Commercial Strategy Lead-Digital Health at Astellas Pharmaceutical
Through multi-faceted roles in early-stage venture development, including intrapreneurship program leadership, corporate & venture investing, and R&D strategy initiatives, Arun Bhatia has developed a passion for developing a bridge between corporate and startup innovation and the strategic growth of new healthcare ventures.
Arun currently serves as Commercial Strategy Lead-Digital Health within Astellas Pharmaceutical’s Rx+ Business Accelerator. Prior to working as Principle, Healthcare & Consumer Practice within BCE, a management consulting firm, he served as Open Innovation and Startup Engagement Lead for Roche Diabetes Care (RDC) where he helped develop and execute RDC’s startup engagement process including sourcing, structured experimentation, and piloting of early-stage digital and device solutions. Arun’s work in digital health began as Sr. Director, Partner Engagement for MATTER, a healthcare & life science technology incubator in Chicago serving over 200 start-up companies and 65 industry partners where he led strategic program design, and supported industry partners’ innovation efforts. Arun spent 6 years at Baxter Healthcare where he was responsible for early-stage venture development initiatives including innovation strategy design, intrapreneurship program leadership, and corporate venture evaluation and investing through Baxter Ventures. He also served university-stage start-up development and investment at IllinoisVENTURES, the venture arm of the University of Illinois.
Arun’s passion for healthcare innovation was fostered through an MBA in entrepreneurship from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, an MS in biotechnology from the Illinois Institute of Technology, and a BS in Biochemistry from the University of Rochester, NY.