2025 Methods Summit

Ilisa Halpern Paul is a senior policy advisor at Venable LLP in the firm’s Washington, DC office. Ilisa co-leads the firm’s Federal Health Policy team, drawing on more than 30 years of recorded success in helping established and start-up healthcare companies, health and hospital systems, provider associations, and nonprofit patient advocacy organizations advance their legislative, regulatory, and business goals before Congress and the executive branch. Ilisa represents some of the country’s most significant integrated health systems, medical and nursing professional societies, and other entities involved in the direct delivery of healthcare. Ilisa provides direct lobbying representation and strategic counsel regarding legislative, regulatory, and grassroots advocacy; public policy development; coalition-building; and third-party stakeholder alliance engagement. She is a frequently sought-after keynote speaker, panelist, meeting facilitator, and moderator of in-person and on-line discussions and webinars. Ilisa earned a BA in English from UCLA and a master of public policy from Georgetown University. Prior to her more than 20 years of serving clients as an external advisor-consultant, Ilisa ran the federal government relations departments at the American Public Health Association and the American Cancer Society. A native of California, Ilisa began her public policy career working on Capitol Hill as a legislative staffer to U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA). She is the proud wife of Scott Paul and mom to twin 15-year-old boys. Ilisa and her family live in Bethesda, Maryland with their rescue dog, Coco.

For nearly two decades, Dr. Spangler, Center for Innovation & Value Research Chief Executive Officer, has worked in the professional health policy and public health sector with pharmaceutical and non-profit organizations. Dr. Spangler joins the Center from his most recent role as Executive Medical Director and Director and Head of Global HTA Policy Strategy & Engagement for Amgen, Inc.

Dr. Spangler earned his MD at the Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine in 1998 and his Master of Public Health from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2002. His commitment to public health, preventive medicine, and health equity date back to his medical school residency, during which he served as a medical team leader for free clinics in Costa Rica, a resident coordinator for free clinics for homeless around UPMC, and a clinical educator in the International Medical Corps in Kosovo.

After serving one year as Chief Resident, Dr. Spangler joined Pfizer Global Pharmaceuticals as a Public Health and Health Policy Consultant. He remained in this role for three years and then moved on to the Partnership for Prevention, where he started as a Managing Senior Fellow and was promoted to Chief Medical Officer until he was recruited to Amgen.

Bridget Doherty, MPH, MS, is a strategic policy, research, and communications professional with extensive experience in pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and healthcare publishing. Currently serving as the Director of Access and Policy Research at Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine, she develops and executes impactful policy research and scientific engagement plans aimed at developing an evidence-based understanding of U.S. healthcare policies’ impact on patients and the healthcare ecosystem. With a combined background of policy research and communications, Bridget specializes in translating complex concepts into actionable insights for diverse audiences. 

Among her key contributions include the first comprehensive analysis of the FDA Accelerated Approval Program's impact on patient outcomes in oncology, providing evidence that approximately 263,000 life years were gained for cancer patients. Bridget has published extensively on pivotal topics such as drug pricing policies and patient access, and she has led successful engagement strategies with advocacy and government relations partners. She also led global communications and public affairs for J&J’s Diabetes Device Unit. Prior to her career at Johnson & Johnson, Bridget served as Healthcare Policy Manager at GlaxoSmithKline, where she developed policy strategies to enhance patient access to care and improve health outcomes across various disease states. Before entering the pharmaceutical and medical device industries, Bridget had a 15-plus years career as a journalist and editor. 

Sarita Edwards is the CEO & President at the E.WE Foundation, a global healthcare advocacy organization for families impacted by Trisomy 18 and other rare diseases. Sarita began her advocacy and public policy efforts after receiving a rare genetic diagnosis for her unborn son. Sarita is recognized as a world's top patient expert and social health ambassador. She is an award-winning advocate, global speaker, and host of the Being Rare Podcast. Sarita holds a certification in Mental Health First Aid Instruction, a Bachelor of Science in Health Science, a Master’s in Healthcare Administration, and she's in the final months of completing her Doctorate in Health Science and Research. Sarita lives in North Alabama with her husband and five children. 

Brandy Farrar, PhD, MS has over 18 years of experience as a qualitative methodologist whose primary expertise is in identifying evidence-based practices for improving health. Dr. Farrar routinely deploys a variety of methodologies to engage interested parties in designing, implementing and evaluating policies and programs. Examples of Dr. Farrar’s current and recent work include using human centered design principles to understand and advocate for the unique needs of individuals who are dually enrolled in Medicare and Medicaid, evaluate a health workforce diversity and pipeline initiative, and facilitate strategic planning to build community capacity to address COVID-19 disparities. In addition, Dr. Farrar is taking a participatory action research approach to evaluating a fund designed to promote health equity through economic mobility. Dr. Farrar is a managing director at the American Institutes for Research and an adjunct professor at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health. She received her doctoral and master’s degrees in Sociology from North Carolina State University and her bachelor’s degree in Sociology and African American Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 

