Healthcare Brew covers pharmaceutical developments, health startups, the latest tech, and how it impacts hospitals and providers to keep administrators and providers informed.

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Ever since he was a kid, Ryan Gibney, UCI Health’s associate medical director at its Orange, California, facility and an emergency medicine physician, knew he wanted to be a doctor.

But before that happened, he worked in the service industry for many years—and performed in a band—while he studied at med school. Once he took the plunge, he had a “meteoric rise” from residency to leadership, which includes serving as the incoming medical director of the health system’s new Irvine site, scheduled to open later this year.

Healthcare Brew spoke with Gibney about his career and what he’s hoping to accomplish in his new role.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

How did you go from working in the hospitality industry to the hospital industry, and what did it teach you?

I moved out to California, where my mom had moved in the interim, and I ended up starting back in the service industry at a bar and restaurant in the area. It wasn’t until 2007 when I got married that I decided that looking longevity-wise and raising a family and that kind of career didn’t really kind of go hand in hand. And I did a very thorough self-inventory and said that I’m going to go back to college.

We actively look for people that have service experience. It teaches you a lot about people, a lot about anticipating needs, multitasking, and the behaviors that exist in emergency medicine. And I think if you want to be a reductionist about medicine in general, it is a service industry.

What was one of the most unexpected parts of transitioning into the medical field?

I found it to be so similar to working at a bar that it was almost off-putting.

I will say that this meteoric rise to admin and leadership is something I didn’t expect this fast. I’ve been in a full-fledged attending career—this is now my fifth year—and I’m already in charge of opening a new emergency room and hiring staff, and I’m involved in leadership strategy for the entire hospital. That’s a lot of very quick learning, but I think a lot of it comes from that route in the service industry and my life experience, being in my 40s and starting my career here instead of my 20s. I think that the ability to speak and interact with people and anticipate needs and see in a different way has lent itself to building this skill set quickly.

Can you tell me about your new role at the UCI Health – Irvine hospital and how it might change compared to what you’re currently working on?

From a clinical lens, the work is going to be similar. I mean, emergency room is emergency room.

You know, in the service industry you do the soft opening, the friends and family, and all the policy procedures. That’s what we’re doing right now. It’s really all about the strategy of prepping as best as we possibly can, so on day one, when we open, we are really representing what we can do here at UCI.

Within the larger hospital world, what do you think needs to change the most?

 and that have challenges to access have led to this critical national problem of patients carrying out all their care in the emergency department—even their inpatient care—and it forces our work further and further out of the physical spaces that are designated as emergency medicine to where you’re doing stuff in the waiting room. Nationally, this is a problem. Locally, this is a problem. There’s a lot of downward pressure to do all these things that are just almost not possible in the primary care space.

The medical director of UCI Health, Ryan Gibney, a man in a necktie and lab coat

From hospitality to hospitals, UCI Health's Ryan Gibney talks career moves and industry pain points

The emergency medicine physician will be UCI Health’s medical director at its new facility opening later this year.

From hospitality to hospitals, Ryan Gibney talks career moves and industry pain points

illustrated headshot of caroline catherman, healthcare brew reporter

Caroline Catherman

Wondering who’s in and who’s out at major health companies, emerging startups, hospitals, and more? We’ve got you covered.

After more than four years as a regional CEO at UnitedHealthcare Community & State, the company made Cotton CEO of its Medicaid business, filling a role that now Optum Health COO Krista Nelson left in May, Becker’s Payer Issues 

The president and CEO of Sioux Falls, South Dakota-based Sanford Health has been named as the American Hospital Association’s Board of Trustees chair-elect designate. He’ll serve as chair-elect of the trade group in 2026 and become chair in 2027.

 post, Hunter announced he’s now UnitedHealthcare’s CEO of government programs, an expansion of his previous role, CEO of Medicare and retirement.

Medications savings platform GoodRx has tapped Jensen as its chief commercial officer and president of pharma solutions, effective July 28, where she’ll manage and grow partnerships with the pharmaceutical industry. She was previously head of manufacturer and provider business development at Amazon Pharmacy.

 Xaira Therapeutics, a Brisbane, California-based biotech startup, appointed Jonker as president and COO on July 9. He previously served as president and CEO of drug discovery company Belharra Therapeutics.

Biotech startup Diagonal Therapeutics appointed the physician–scientist as its chief medical officer on July 8. He has held executive roles at Merck and Bristol Myers Squibb, and most recently was chief medical officer of another biotech startup, Nuevocor.

