About us | Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging | VeriSIM Life
We are a dedicated team of scientists, modelers, chemists and software engineers that are passionate about addressing the need for better prediction in healthcare.
Company Overview
VeriSIM was founded in 2017 by Dr. Jo Varshney, a multidisciplinary and celebrated leader in veterinary & human health development. Together with a team of world-class scientists, machine learning engineers and in silicon simulation experts the team is bringing clarity to drug development through computational sciences rather than the existing trial and error experimentation approach.
The leadership believes that with their machine learning-driven approach, they can pre-flight advancements in medicine without the need for redundant trials, subjecting animals to the cruelty of testing, and with far better outcomes than the 8% success currently seen in medicine making it to market. More people will be able to receive the treatments they require and our partners will see faster and verified results from their research.
Meet our experts
Jo Varshney
Founder & Chief Executive Officer
Dr. Vivek Gupta, Ph.D.
Scientific Co-Founder
Ed Parsley
Chief Medical Officer
Sanjay Pothen
Chief Financial Officer
Emily Spady
Head of People Operations
Gordon Murtaugh
Vice President, Corporate Development
Dr. Li-fang Liang
Innovation and Govt. Lead
Theresa Bibeau
Digital Marketing Specialist
Divesh Bhatt
Head of Biosimulations
Yogesh Bundey
Senior ML Engineer II
Shawn Montgomery
Senior Software Engineer
Brittni Wareham
Executive Assistant
Joseph Machulcz
Computational Scientist
Weihao Qu
Scientific Data Engineer
Peter Gissel
Staff Software Engineer
Babatunde Bello
Bioinformatics Scientist
Roshan Bhave
Senior AI/ML Solutions Architect
Angel Tamez
Senior Computational Chemist
VSL Strategic Advisors
Dr. Samir Mitragotri, Ph.D
Strategic Advisor
Dr. Eva S. Nozik, MD
Strategic Advisor
Dr. Hugh Smyth, Ph.D
Strategic Advisor
Jeff Barrett, PhD
Former VP Sanofi, Bill & Melinda Gates Research Institute, FDA Advisory Committee
Dr. Jeff Barrett is Senior Advisor at the Critical Path Institute serving as a critical liaison between C-Path and the pharmaceutical industry, foundations, and other key stakeholders, and help grow C-Path’s portfolio in drug development solutions, with a focus, but not limited to model-informed drug development (MIDD). Jeff was the former Head of Quantitative Sciences at the Bill & Melinda Gates Medical Research Institute (MRI). In this role he was responsible for implementing model-based drug development and employing PK/PD modeling, statistics, and clinical trial simulations to advance the discovery and development of new medicines and vaccines to treat malaria, tuberculosis (TB) and enteric diarrheal disease (EDD). In this role, he engaged and led the Global Health ecosystem in the promotion of Open Science policies to create a collaborative environment for data and model sharing. Prior to MRI, he was Vice President, Global Head of Translational Informatics at Sanofi Pharmaceuticals. He led various aspects of model-based decision-making spanning from drug discovery through commercialization and provided leadership for Sanofi’s cloud-based, high-performance computing and “big data” initiatives. Prior to Sanofi, Jeff spent 10+ years at the University of Pennsylvania where he was Professor, Pediatrics and Director, Laboratory for Applied PK/PD at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Jeff received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Drexel University and Ph.D. in Pharmacokinetics from University of Michigan. He has co-authored over 175 manuscripts and has given over 140 invited lectures on PK/PD, clinical pharmacology and pharmacometrics. He is a fellow of ACCP and AAPS and the recipient of numerous honors including ACCP awards for Young Investigator (2002) and Mentorship in Clinical Pharmacology (2007) and the AAPS Award in Clinical Pharmacology and Translational Research (2011). Dr. Barrett was awarded for Exceptional Innovation and Advancing the Discipline of Pharmacometrics at the International Society for Pharmacometrics (2013) and elected ISOP Fellow (2017). He served on the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics and the ASCPT Pharmacometrics & Systems Pharmacology Journal and is currently the co-Specialty Chief Editor of Frontiers in Obstetric and Pediatric Pharmacology Journal. He is currently an active member of the Child Health and Human Development Pediatrics Subcommittee and is a study section reviewer for this committee. He was a past acting chair of the FDA Advisory Committee for Pharmaceutical Science and Clinical Pharmacology and was a voting member of the committee for 8 years.