Jessica K. Johnson is the Director of Community Research & Engagement at the National Eczema Association (NEA). In this role she leads the strategic development, growth, and implementation of NEA’s survey research, real-world data activities and NEA’s Ambassador’s Program, connecting over 500 patient and caregiver members across the US to opportunities to share their valuable lived experience perspectives with researchers, biopharmaceutical companies, legislators, policymakers, and others in the community. Prior to joining NEA, Jessica was a senior researcher within the Center for Community Health at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, where she both led, and contributed to, the design, implementation and dissemination of a dynamic patient-centered research portfolio that engaged patients and stakeholders nationally. Johnson holds a master’s in public health degree from SUNY Upstate Medical University and Syracuse University and brings over 12 years of experience in the science and practice of community-based participatory research (CBPR) and patient-centered outcomes research (PCOR). 

Harsha is a serial entrepreneur, postdoctoral data scientist trained at NIH, global patient advocate, and investor. As the founder and CEO of Jeeva Clinical Trials Inc.(https://jeevatrials.com), Harsha is pioneering an AI-driven unified platform for sponsors and CROs to execute patient-centric clinical trials with efficiency and universal accessibility. As the Founder & executive chair of the Indo-US Organization for Rare Diseases (https://indousrare.org), Harsha is forging a new era of cross-border cooperation among various stakeholders of rare diseases in the US, India, and globally by convening the annual Indo US bridging RARE Summit (https://summit.indousrare.org) and the Abbey Meyers Khushi Bridging RARE Awards Gala.  

Harsha’s 20 years of experience in precision medicine data research spans academia, federally funded research, biopharma R&D consulting, and multiple startups. Harsha made bold career moves after losing a newborn child to a rare congenital disease in 2012 and his younger brother with juvenile diabetes in 2017. He decided to apply his years of postdoctoral training at NIH and FDA to combat rare diseases.  

Harsha has maintained academic affiliation at George Mason University since 2012 and has authored 20+ publications, book chapters, and patents. Harsha’s work has been recognized by Lead India Foundation 2020, a travel award to join the NGO Committee on Rare Diseases at the United Nations headquarters, New York City in Feb 2019, NTT DATA Healthcare Life Sciences Silver award for outstanding achievement 2017, and Sanofi Genzyme patient advocacy leadership award 2016.  Harsha earned his M.S. in Computer Science (2004) and Ph.D. in Genetics, Bioinformatics and Computational Biology (2007) from Virginia Tech. 

Beth Gore, PhD, is a national patient safety advocate, author and speaker who represents patients through patient associations, serving on boards, and being a voice of the patient on national committees and task forces with over a decade of direct vascular access and parenteral and enteral focus. She is the current Executive Director of The Oley Foundation, a home nutrition therapy community and advocacy Group and has a PhD in Training. Beth and her husband Dan life in Tampa, Florida with their six children who are adopted with special needs, including a son who lives with a central line for lifetime nutrition support.  

A health policy professional by training, clinical researcher by trade and patient advocate by necessity, Richie Kahn has spent the last 15 years working across the industry to reduce the time it takes to bring promising new treatments to the patients that need them most. As Co-Founder & COO of Canary Advisors, Richie partners with biopharma, nonprofit, and regulatory stakeholders to better align clinical development programs with patient wants and needs. 

Simu Thomas is the Vice President and Global Head of Health Economics & Outcomes Research, Global Medical Communications and Training at Alexion, AstraZeneca Rare Diseases. Simu brings 25 years of leadership experience in the areas of Value, HEOR, RWE and Access, building and leading capabilities across the world.   

Prior to Alexion, Simu held several leadership roles at Novartis, where he was the Global Head of Value & Access for Rare Diseases, Global Head for the Cell & Gene Therapy Unit, where he developed the Value Access strategy for rare diseases and the first CART therapy approved in the world. He was the founding architect of the IMI HARMONY data initiative with public and EFPIA private partners in Europe, as the leading industry partner in the consortium.  Simu ran the Economic Modeling organization at Novartis, and was the Global Head of HEOR for Neuroscience and Ophthalmolgy franchises and Head of HEOR US Oncology. 

He has authored more than 35 manuscripts and 80 congress presentations and co-authored book chapters in the field of Health Economics. Simu holds a PhD in Pharmaceutical Economics from the University of Maryland and an MS in Pharmacy Administration from the University of Toledo and Pharmacy degrees from Birla Institute of Technology and Sciences. Simu also serves as Adjunct Assistant Professor at University of Maryland and Rutgers University of New Jersey.  

Kimberly Westrich, MA, is the Chief Strategy Officer of the National Pharmaceutical Council (NPC), which sponsors and conducts research on health policy issues related to the development and use of innovative biopharmaceuticals to improve the health of patients. NPC’s research contributes to the body of evidence that supports discussions and decisions about patient access to treatments, appropriate use, and the value innovative treatments provide to both patients and the healthcare system.  

