing standards, white papers, and training to meet those needs. His current passion is related to artificial intelligence in healthcare; he is co-chair of multiple AI committees including AAMI, ISO/IEC TC215, CTA, MITA, and MDIC.

Matthew Diamond

CMO for Digital Health, FDA-CDRH Digital Health Center of Excellence

Matthew Diamond, MD, PhD is the Chief Medical Officer for Digital Health at FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH), where he is the senior clinical expert and focal point of contact for clinical issues related to digital health medical devices. In his role at the CDRH Digital Health Center of Excellence, Dr. Diamond provides leadership for digital health policy development and implementation for emerging technologies including artificial intelligence.

Brian Edwards

Fellow, Regulatory Affairs, Digital Health/Cybersecurity, Boston Scientific

Brian Edwards is a Regulatory Fellow specializing in Digital Health and Cybersecurity for Boston Scientific.   He is focusing on internal and external global advocacy efforts related to Digital Health, Medical Device Software, AI/ML, Cybersecurity, and Quality Systems.  He has over 30 years of experience in the medical device industry and over 25 years of experience as a Regulatory Affairs Professional.   He holds a BS in Chemical Engineering and an MS in both Biomedical Engineering and Biostatistics.  Brian has worked in R&D, Clinical Research, Quality Systems, and Regulatory Affairs.  He has successfully led Regulatory Affairs Departments for medical device companies in the orthopedic, cardiovascular, audiology, electrotherapy, digital health, and neurosurgical product industries.

Steve Frigon

Data Integration Team Lead, The Christ Hospital Health Network

Steve Frigon is a Senior Clinical Systems Analyst at The Christ Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio. He has specialized in Application Development, Data Integration, and Data Management solutions in the Pharmaceutical and Healthcare industries for the past 21 years. In this position, Frigon develops various technology strategies and adaptation techniques in the areas of interoperability, web services, and Digital Health. His focus in the AI framework is on explicability, validation, and adoption, which stimulates the development of trust in patients and physicians alike.

Prior to joining The Christ Hospital, Frigon was a Data Integration Consultant with HC Tech, Inc. and a Data Integration Manager at Mercy Health.

Lacey Harbour

Regulatory Affairs Manager, Thermo Fisher Scientific

Lacey Harbour is a classically trained Molecular Biologist turned Regulatory, Quality, and Clinical Strategist. Her experience includes the Clinical Laboratory, R&D, Pharmaceuticals, and Medical Devices industries.  Leveraging a diverse background, she has led or supported teams that have brought orthopedic, in vitro diagnostic, SaMD, dental, physiotherapeutic, and other FDA Class I to Class III devices to the global market with high quality.  Starting from the exposure of validating predictive systems in the operational and diagnostic sides of the clinical laboratory, proving safety and effectiveness of machine learning algorithms in the total product life cycle of healthcare has been a passion for many years.  As an advocate of protecting patients while taking a risk-based, least burdensome approach, Harbour considers joining think tanks like AFDO/RAPS as an honor. Her ultimate goal is to ensure that the future of medical care is state of the art while maintaining safety and effectiveness and, hopefully, encouraging global accessibility of good healthcare products. 

Eric Henry

Senior Quality & Regulatory Compliance Advisor, FDA & Life Sciences Practice, King & Spalding

Eric Henry is a 30-year industry veteran currently serving as Senior Quality Systems and Compliance Advisor in the FDA and Life Sciences practice of the law firm King & Spalding. In this role Henry advises King & Spalding clients on a variety of regulatory compliance matters including Quality System establishment and remediation, establishment of quality organizations, audit and inspection management and response, compliance-related due diligence reviews for M&A, training, and serving as an expert witness during litigation.  Before he joined King & Spalding, Henry led global quality, compliance, and technology organizations for several large and medium-size medical device companies.

Cynthia A. Ipach

President and CEO, Compliance Insight

Cynthia Ipach, President and CEO of Compliance Insight, Inc., founded the company in 2000.  With over 30 years of experience in the pharmaceutical, medical device, dietary supplement, and biologic industries, Ipach has supported hundreds of companies in their pursuit of FDA compliance. 

She began her career in Analytical Research and Development and later moved to Regulatory Affairs and Quality Assurance positions within the Pharmaceutical Industry.  In 2000, Ipach left the corporate environment and her position as Director of Scientific Affairs for Pharmacia. She started the Quality Assurance and Regulatory Affairs consulting firm known as Compliance Insight, Inc.: The organization’s mission is to align with client compliance initiatives to move beyond the regulations to compliance that makes sense.