Rick Sax, MD
Former VP, QuintilesIMS, AstraZeneca
Rick is a 28-year veteran of the pharmaceutical industry, having held senior positions in Clinical Development at Merck & Co. and AstraZeneca. His career has included leading cardiovascular drug development at Merck, and leadership roles in the U.S. Business, Global Medical Sciences, and New Opportunities at AstraZeneca. At AstraZeneca he also helped lead their efforts to transform Clinical Development, focusing on improving program and protocol design. Rick joined Quintiles in 2011, where he oversaw the Biostatistics/Medical Writing/Global Regulatory Affairs group (Clinical Analysis & Reporting Services), Safety Knowledge & Reporting, and the Center for Integrated Drug Development – Quintile’s home for clinical program and trial design and its enabling technology platform, Infosario Design®. In 2014 he became a Managing Director in QuintilesIMS Consulting Services and then Senior Vice-President in the IQVIA Design & Delivery Innovation group, leading the Strategic Drug Development group, supporting biopharma companies to design integrated development, regulatory, and commercial strategies for their assets. Rick now is the Managing Director of Pharma Design Solutions, Ltd., his own consultancy practice, supporting senior biopharmaceutical executives with their corporate and organizational aspirations, as well as technology companies interesting in improving R&D productivity in the pharmaceutical industry.
Alexander Harmsen
CEO & Founder of Global Predictions; Chairman & Founder Iris Automation
Alexander Harmsen is an experienced tech entrepreneur, CEO, and advisor, having founded multiple successful companies and organizations. His work has seen him produce multiple AI-driven products, scale sales globally, hire world-class executives, manage hundreds of employees, and raise over $25M in venture capital. He is focused on hard problems that have a meaningful impact on the world, knowing that very few others are in a unique position to take on such challenges.
He is currently CEO & Founder at Global Predictions, a company predicting the future using machine learning, data, and a hyper analytical modeling approach. He is also Chairman & Founder of Iris Automation, a deep tech autonomous vehicle software company focused on perception and navigation software for industrial drones.
Alexander is recognized on both Inc’ and Forbes’ 30 Under 30 lists. He holds a degree in Engineering Physics and Commerce from Canada’s top institute, the University of British Columbia, and has a number of patents and published papers to his name. He is also a Loran scholar and graduate of Y-Combinator. He has earned a pilot license and in previous work has built AI perception systems for NASA’s Mars Helicopter, a drone to accompany the rover to explore Mars’ surface autonomously.
Charles Goodwin
Commercial Advisor
Charles has deep experience helping startups and Fortune 500 companies leverage data and analytics to drive insights and improve decision making. Charles is currently an Operating Partner at TO VC and on the Board of pioneering cancer company Kuva Labs. In prior roles, Charles focused on scaling world-class investment platforms, including Bridgewater Associates and Point72 Ventures, where he was COO. Previously, Charles launched the healthcare platform at Point72 Ventures, incubated a cancer imaging company, and co-created a life sciences tools platform now valued at $800M.
Assets
Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging
Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging at VeriSIM Life work very differently than in the industries and world in which we interact. As a ground up approach, we value — with the highest of esteem — the diverse backgrounds, experiences, and knowledge bases that each member of our team represents and brings to VeriSIM Life.
By requiring that collaboration and communication come from a place of understanding these differences, we can quickly, with agility and efficiency, navigate through our own environment by fully engaging in the wealth of cognitive diversity that comes from accessing our whole selves. In doing so, we solve more of the problems standing in front of our mission. We do this through a commitment and practice in leading with questions, offering and receiving feedback that is communicated with identities and communication style taken into consideration. We share cultural experiences together, and have mandated that anyone at VeriSIM Life may escalate concerns to our CEO and depend on one another in times of crisis or whenever one feels unsafe.