NEWDIGS Design Lab
September 10–11 at Convene Boston
September 10–11, 2025
Convene Boston
201 Washington St, Floor 2, Boston 02108
Day 1
September 10, 12:00 pm – 7:30 pm
12:00–1:00pm
Registration & Networking Lunch
1:00–1:30pm
Intros & Frame the Day
Mark Trusheim, NEWDIGS
1:30–2:05pm
Setting the Context:
NEWDIGS
Gigi Hirsch, NEWDIGS
Alzheimer’s Case Study
Thomas Hubbard, NEWDIGS
2:05–2:45pm
Q&A and Breakout Instructions
Thomas Hubbard & Mark Trusheim
2:45–4:00pm
Breakouts
4:00–4:15pm
Break
4:15–5:00pm
Report-outs
5:00–5:30pm
Reflections & Preview of Day 2
Mark Trusheim, NEWDIGS
5:30–7:30pm
Networking Reception
Day 2
September 11, 8:00 am – 2:00 pm
8:00–8:30am
Networking Breakfast
8:30–8:35am
Frame the Day
Mark Trusheim, NEWDIGS
8:35–9:50am
Care Transformation and Early Alzheimer’s Disease: Insights from Clinical Innovators (Panel)
Moderator:
Thomas Hubbard, NEWDIGS
Panelists:
Morgan Daven, Alzheimer’s Association
Barak Gaster MD, University of Washington
Caitlin Rivet RN, Tufts Medicine (video interview)
Deanna Willis MD, Indiana University School of Medicine
9:50–10:20am
Intro to System Dynamics Modeling
Chris Soderquist, Pontifex Consulting
10:20–10:30am
Break
10:30–11:30am
Breakouts
11:30am–12:00pm
Report-outs
12:00–12:30pm
Alzheimer’s Disease Model – so far
Chris Soderquist
12:30–1:00pm
Next Steps / Forward Planning
Gigi Hirsch, NEWDIGS
1:00–2:00pm
Networking Lunch (to-go options available)
Design Lab participants
Foluso Agboola
Senior Vice President of Research
Institute for Clinical and Economic Review
Faraz Ali
CEO
Tenaya Therapeutics
Jane Barlow
Chief Clinical Officer
Real Endpoints
Matthew Baumgart
Senior Vice President, Health Policy
Alzheimer's Association
Kriti Bhatia
Medical Director, Clinical Service
Highmark, Inc
Alice Bonner
Senior Advisor for Aging
Institute for Healthcare Improvement
Brian Carey
Partner
Hogan Lovells
Jordan Chase
Senior Director, Global HEOR
Cepheid / Danaher
Terry Cothran
Senior Pharmacy Director
OHCA
Gregory Daniel
Vice President, Global Public Policy
Eli Lilly and Company
Nimita Dave
Director, Clinical Development & Pharmacology
LAPIX Therapeutics
Morgan Daven
Vice President, Healthcare Strategy
Alzheimer's Association
Lucas de Breed
Founder
AUGUST
Sean Dickson
SVP, Pharmaceutical Policy & Strategy
AHIP
Ute Dugan
CEO
Dugan.life
Erin Estey Hertzog
Partner
Manatt, Phelps & Phillips
Girisha Fernando
CEO
Lyfegen
Phyllis Ferrell
Founder
PBFerrell LLC
Matt Fickie
Senior Medical Director
Highmark, Inc
William Finke
US Market Access and Pricing Consultant
Lyfegen
Stephanie Fiorenini
Executive Director, US Public Policy
Lilly
Barak Gaster
Director, Cognition in Primary Care
School of Medicine University of Washington
Brian Guerriero
Market Access Director
Johnson and Johnson
Liz Hall
Director, Healthcare Mission Engagement
Alzheimer's Association
Gigi Hirsch
Director
Center for Biomedical System Design
Thomas Hubbard
Senior Advisor
NEWDIGS
Ali Jannati
Director of Cognitive Science
Linus Health
Paul L. Jeffrey
Principal
Jeff℞ey Consulting
Candice Lo
Access Strategy and Patient Program Design
Dompe
Chuka Ndukauba
Senior Director - PBM Strategy & Product
Optum
Clark Paramore
Head of Global Value Evidence Strategy
Biogen
Catherine Patterson
Director of Strategic Initiatives
UsAgainstAlzheimer's
Sharon Phares
Associate Director, Research
NEWDIGS
Adam Phipps
Associate Vice President, US Gov't Payer Strategy
Eli Lilly and Company
Ron Potts
Chief Medical Officer
6 Degrees Health
Rohit Ramanathan
Student
University of Rochester
Samantha Reed
Director, US Alzheimer's Marketing
Biogen
Cassie Ricci
Senior Manager, Alliance Development
Roche Diagnostics