Bristol Myers Squibb turned to AstraZeneca for its new EVP, chief medical officer, and head of development. Massacesi—up until now, chief medical officer and oncology chief development officer for AstraZeneca—will take on the new roles on Aug. 1, when the old chief medical officer and head of development, Samit Hirawat, leaves.

 Becton, Dickinson and Company (BD) tapped Muhsin to be the company’s EVP plus the president of its soon-to-begin Connected Care segment, which will focus on advanced analytics and AI solutions. Muhsin came to BD after 25 years at Masimo, a health tech and consumer electronics manufacturer.

The Stanford University school of medicine professor was appointed director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research on July 21.

Healthcare Brew's August on Rotation editorial feature

On Rotation: July 2025

We keep our fingers on the pulse of who’s moving where in the healthcare world.

Sarepta Therapeutics is laying off 36% of staff—500 employees—a move expected to be “substantially completed” by the end of Q3, it announced in a July 16 

As part of these changes, the company is scrambling its C-suite:

The company is terminating Dallan Murray, EVP and chief customer officer, though he will remain a consultant through January 2026.

Ian Estepan, former EVP and CFO, is now president and chief operating officer.

Former president and CEO Douglas Ingram will solely be CEO from now on.

Ryan Wong has taken over Estepan’s old positions.

Louise Rodino-Klapac is now the company’s president of R&D and technical operations. She was previously EVP and chief scientific officer, and headed R&D.

Sarepta will also add a black-box warning—the most serious kind—for acute liver injury and failure for Elevidys, per the FDA’s request. Elevidys, the company’s most profitable product, is the only FDA-approved gene therapy for deadly muscle-wasting disease Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

Elevidys has been somewhat controversial since its June 2024 approval.

Then-director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research Peter Marks overruled his staff to give the drug full approval for ambulatory patients ages 4+ and accelerated approval to nonambulatory patients.

This happened even though the FDA’s clinical and clinical and clinical pharmacology review team wrote it had “no satisfactory data to support effectiveness claims for all ages and for nonambulatory patients,” 

In the year since the drug’s approval, two nonambulatory patients taking Elevidys died of acute liver failure. One case was disclosed in 

After the second death, Sarepta announced it was pausing shipping Elevidys to nonambulatory patients.

Sarepta added in its July 16 update that an internal expert committee has devised an “enhanced immunosuppressive regimen” for nonambulatory patients to take in order to reduce their chances of acute liver failure.

The company plans to submit that to the FDA and start gathering evidence on how to safely resume the treatment in patients who can’t walk.

In total, more than 900 people have taken the drug worldwide, according to the company.

the Sarepta Therapeutics company logo is seen displayed on a smartphone screen.

Sarepta to cut 36% of staff, add black-box warning to Elevidys

The layoffs come after two deaths of patients who had taken its most profitable product, Elevidys. 

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On June 10, Bobby Mukkamala was inaugurated as the 180th president of the American Medical Association (AMA).

An otolaryngologist from Flint, Michigan, Mukkamal chairs the organization’s substance use and pain care task force, won the AMA Foundation’s Excellence in Medicine Leadership Award last June, and served on the AMA board of trustees in 2017 and 2021.

He spoke with Healthcare Brew about how his recent brain tumor diagnosis has informed his leadership at AMA and his plans for the new role.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Why did you want to become president of the AMA? What are your goals?

I have a slightly different answer than before. Up until I became a patient, it was all about my practice of medicine and just the hassles around trying to take good care of patients. Hassles like 

…That hassle factor was something that bothered me, and it bothered my patients.

Now, I’m a patient with something that puts me on death’s door. As far as having a big brain tumor and navigating the system, nobody’s going to have it better than me as far as access to the neurosurgeons that do exactly this kind of operation. That is unique. Inequity exists in our country…As a patient, I experienced the difference between what I have and what everybody else has.

What should people be paying attention to with the AMA? 

What I love about the AMA is that when we come up with our policies, it involves every state and every specialty in the country. It’s a room of almost 1,000 doctors who share the stories behind why they want to add something to our policies through a resolution. So when we approve something as a House of Delegates, it’s because it’s important to the majority of physicians in this country.

Another thing I became very passionate about was I became board certified in lifestyle medicine. The goal of lifestyle medicine is to prevent disease. Working on keeping people healthy and out of the hospital by eating the right things, by sleeping the right amount, by getting the right amount of exercise, by avoiding things like smoking and minimizing alcohol, by being social. The more we focus on prevention of disease—keeping people healthy—the less it’s going to cost us in the long run.