Recently, Ipach has been active in the AI in Operations Group (AIO) of AFDO/RAPS (formerly Xavier Health).  She also contributed to the “Perspectives and Good Practices for AI and Continuous Learning Systems in Healthcare” white paper, August 2018, and co-led the team that developed the AI Maturity Level Characterization Model 2020 and the Maturity Level Characterization of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Capabilities for Self-Assessment white paper, June 2021.

Toni Manzano

Co-founder and CSO, Aizon

Manzano is the co-founder and CSO of Aizon, a cloud company that provides big data and AI SaaS platform for the Biotech and Pharma industry. He is also co-leading CPV and Biomanufacturing groups at the PDA, and he teaches AI subjects at the University (OBS and UAB). Manzano is a member of the Science Experts in the Spanish Parliament on big data and artificial intelligence topic and an AI expert with the United Nations for biopharma. He has written numerous articles in the Pharma field and holds a dozen international patents related to the encryption, transmission, storage, and processing of large volumes of data for regulated environments in the cloud. Manzano is a Physicist, Master in Information and Knowledge Society, and postgraduate in quality systems for manufacturing and research pharmaceutical processes.

Rohit Nayak

CEO, Electronic Registry Systems, Inc.

CEO & Co-Founder, Band Connect, Inc.

Rohit Nayak currently leads Electronic Registry Systems, Inc., a cancer informatics firm that is at the forefront of providing cancer programs nationwide with a valuable foundation of data and insights that provide for the best cancer care for every patient. He also serves as an Advisor/Board Member for several early stage companies and not-for-profit organizations.

Nayak has a successful track record as strategic global leader and change catalyst, leveraging digital innovation, commercial execution, and P&L management skills across Fortune 500, start-up, and emerging growth organizations, most recently in healthcare. Notably, he’s led a healthcare technology start-up from vision to capitalization to execution and eventual sale / exit to a Fortune 500 company.

Most recently, Nayak led the formation of the global Digital Health team at Baxter with responsibilities to drive innovative software-enabled solutions leveraging their med device portfolio. Prior to Baxter, Rohit had several roles with increasing responsibilities at Quest Diagnostics, where he was responsible for successfully developing and growing a P&L delivering customer-facing healthcare analytics solution across the ambulatory, acute, and payer markets. He previously co-founded and led an ePrescribing healthcare software company that was subsequently acquired by Quest Diagnostics.

Bakul Patel

Senior Director, Global Digital Health Strategy & Regulatory, Google

Bakul Patel is the Senior Director, Global Digital Health Strategy & Regulatory  focused on helping build a unified digital health strategy for Health@Google that is aligned with the global regulatory needs.  He is responsible for global regulatory affairs strategy  and regulatory science engagement with public and private stakeholders for Health efforts Google and Alphabet. 

Patel’s vision for his role at Google is to help realize the potential of digital health that is poised to be a game-changer in heralding a new era for healthcare generally — one that is ubiquitous and poised to deliver care to all individuals, including preventing and predicting disease and keeping people healthy and out of the hospital. 

Prior to joining Google, Patel held the position of the Chief Digital Health Officer of Global Strategy and innovation and Director for Digital Health Center of Excellence, at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) providing thought leadership and shaping responsible regulation for this emerging field of Digital Health. 

In his 13-year tenure at the FDA, he was instrumental in setting a national strategy and policy for how digital health technologies and software can be evidence based. In 2013 he coined the term software as a medical device (SaMD) and ultimately built a framework that set the foundational standard for medical device regulators globally.  He is known for the launch of the software precertification pilot program and, more recently, the framework for Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML)-Based Software.

Patel brings several years of leadership experience in several sectors including the telecommunications industry, semiconductor capital equipment industry, wireless industry, and information technology industry. He earned an MS in electronic systems engineering from the University of Regina, Canada, and an MBA in international business from The Johns Hopkins University.

Dharmesh Patel

Associate Director Regulatory Policy, BD

Dharmesh Patel joined BD in January 2023 as Associate Director, Regulatory Policy.  He is developing and advancing BD’s regulatory policy positions with a focus on International Harmonization, Digital Health, Software, and AI/ML.  Prior to joining BD, Dharmesh was at FDA/CDRH as the Assistant Director of the PMA, HDE, Q-Submission and Device Lifecycle Tracking policy team. Dharmesh first joined CDRH in 2011 as a lead scientific reviewer in the Division of Cardiovascular Devices and has worked in various policy areas such as Digital Health and the Third Party 510(k) program before moving onto his leadership role in PMA policy. Dharmesh has a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, a Master’s degree in Engineering, and a MBA.