Gail Ryan
Consultant
Independent Consulting
Eric Small
Program Manager
NEWDIGS
Chris Soderquist
Owner
Pontifex Consulting
Mark Trusheim
Senior Strategic Advisor
NEWDIGS
Thomas Unger
CSO
Evidium
J.K. Wall
Ex. Dir., U.S. Alzheimer’s Environment Shaping
Eli Lilly and Company
Deanna Willis
Professor of Family Medicine, Vice Chair Research
Indiana University School of Medicine, Department of Family Medicine
Julie Wood
Consultant
American Academy of Family Physicians
Sharon Yeske
VP Business Development
Lyfegen
Gerardo Zampaglione
Founder
Aegle Capital
Alzheimer’s Disease Case Study
- Executive Brief: Reengineering Alzheimer’s Disease Management – an executive summary of the Elucidation phase of the Case Study.
- September Design Lab Briefing Book: Transforming care for the detection, diagnosis, and treatment of early Alzheimer’s disease
System Dynamics Modeling
- A classic introductory articleby John Sterman, MIT faculty member, "Learning From Evidence in a Complex World."
- "Systems Thinker" a website that provides free access to a broad range previously published articles, case studies, and how-to guides from a number of thought leaders and practitioners in the field.
- An example of an open access dynamic systems modeldeveloped by the Sax Institute on The National Burden of Cardiovascular Disease in Australia.
Biomedical Health Efficiency
- Biomedical Innovation Requires Health System Innovation
Gigi Hirsch & Jane Barlow, BioCentury (May 2024) - Bringing Systems Thinking to Value Assessment
Gigi Hirsch, Sharon Phares, Peter Neumann, Health Affairs Forefront (March 2025) - Optimizing Biomedical Health Efficiency: Unlocking the Full Potential of Life Science Innovation Through System Design
Gigi Hirsch, Sharon Phares, Jane Barlow, Murray Aitken, Mark Cziraky, Gegory Daniel, Chester Good, Anne Kennedy, Therapeutic Innovation & Regulatory Science (July 2025)
LocationConvene Boston |
Chatham House Rule
The Chatham House Rule is used in meetings where participants need a way to openly share information, but don't want to be identified as the source of that information in any meeting records or articles written afterward. The rule is invoked regularly in meetings dealing with sensitive topics. It reads:
“When a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the Chatham House Rule, participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed.”
Antitrust Compliance Statement
Updated November 8, 2022
Tufts Medical Center's NEWDIGS initiative spearheads initiatives focused on re-engineering drug development and delivery processes to optimize access to new medicines for patients while ensuring the sustainability of pharmaceutical innovation. Many of these initiatives involve cooperation among various constituencies, including pharmaceutical companies and other industry stakeholders, patient advocates, healthcare payers, and academic and research institutions.
Because competitors or potential competitors in the marketplace are often participating in the same initiatives, participants in NEWDIGS activities must take care to stay within antitrust boundaries.
The antitrust laws prohibit firms from entering into agreements and engaging in arrangements with competitors that are “anticompetitive” — meaning that they reduce competition more than they advance it. The antitrust laws, however, support and encourage “procompetitive” agreements and arrangements that increase efficiency, enable and improve innovation, and increase the availability of higher quality, lower cost goods and services. NEWDIGS’s initiatives are designed to facilitate “procompetitive” processes.