What do you expect will change in the industry in the next five or 10 years?

I predict that things will improve. I think the pendulum from when my parents were in practice and loving it to where we are now, this other end of the pendulum where physicians are just like, “You know what? I don’t want to deal with this anymore.” I predict that in five years, we’ll move a little bit back in that direction.

When we share stories with the people who are in a position to change the direction that we’re going, by things like regulation and who can do what, I’m optimistic we can at least move in the right direction.

American Medical Association president Bobby Mukkamala

AMA president shares goals, challenges for physicians 

Bobby Mukkamala, an otolaryngologist, shares his plans as AMA president. 

Each month, we highlight some of the major job changes in the healthcare sector, from small startups bringing in new leadership to big orgs trading seasoned execs.

Here’s a noncomprehensive roundup of the past month’s career shifts.

Have a job announcement to share? Drop Caroline an email at 

 Repertoire Immune Medicines, a Flagship Pioneering-founded biotech company focused on programmable T cell-targeted immune medicines, announced June 4 that Andtbacka would be joining as chief medical officer. He most recently served in the same role at HiFiBiO Therapeutics, a clinical- stage biotherapeutics company.

On June 9, health tech company Medtronic announced Benedict as the new SVP and president of the company’s acute care and monitoring business.

The last SVP and president of Medtronic’s acute care and monitoring business announced his departure three months ago on 

, and has since started as EVP and COO at another medtech company, Haemonetics.

After a year as chief commercial officer for remote cardiac monitoring platform Pacemate, Finkelmeier is becoming CEO. Current CEO and co-founder Tripp Higgins will become chair of the board of directors, the company announced June 5.

After almost 25 years in various executive roles at Sanofi, Gurunathan has left the biopharma company to lead vaccine and infectious disease R&D for GSK, according to 

After 24 years, CEO of the Federation of American Hospitals will retire from his role at the end of the year, the trade association announced in an interview with 

On June 2, biopharma company Ardelyx announced its former EVP of corporate development and strategy as its chief business officer.

Navvis, a population health company, named the former Mass General Brigham exec as market president and physician executive on June 3. She will help guide the company’s partnership with Tufts Medicine, according to a press release.

 Telehealth and virtual care solutions provider Wheel tapped Monaco as SVP and head of product on June 1. She was most recently SVP of product and engineering at Truepill, a digital pharmacy services provider.

 Wisp, a telehealth company focused on women’s health care, announced the physician as its chief medical officer on June 10.

After working as an anesthesiologist and then a Wall Street analyst, Shibutani will now become Bristol Myers Squibb’s new EVP and chief strategy officer, the company announced in a June 9 

On Rotation: June 2025 health exec moves

Wondering who’s in and who’s out at major startups, health companies, and hospitals? We’ve got you.

This year has been a rollercoaster for the pharmaceutical industry, and at this point, it’s unclear whether the ride is about to stop or if we’re at the top of another drop.

The industry overall has posted mixed earnings so far, with companies performing better than expected in some categories but falling short in others, Healthcare Brew 

So, though we regularly do roundups of people being appointed to 

, this time we’re filling you in on some of 2025’s pharma layoffs so far.

The Germany-based pharmaceutical company laid off about 2,000 employees worldwide in Q1, 

The New Jersey-based company is laying off 516 employees in Lawrenceville, according to a 

 filed with the state. This is the third round of layoffs it has reported in Lawrenceville this year, bringing the total number of terminated—or planned to be terminated—employees to 806 as of May 5.

 The New York-based pharma giant laid off 56 workers in its San Diego office, effective June 2, according to 

 in February that Moderna had eliminated 10% of roles, about 50 people, across two digital departments. A former employee alleged to 

 there have been more layoffs this year that were not publicly disclosed. A company spokesperson reportedly told the Globe the company had no comment.

 Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche has axed hundreds of roles this year, including 143 at its San Francisco-based subsidiary Genentech, as originally 

 by the San Francisco Chronicle, and 108 at its molecular systems division in Santa Clara, according to state documents.

The Rahway, New Jersey-based company gave 

 to the Pennsylvania government that it’s closing its Montour County manufacturing site, cutting 163 positions starting in May and ending sometime in 2026.

The Israel-based company will lay off about 2,400 people by 2027—8% of its 30,000 employees—as part of a broader restructuring effort, according to an earnings presentation reported on by 

Woman looking through microscope on left, Notice of Employee Termination doc on right