Sachin Jain, the Chief Medical Information and Innovation Officer at Merck, is leaving at the end of the month, MedCity News has learned. Jain told MedCity News he will be working with a company on the West Coast focusing on innovation in care delivery outside of the pharma industry.
Jain joined Merck in 2012 and has presided over the rollout of its digital health arm Merck Medical Information and Innovation or M2i2. Part of his task involved working with health systems, EMR providers and health technology startups to find new ways to leverage health data to improve patient care. M2i2 was designed to connect the dots between these groups across a few areas, including innovative uses of data to generate ideas about disease and treatments; clinical-facing technologies to improve the quality of care and patient safety; and patient-centered outcomes.
It had highlighted a few projects in these areas as part of a Slideshare presentation in February. A health IT interventional study with Northwestern University, Alliance of Chicago, and Walgreens examined the impact of providing simplified and clear medication instructions for patients with multiple chronic conditions. A collaboration with Boston Children’s Hospital and a computational epidemiology lab analyzed data from Twitter to develop digital definitions for insomnia to generate insights on predictors of sleep deprivation.
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But as part of the restructuring at the big pharma company, the projects from M2i2 were allocated to different parts of the company this fall that more closely aligned with their goals, Merck spokeswoman Christine Fanelle said in a phone conversation.
Thomas Tsang, the previous medical director of meaningful use at ONC, will lead Merck’s digital health solutions work as medical lead for Merck Healthcare Services and Solutions, formed earlier this year. Aman Bhandari, previously of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, will lead data network and partnerships strategy.
In a phone interview with MedCity News, Jain said he is really excited by the new opportunity. Referencing his work at Merck, Jain said he is proud of leaving the digital health and health data projects from M2i2 with Bhandari and Tsang, who Jain recruited. “What’s really rewarding is leading the trend of pharmaceutical companies moving into digital health.” He pointed to Cambridge-based Biogen Idec’s hire of Naomi Fried from Boston Children’s Hospital, where she has worked as Chief Innovation Officer. Her new role at Biogen as vice president of medical information, innovation, and external partnerships.
Prior to joining Merck, Jain helped launch the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation and served as a special assistant to the National Coordinator for health IT.
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Update: The quote from Sachin Jain has been updated due to a transcribing error. A link to Dan Verel’s story on Naomi Fried’s move has also been included.