Cassie Scherer

Senior Director, U.S. Regulatory and Global Digital Health Policy, Medtronic

Cassie Scherer is the Senior Director of U.S. Regulatory and Global Digital Health Policy at Medtronic. In her position, she leads global policy work relating to digital health technology, including AI/ML-enabled products, as well as U.S. FDA regulatory policy work. Before Medtronic, Scherer served at U.S. FDA where she was Associate Chief Counsel in FDA’s Office of Chief Counsel and Director of Strategy and Regulatory Operations in CDRH’s Office of the Center Director.

Matthew Schmucki

Associate Director of Automation Engineering, Vertex Pharmaceuticals

Matt is the Associate Director for data automation and engineering for Vertex Pharmaceutical’s manufacturing data and analytics applications. He supports both internal manufacturing and external contract manufacturing partnerships by setting up standardized data ingestion mechanisms for data analytics. Over the past decade and a half, Matt has supported many types of products from oral solid dose to combination products, with companies ranging from startups and CMOs to top pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies. Matt is a mechanical engineer from the University of Cincinnati with a Doctorate in Business Intelligence. Matt is also a Guest Lecturer for Xavier University for both the Quality Science Regulations and Industrial Product Development programs. These lectures introduce undergraduate students to concepts and practices fundamental to the pharmaceutical and medical device industries.

Bradley Thompson

Attorney and Chief Data Scientist focused on FDA, FTC & AI Regulation, Epstein Becker & Green

Bradley Merrill Thompson is a shareholder in the law firm of Epstein Becker & Green, P.C., in the firm’s Washington DC office.  There he counsels software, medical device, and drug companies on a wide range of FDA regulatory issues and leads the firm’s AI practice. 

Mr. Thompson also serves as Chairman of the Board and Chief Data Scientist of EBG Advisors, Inc. Affiliated with the law firm, EBG Advisors is a consultancy that takes a multidisciplinary approach to helping health care and life sciences companies navigate the regulatory obstacles they face.

For trade associations, Mr. Thompson has served as counsel to the Continua Health Alliance, and as General Counsel to the Combination Products Coalition, mHealth Regulatory Coalition, the Clinical Decision Support Coalition, and AI Startups in Health Coalition.

He has taught Food & Drug Law at Indiana University School of Law and has served as Co-Chair of the Food & Drug Law Committee of the American Bar Association and the Medical Device Committee of FDLI.

He received his B.A., and an M.B.A. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and his J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School.  In 2022, Mr. Thompson graduated with a Master of Applied Data Science from the University of Michigan.

Mohammed Wahab

Quality Head, Professional Services – Informatics & Analytics, Abbott Laboratories

Mohammed Wahab has over 21 years of experience in Software Engineering, Compliance, and the Healthcare industry. He led several teams that delivered healthcare products at Abbott Laboratories, GE Healthcare, and Allscripts. Wahab contributed to many efficiency improvements at Abbott by designing a modern Agile methodology-based Quality Management System: The QMS has been used to launch several successful products.

Wahab currently heads the Quality Assurance organization for a Professional Services Business Unit at Abbott that develops business and clinical insights using Data Science and Analytics. He also leads a team that develops algorithms for efficient Complaints Investigations. Wahab was the co-founder and CTO for Casheer, a Fintech start-up in Crypto Currency space. He holds a master’s degree in computer science and also has a bachelor’s engineering degree in electronics and instrumentation.

Kip Wolf

President & Principal Consultant, Thaumazo Bioscience Management, Inc

My technical experience includes the fields of quality assurance and regulatory affairs, GMP and IT compliance, technical operations and product supply. My areas of leadership expertise include business transformation, new business development, organizational change leadership and program / project management. I have more than 25 years of experience as a management consultant, during which time I have also led business process management groups at Wyeth Manufacturing and at Merck Research & Development. Prior to joining X-VAX, I supported the company as a principal consultant at Tunnell Consulting, where I also led the data integrity practice. I completed graduate studies in Drug Development at Temple University, and hold an undergraduate degree in Management of Information Systems and an MBA from Eastern University.