Leadership

Anand Shah, MD, is the Chief Executive Officer of Aster Insights. He brings decades of strategic and operational leadership and health care innovation to the Aster Insights team. As CEO, he leads Aster Insights with a focus on driving the scientific and commercial innovation needed to bring new cures to patients.

A nationally recognized physician leader and health policy expert, Dr. Shah has extensive healthcare experience in the senior-most levels of the U.S. government, private sector, academia, and as a physician. He was previously the Deputy Commissioner for Medical and Scientific Affairs at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Dr. Shah led consensus policy development for fit-for-purpose programs including Advanced Manufacturing, the Coronavirus Treatment Acceleration Program, Covid vaccine development, digital health, consumer protection, and decentralized clinical trials. During the Covid pandemic, he led FDA’s policy development for preparedness and recovery efforts. Dr. Shah represented FDA with top-level policy makers of the White House and Cabinet, Governors and local governments, and regularly led briefings with Congressional leadership.

He previously served in two senior leadership roles at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). As Senior Medical Advisor, he was the primary counselor for agency-wide policy related to medical and scientific innovation. Dr. Shah established consensus on several critical policy initiatives including aligning payment and prevention to increase Medicare beneficiaries’ access to novel antimicrobials, expanding patients’ access to cell and gene therapies, and streamlining Medicare access to breakthrough technologies. As the Chief Medical Officer of the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation (CMMI), Dr. Shah led the clinical design of novel value-based payment and service delivery models including those for primary and specialty care.

Dr. Shah specializes in the early detection, surveillance, and treatment of prostate cancer, and previously developed and led a survivorship clinic for patients on cancer clinical trials at the National Institutes of Health. His scientific track record includes publications in the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, Health Affairs, Cancer, and Nature Reviews Drug Discovery. Dr. Shah is an Adjunct Professor with the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy and an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics at the University of Pennsylvania. He is an Operating Advisor at Clayton, Dubilier & Rice.

Dr. Shah was chief resident during his radiation oncology residency at Columbia University. He concurrently earned his MD from the University of Pennsylvania and an MPH in health care management and policy from the Harvard School of Public Health. Dr. Shah graduated with honors from Duke University with a degree in economics. He also served as a Canada-U.S. Fulbright Scholar.