PatientsLikeMe has appointed Jason Johnson as executive vice president and head of research and development (R&D).
Johnson will lead the company’s research, data science and informatics teams, which focus on analysing and merging patient-reported data and other data types to develop models of disease progression and generate new insights about disease, treatments and health.
Commenting on his appointment, Johnson said: “PatientsLikeMe’s ability to bring patients together to share data and insights can transform the way healthcare is practiced and substantially increase value to patients.
“I’m excited to be working on healthcare informatics from the perspective of the patient. I believe that amassing and analysing relevant health and medical information from many people with similar experiences and patterns of data can deliver research insights that improve healthcare decision making and patient health.”
Johnson joins from Merck where he held varying roles, most recently as associate vice president for scientific informatics where he helped build the company’s informatics and analytics capabilities and was additionally responsible for applied maths and modelling, scientific computing and research software engineering.
He has also held roles at Rosetta Inpharmatics, a Seattle, US, based biotech, and at Pfizer.
Martin Coulter, CEO at PatientsLikeMe, said: “Our research and informatics teams bring the data to life by extracting insight and meaning about the patient experience, and helping our partners see which medicines and therapeutic approaches will benefit patients the most.
The combination of Jason’s leadership and our scientifically-validated data will be a powerful source of insight to guide discovery, development, and treatment decision making.”