This Statement provides antitrust guidance to Tufts Medical Center personnel and to the representatives of companies and other institutions who participate in NEWDIGS activities with the goal of encouraging and ensuring antitrust compliance. Even for specially trained experts, it can sometimes be difficult to distinguish “anticompetitive” from “procompetitive” outcomes. This Statement articulates General Antitrust Principles that guide differentiation of various interactions and lists Specific Antitrust Guidelines to enhance the procompetitive nature of NEWDIGS activities and reduce the risk of any inadvertent violation of the antitrust laws. NEWDIGS asks all participants in NEWDIGS activities to follow the General Antitrust Principles and to adhere to the Specific Antitrust Guidelines. The Principles and the Guidelines are intended to be conservative – meaning that they will prohibit some conduct that the antitrust laws may allow – in order to provide a reasonable safety margin for everyone.
General Antitrust Principles
1. Be “antitrust aware”, including in your emails, documents, and conversations. This means remembering that no NEWDIGS activity is intended to reduce competition or create undesirable “anticompetitive” effects. These undesirable effects include increased market power, higher prices, lower quality goods or services, and the creation or strengthening of obstacles to innovation.
2. Part of being “antitrust aware” involves recognizing and memorializing, when appropriate, the desirable “procompetitive” effects that flow from cooperative exploration and innovation. These effects include faster rates of innovation, greater efficiency, increased output, lower prices, and higher quality goods and services. Documents and meeting agendas that identify those positive effects create a helpful contemporaneous record of the participants’ procompetitive vision, which can be consulted later.
3. Note that preserving a particular company’s or group of companies’ prices, profit margins, or position in an industry is not a legitimate goal, particularly in the dynamic industries involved in NEWDIGS’s activities. All companies are expected to succeed on their own merits and not because they have created obstacles to competition. The law establishes one important exception – patent holders possess a temporary, completely legal monopoly as their reward for innovation. A patent holder, acting alone, is entitled to use the legal system to exclude rivals from practicing the subject of the patent.
4. “Market power,” meaning the ability of a single company or group of companies to control the price or availability of goods and services, is rarely permissible under antitrust laws. The acquisition or use of market power is tolerated where it results from superior products, services, or business skill, but otherwise it is highly suspect. No NEWDIGS activity that makes economic sense only if it creates or intensifies market power for the participants (other than through the eventual assertion of patent rights) should be undertaken without first consulting NEWDIGS's compliance contact.
5. Other countries have their own competition regimes, and some of those regimes operate quite differently from the United States’ antitrust laws. Recognizing that much of NEWDIGS’s work may affect the global marketplace, NEWDIGS intends to comply with competition laws in all countries where its work has local effect. This Compliance Statement addresses the fundamental principles that are common to the competition regimes in the United States and the European Union. If you believe a NEWDIGS activity is likely to have a significant, negative economic effect on a company outside of the United States or European Union, please raise that issue with NEWDIGS's compliance contact.
Specific Antitrust Guidelines
1. Do not reach any of the following types of agreements with a competitor: agreements affecting the price at which goods or services are sold in competition; agreements allocating customers or markets among competitors; or agreements not to deal with any company or organization.
2. Do not discuss with a competitor information concerning any of the following: your company’s or your competitors’ prices, costs, discounts, terms of sale, or profit margins or anything else that might affect those prices; the resale prices your customers should charge for any products you sell them; markets, customers, territories, or products sold in competition; whether or not to deal with any other company or organization; or any other competitively sensitive information concerning your company or a competitor. In addition, do not share non-public data concerning these topics with a competitor.
3. Do prepare and follow an accurate agenda, even if only in summary form, for meetings attended by representatives of two or more direct competitors.
4. Do consult with NEWDIGS’s antitrust compliance contact before proceeding in any area of uncertainty. The compliance contact does not provide legal advice. When needed, the compliance contact will obtain legal advice for Tufts Medical Center participants. All non-Tufts Medical Center participants must consult their own counsel for legal advice.
5. Do recognize that the antitrust laws encourage cooperation among competitors for the legitimate, procompetitive purposes envisioned by NEWDIGS. A more detailed look at this complex area may be found in the United States’ Antitrust Guidelines for Collaborations among Competitors, found here.