Indian American Bakul Patel Joins Google Health as Senior Director of Global Digital Health Strategy and Regulatory
- Patel spent 13 years with FDA, most recently as its Chief Digital Health Officer of Global Strategy and Innovation.
Indian American Bakul Patel, a former Food and Drug Administration official, has joined Google Health as its senior director of Global Digital Health Strategy and Regulatory. Before joining Google, Patel spent 13 years with FDA, most recently as its Chief Digital Health Officer of Global Strategy and Innovation.
Announcing his new role on LinkedIn earlier this week, Patel said he’s joining Google Health “to be part of an incredible mission – ‘To Help Billions of People Be Healthier.’” He said he is “looking forward to learning from the teams in health across Google and Alphabet and helping build a unified digital health and regulatory strategy.”
He described himself as “a technology person” first, and noted how “before becoming a policy wonk at FDA, “ his key focus has been “working on leading-edge solutions. “This technology oriented mindset has continued to guide my efforts towards helping turn digital health from a hopeful concept to a reality,” he said.
He recounted highlights of his service at the FDA, including the introduction of functionality-based regulations in the FDA’s mobile medical apps guidance, working with international agencies to define and regulate software-as-a-medical-device (SaMD), developing the Digital Health Software Precertification (Pre-Cert) Program and launching the Digital Health Center of Excellence.
“Throughout my tenure at FDA, my biggest north star has been to make digital healthcare accessible and equitable for all,” he said. “I have spoken often about the potential of digital health to be a gamechanger in heralding a new era for healthcare generally — one that is ubiquitous and poised to deliver care to all individuals, including preventing and predicting disease and keeping people healthy and out of the hospital.”