 Ms. Westrich provides strategic guidance to NPC’s policy research and communications activities. She leads several research initiatives across NPC’s portfolio, including employer-sponsored insurance. She has published extensively on issues related to value assessment frameworks, patient-centered formulary and benefit design, value-based contracts, quality performance measurement, and accountable care organizations. Additionally, Ms. Westrich leads NPC’s workplace culture initiative — most notably demonstrated by our company's recognition as a Certified Great Place To Work®.  

 Ms. Westrich began her NPC career in 2000. She has also served as Director of Research at the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), worked as a healthcare consultant at The Lewin Group and Xcenda, and as a health economics and outcomes researcher at Johnson & Johnson. 

 Ms. Westrich is a certified yoga teacher and life coach with a passion for helping others learn and thrive. She received her master’s degree in economics from Northwestern University and her undergraduate degree in economics and mathematics from the College of William and Mary. 

C. Daniel Mullins is a Professor at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. He is Founder and Executive Director of the University of Maryland PATient-centered Involvement in Evaluating effectiveNess of TreatmentS (PATIENTS) Program. He received his BS in Economics from M.I.T. and his PhD in Economics from Duke University. His research and teaching focus on community-engaged research (CEnR), comparative effectiveness research (CER) and patient-centered outcomes research (PCOR). Dr. Mullins has received approximately $20 million in funding as a Principal Investigator from AHRQ, FDA, NCI, NHLBI, NIA, NIMHD, the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) and various patient advocacy organizations and pharmaceutical companies. He is the Lead for Community & Stakeholder Engagement (CES) of the University of Maryland Institute for Clinical and Translational Research (ICTR) and co-Lead of CES for the Johns Hopkins’ CTSA. 

Professor Mullins is one of two Editors-in-Chief for Value in Health and is author of nearly 350 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. At the University of Maryland Baltimore (UMB), he received the Dr. Patricia Sokolove Outstanding Mentor Award and the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Faculty Diversity Award. He was named Researcher of the Year at UMB and was awarded a University System of Maryland Wilson H. Elkins Professorship. He is a past recipient of the Dr. Daniel D. Savage Memorial Science Award, the Association of Black Cardiologists’ most prestigious annual award, and the ISPOR Marilyn Dix Smith Leadership Award. 

Carissa Escober Doran, PhD, MPA, BSN is a research scientist in Health Economics and Outcomes Research (HEOR) at Vivo Health, Northwell Health’s pharmacy division, where she leads outcomes-based research.  Having worked across nonprofit and industry settings for over a decade, Dr. Doran was a health economist at Avalere Health in life sciences consulting for the pharmaceutical industry prior to joining Northwell.  She began her career at the Institute of Health Economics in Alberta, Canada, where she conducted projects that guided health policy and practice across the province and nationwide. Dr. Doran earned her PhD in Health Economics from the University of Alberta and an MPA in Health Policy and Management from NYU. She is a registered nurse in New York State, holding a BS in Nursing from NYU. Having led projects that integrate patient reported outcomes into research, she is committed to advancing HEOR methodologies to improve patient outcomes.  She is excited to share her insights on patient centered outcomes as a speaker on this panel. 

Asia Williams is a Program Officer at the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) Leadership Consortium Collaboration for a Learning Health System. In this role, she leads the Trust & Engagement Action Collaborative, which focuses on facilitating meaningful engagement and building trust with individuals, families, and communities on the health goals that matter most to them. Before this role, Asia attended Drexel University, where she studied health management and policy and received her MPH. At Drexel, she conducted quality improvement and patient engagement research for intensive care units at Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals and with the Philadelphia Department of Public Health. Asia also received her BS in Human Services at Northeastern University. She has strong interests in studying, measuring, and advancing meaningful community engagement in the development and implementation of equitable and sustainable health and health care programs and policies.

Magdalena Harrington is a subject matter expert in clinical outcomes assessment (COA) research with over 15 years of experience in delivering health outcomes strategies that demonstrate clinical and economic value of new medicines. She joined Pfizer in 2018 and is leading Patient-Centered Outcomes Assessment (PCOA) team of COA scientists, designing and implementing COA strategies for successful registration and access across the enterprise.

Before joining Pfizer, Magdalena developed and implemented patient-centered COA strategies at Shire (now Takeda). Magdalena has extensive training in qualitative and quantitative instrument development methods. 

Before joining pharmaceutical field, Magdalena developed health outcome measures in academia at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University and University of Rhode Island. She also worked on innovative approaches to collecting patient experience data and developing patient-centered measures using online patient communities at PatientsLikeMe. She holds PhD in Quantitative Psychology form University of Rhode Island and Master of Arts in Clinical Psychology from University of Wroclaw in Poland. She lives in New Hampshire. Magdalena is passionate about ensuring robust patient input and consideration within regulatory and payer decision making.