Cynthia Fisher / Founder & Chairman

Cynthia A. Fisher is Founder and Chairman of PatientRightsAdvocate.org, a nonprofit organization seeking healthcare price transparency, giving power to American consumers and employers to lower their costs of care and coverage through a functional marketplace and choice. She is a life sciences entrepreneur, independent investor, and corporate board director of The Boston Beer Company (SAM) and Easterly Government Properties, Inc. (DEA).

Cynthia is best known for her pioneering work as Founder and CEO of ViaCord, Inc., a leading umbilical cord blood stem cell banking service which she started in 1993. In 2000, she co-founded and was President of the cellular medicines company, ViaCell, Inc. (VIAC). Prior to founding ViaCord, Cynthia ran the Blood Bank Division of Haemonetics Corporation, a medical equipment manufacturer. She began her career in sales at IBM focusing on healthcare IT, insurance, and defense industries. Cynthia holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, as well as an Honorary Doctorate of Science and BS in Biophysics from Ursinus College.

Linda Bent /President

Linda is a manager at a Boston area family office. She began her career at PA Consulting Group, where she consulted on risk management and communications strategies for a major pharmaceutical company and pre-clinical laboratory services company. After PA, she was a project manager for the procurement department of Liberty Mutual Group, focused on reducing commodity expenses across the company’s 900 offices worldwide.

Between consulting to the healthcare sector, researching investments in the space, and witnessing medical issues of family, friends, and colleagues, Linda has become familiar with the broken industry. She is confident that we can disrupt healthcare to make real price information and patient data easily accessible and create a trusted, competitive marketplace in healthcare. Linda holds a BS in Business from Boston University and a Chartered Family Office Specialist designation from Florida Atlantic University. She lives in Boston and has two children.

Tom Coburn MD /Medical Advisor, 2018-2020

Tom Coburn, MD was a family physician, former Senator, and former Congressman. Dr. Coburn served two terms in the U.S. Senate from 2005–2015 representing the state of Oklahoma. He was the ranking member of the Committee on Homeland Security and also served on the committees on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs; Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions; and Intelligence.

From 1995–2001, Dr. Coburn represented Oklahoma's 2nd Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. A family physician, Coburn was a Member of the Committee on Commerce where he sat on the subcommittees on Health & Environment as vice-chairman, Energy & Power, and Oversight and Investigations. Coburn was also selected co-chair of the President's Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS in 2001. Dr. Coburn continued to see patients while he served in Congress.

Dr. Coburn was a graduate of Oklahoma State University and University of Oklahoma Medical School. His specializations were family medicine, obstetrics, and allergy. He passed away on March 28, 2020.

Ilaria Santangelo /Board Member

Ilaria is a graduate of Trinity College with a BS in Biology and a BA in English. With a background of working on projects within the biotech and healthcare realm, she has garnered a passion for patient advocacy. After navigating through college being responsible for her own health, she realized first-hand the troubles of gathering personal health information and sharing it between providers.

Previously, Ilaria has worked at Johns Hopkins Hospital as a Research Fellow conducting original research into public health topics revolving around low-value medical care, health care waste, and corruption within healthcare institutions. Some other topics she has investigated were in areas of waste and over-use in health care, predatory medical billing and collection practices by medical centers, pricing failures by hospitals, pharmacy benefit managers, group purchasing organizations leading to increased insurance deductibles for American consumers, and opioid overprescribing.

Ilaria hopes to create a system that makes maintaining a personal health history and total price information easy and accessible for everyone.

Nadia Altomare /Board Member

Nadia Altomare is the Chief Commercial Officer of Sera Prognostics Inc., a global leader in high-value women’s health diagnostics. She is focused on its breakthrough diagnostics product where she is leading the commercial business strategy and implementing the building blocks for widespread payer coverage.

Previously, as President and then CEO and member of the Board of Directors at Abcodia Ltd, a clinical-stage company engaged in using human serum-based biomarkers to develop validated tests for the early detection of cancer, Nadia set up the U.S. subsidiary and oversaw the subsequent launch of global commercial operations. Prior to Abcodia, Nadia was Vice President & General Manager at ThermoFisher Scientific, a multinational biotechnology product development company. Her early career was spent through a series mergers and acquisitions and an IPO, resulting in a company ultimately acquired by PerkinElmer. Among her accomplishments was the startup, build and scale of the ViaCord division.

Nadia has served on the board of Abcodia Ltd., a women’s health diagnostics company, in both non-executive director and executive director roles. Nadia received an MBA from Northeastern University and a BS in Business Administration from SUNY Stony Brook.

Kara Grasso /Board Member

Kara has worked in many facets of the health care system. She was a Sales Representative for TAP Pharmaceuticals, a joint venture between Abbott Laboratories and Takeda Pharmaceutical Company. She also formerly served as a Hematology Oncology Consultant for Celgene Corporation. Kara began her career as a patient services representative for ViaCord, Inc and also worked as a physical therapy aide in a major hospital system. Kara is intimately familiar with the difficulty in accessing patient data for her four children and aging parents. Kara holds a BA from Boston College.