"From Vision to Reality: Building and Scaling AI in Regulated Healthcare"
"From Vision to Reality: Building and Scaling AI in Regulated Healthcare"
Fri May 15 - 5:50 AM EDT/New York (See in local time)
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05/15/2026 5:50 AM
05/15/2026 06:30 AM
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"From Vision to Reality: Building and Scaling AI in Regulated Healthcare"
#WTGC2026
"From Vision to Reality: Building and Scaling AI in Regulated Healthcare"
https://www.womentech.net/ringcentral
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"From Vision to Reality: Building and Scaling AI in Regulated Healthcare"
"From Vision to Reality: Building and Scaling AI in Regulated Healthcare"
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Session: From Vision to Reality: Building and Scaling AI in Regulated Healthcare
This conference session brings together diverse and complementary perspectives to explore the realities of building and scaling artificial intelligence in healthcare. Designed as a multi-stakeholder dialogue, the panel will bridge innovation, regulation, and investment, offering a grounded view of what it takes for AI solutions to achieve real-world impact in a highly regulated environment.The discussion will feature representatives from the pharmaceutical industry, who will address compliance expectations, validation standards, and the criteria required for AI solutions to become credible partners at an enterprise and global level. A venture capital perspective will add depth to the conversation by examining how investors assess risk, timelines, and scalability in healthcare AI, and why medtech ventures often require distinct funding models compared to traditional technology startups. In parallel, voices from the public sector will provide insight into regulatory frameworks, public funding mechanisms, and the role of policy in either enabling or slowing innovation in healthcare systems.
By bringing these perspectives together, the session aims to foster an honest and practical conversation about how AI in healthcare can move beyond ambition and deliver sustainable, measurable impact.
Within this panel, the discussion will also include the perspective of a founder building and scaling AI solutions in regulated healthcare environments. The intervention will focus on the critical intersection between technology, funding, and real-world deployment—where many medtech initiatives ultimately succeed or fail.
Drawing on first-hand experience from the development and scaling of ApolloMed, an AI-driven medical platform used daily by thousands of doctors and pharmacists, the session will explore key topics such as designing AI solutions that integrate into real clinical workflows rather than idealized scenarios, navigating long and complex healthcare sales cycles, and building viable ventures through hybrid funding strategies that combine private investment, European innovation funding, and strategic partnerships. It will also address what compliance truly entails when collaborating with global pharmaceutical companies such as Novo Nordisk and Boehringer Ingelheim.
Finally, the session will touch on the leadership dimension of building in this space from the perspective of a woman founder—focusing on earning trust, sustaining momentum within slow-moving systems, and making long-term decisions in an industry where impact ultimately matters more than speed.
Key Takeaways
- Scaling AI in healthcare requires more than strong technology — it demands patience, trust, regulatory literacy, and long-term commitment to clinical realities.
- Medtech startups need different funding strategies — hybrid models combining private capital, public funding, and strategic partnerships are often essential for survival and growth.
- Being the only woman at the table is still common in high-stakes healthcare decisions, but leadership built on competence and consistency creates lasting credibility and opens doors for the next generation.
- Sustainable impact in healthcare comes from building durable solutions, designed to serve clinicians and patients over time, not from chasing speed or hype.
Bio
Mihaela OnofreiCEO Apollo AI Technologies
Mihaela Onofrei is the CO-Founder and CEO of Apollo AI Technologies, where she builds AI-powered tools for healthcare professionals. She leads the development of ApolloMed, an AI medical platform used daily by over 5,000 doctors and pharmacists. With an academic background in Natural Language Processing and artificial intelligence, Mihaela bridges research, regulated healthcare, and real-world deployment, working closely with global pharmaceutical companies such as Novo Nordisk and Boehringer Ingelheim. Her work focuses on building compliant, scalable AI solutions that deliver lasting clinical impact.
Semra Asan
MEA Area Senior Director, Digital & Technology AstraZeneca
Digital technology leader with twenty years of experience driving business-aligned digital transformation across the pharmaceutical and FMCG industries. She has led large-scale digital, data, and AI initiatives spanning Commercial, Supply Chain, Operations, and enabling functions, turning organizations into value-generating digital ecosystems.
Her work focuses on translating emerging technologies into real business impact — designing governance models, scaling AI-driven decision solutions, and leading complex change programs across diverse geographies.
She has held regional and global leadership roles at Coca-Cola İçecek and Kraft Heinz MEA, where she led enterprise digital strategy, large-scale IT transformations, and cross-border integrations. Today, she serves as MEA Area Director of Digital & Technology at AstraZeneca, driving the technology agenda to advance science, transform patient care, and build future-ready capabilities for sustainable growth by unleashing the full potential of digital, data and AI.
She is a certified Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, completed MIT’s Leadership & Entrepreneurship program, holds a Statistics degree, and an Executive MBA.
Eugenia Dunaeva
CEO Ultralite, Partner at DVC, Board Advisor
Eugenia is an investor, board-level advisor, and former operator with experience leading partnerships and B2B organizations at a global level.
Today, she is the founder of Ultralite Consulting, where she supports high-growth startups and scaleups on go-to-market strategy, commercial growth, and open innovation.
As an active investor, Eugenia is an LP in four VC funds across the U.S. and Europe, with exposure to over 150 portfolio companies, including multiple unicorns.
She has been recognized as 30 Under 35 in Global Travel by Phocuswright (2021) and named among 30 Female VCs and Angels in Climate and Sustainability by ClimateHack (2023).
She is also an active mentor supporting women in tech and entrepreneurship.
Gediminas Pazera
AI Engineer at Develop Health
Gediminas Pažėra is an AI Engineer at Develop Health, where he builds generative AI systems that automate medication access for over 400,000 Americans monthly. Prior to Develop Health, he was Co-Founder and CTO of Radical Healthcare, a healthcare AI startup, and Founding Machine Learning Engineer at Lighten AI. He holds a DPhil in Chemical Physics from the University of Oxford before transitioning into healthcare AI. He is based in San Francisco.
