FDA vet Dr. Amy Abernethy joins Verily; Noom hires new members to leadership team after major funding round

Also: Diabetes “reversal” company Virta adds three executive leadership hires, and Insurtech startup Sidecar Health boosts leadership team with six additions.
By Mallory Hackett
02:37 pm
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Photo: Maskot/Getty Images

Alphabet’s life sciences and healthcare subsidiary Verily has named Dr. Amy Abernethy as the new president of its clinical research business.

Abernethy will support Verily’s expansion into a full-scale clinical evidence generation platform by overseeing the overall product vision and Verily’s related clinical research portfolio.

"There is no one better positioned to catapult Verily's clinical research business into its next important phase than Amy, with her understanding of clinical practice, research, data science and the evolving regulatory environment," Andy Conrad, CEO and founder of Verily, said in a statement.

Prior to this role she served as principal deputy commissioner of food and drugs, as well as chief information officer at the FDA. Abernethy has also worked at Flatiron Health as the chief medical officer, chief scientific officer and vice president of oncology.

She is a hematologist, oncologist and palliative medicine physician and was a professor of medicine at Duke University School of Medicine.


Health management and weight loss app Noom appointed three new members to its senior leadership team this week, including Firdaus Bhathena as general manager of healthcare, Sean Foster as chief marketing officer and Angela Crossman as head of personnel.

“These stellar additions to Noom’s leadership team will allow us to further execute on our growth strategy and expand our digital health platform across new verticals and geographies,” Saeju Jeong, cofounder and CEO of Noom, said in a statement.

In Bhathena’s newly created role at Noom, he will manage a team focused on growing the company’s healthcare channel and the conditions it treats. Specifically, he will work to extend the Noom platform into chronic condition management and create new distribution channels with employers and payers. He comes to this role after serving as chief digital officer at CVS Health and Aetna.

As CMO, Foster will elevate the Noom brand and oversee the company’s marketing materials. He most recently served as senior vice president of Global eCommerce at Coty, where he led its eCommerce business and secured partnerships with global businesses such as Amazon.

Crossman comes to Noom as the head of people, where she will lead the company’s people strategy, as well as talent and culture initiatives. Prior to this role, she worked at Bain and Company as its executive vice president of talent, operations and global people analytics.


Virta Health, a digital diabetes management company, has added a slew of people to its executive team. The company is welcoming new hire Cybele Bjorklund as SVP of policy and government affairs. It has also promoted Divya Bhat to chief product officer and Amit Shah to chief clinical operations officer.

Bjorklund brings a background in health policy that includes serving as vice president of Federal Strategy at Johns Hopkins University and Medicine, head of global policy for Sanofi and staff director for the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health in Congress. In her new position, she will work to expand Virta’s presence among federal, state and city entities.

Bhat joined Virta in 2018 as vice president of product and will now lead the product, engineering, and data science functions of the Virta platform. Shah, who previously served as vice president of operations since 2016, will now head all care teams working under Virta.


Insurtech startup Sidecar Health is boosting its executive leadership team with six new additions.

Rodney Barlow is the new chief technology officer and has more than 20 years of experience leading different product and technology teams. His most recent role was at Beautycounter as its CTO. In his new position, Barlow will focus on growing and building out the tech and product side of the business.

Pamela Cleveland brings more than 30 years of healthcare, government and law experience to her new role as chief compliance officer. She has held similar roles at Health Alliance Plan, Beacon Healthcare Systems, Medical Mutual of Ohio and Scott and White Health Plan. At Sidecar Cleveland will help the company expand into new markets by ensuring it’s complying with all state and federal laws, regulatory requirements, policies and procedures.

As the new chief personnel officer, Alex Coonce is responsible for growing the Sidecar Health team. Coonce brings experience working as head of personnel at Ike (now Nuro) and vice president of people and culture at Glint.

Douglas Lynch joins Sidecar Health as chief actuary, where he will be responsible for establishing appropriate rates, valuing all actuarial assets and liabilities, and assessing risks for current and future company ventures. Lynch has experience working as chief actuary at Health Care Service Corporation, the parent company of a number of Blue Cross Blue Shield plans, and for Florida Blue.

In her new role as VP of product management, Ashley Lewis will establish and execute the company’s product vision of providing consumers with affordable and transparent health insurance. She previously led the product management team at Dollar Shave Club, which under her leadership won a Webby Award for best shopping app.

Emily Porter comes to Sidecar Health as its VP of government affairs. With more than 20 years of experience in government affairs, she will help the company expand into new product offerings and geographic markets by working with national and state governments.

 

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