And Your 2024 Healio Disruptive Innovators Are...

PHILADELPHIA — This year during the American College of Gastroenterology Annual Meeting, Healio Gastroenterology celebrated its seventh Healio Disruptive Innovator Awards.

Each of the awardees in the nine categories represent the core of gastroenterology and hepatology as they seek to innovate and disrupt the practice of medicine. The winners were selected by you – our readers – who casted more than 3,500 votes to decide who was truly disrupting the field among a very impressive list of physicians, researchers, influencers and institutions.

Edward V. Loftus, MD, chief medical editor for Healio Gastroenterology, and Ugo Iroku, MD, co-founder of the Association for Black Gastroenterologists and Hepatologists, hosted the celebration.

The ceremony also brought the introduction to Healio Community, a new gated platform focused on clinician wellness where health care professionals of any specialty can connect with peers, join discussions, look for job opportunities, take part in a mentoring program and more. Healio invites everyone to become part of the community.

Clinical Innovation Award

The Clinical Innovation Award winner, given in long-time partnership with the American College of Gastroenterology, goes to a physician or institution that changed the face of the gastroenterology practice.

The awardee is seen as an example of how patient care can be improved through changes in administration, technique, or the delivery of value-based care.

This year’s winner is Lin Chang, MD, AGAF, FACG.

Chang is the vice-chief of the Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases at UCLA, co-director of the G. Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience, director of the Clinical Studies and Database Core of the Goodman-Luskin Microbiome Center, and program director of the UCLA Gastroenterology Fellowship Program. Dr. Chang’s clinical expertise is in disorders of gut-brain interactions including IBS, chronic constipation, and functional dyspepsia.

She is a peerless collaborator who recently led the charge for a joint guideline from ACG and AGA on pharmacologic management of idiopathic constipation with co-author William Chey, MD, AGAF, FACG, FACP, a former winner of this same award. She played an instrumental role in joining together authors on behalf of both ACG and the AGA to provide evidence-based practice guidance to clinicians.

Chang is also an involved and exemplary mentor, ensuring her impact on patient care will continue in the work of rising gastroenterologists. This Clinical Innovation Award recognizes her significant clinical and research contributions to GI patient care, and honors her spirit of cooperation and collaboration

Woman Disruptor of the Year

The Woman Disruptor of the Year, given in collaboration with Scrubs & Heels, goes to a woman in the field of GI who leads by example and inspires the next generation of women to build a successful career in the field.

The awardee has a career of positive disruption and recent advancements through which she has made a beneficial impact in GI.

The Woman Disruptor of the Year is Sonia Kupfer, MD, AGAF.

Kupfer works tirelessly to push for equity in gastroenterology and beyond, specifically speaking to the need for access to genetic testing in underserved communities, which allows for more effective and equitable treatment of diseases like colon cancer.

After receiving a Young Investigator award just 5 years ago, Kupfer built her career through research and clinical impact. She now mentors the next generation of clinician scientists as she continues to bring light to the immediate needs of hereditary cancer in gastroenterology.

Rising Disruptor

The Rising Disruptor award, given in collaboration with Cleveland Clinic, goes to an up-and-coming physician who is already disrupting the status quo in the field, whether through new techniques, new thoughts, questioning methods or breakthrough research.

The awardee consistently comes to mind when we discuss “the next big thing.”

This year’s Rising Disruptor is Manasi Agrawal, MD, MS.

Agrawal is an assistant professor at Mount Sinai in New York, where her passion for good science and impressive research shines through. Her recent work with Predict IBD put her front and center at many conferences and institutions.

With increased concern over environmental impact on IBD development, Agrawal’s star will only shine brighter as she continues to research early IBD triggers and treatments.

Social Media Influencer

The Healio Social Media Influencer award goes to a health care professional who makes a positive impact on social media through platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and leads continued innovation in health care practitioner use of new platforms.

The awardee is a trusted resource for their peers amid the din of social media and upholds the core value of collaboration through their interactions with other health care providers, patients and society.

Our winner this year represents all of those characteristics on a global scale.

Beatriz Gros, MD, of the Reina Sofía University Hospital in Cordoba, Spain, best known as @dr.beatrizgros on Instagram, is this year’s winner.

Gros is a practicing gastroenterologist who launched her site IBD-EII.com to help share evidence-based data about IBD in a quick, easy-to-digest way. She invites collaborators to contribute to the site and shares her knowledge via social media.

Nominated by multiple leaders in the field, Gros has definitely made a name for herself through her knowledge sharing.

Healio Health Equity

The Healio Health Equity Award goes to a physician who has made meaningful change to overcome the social determinants of health in gastroenterology.

The awardee is seen as a model of how identifying and addressing social determinants of health can improve patient care.

This year’s winner embodies the importance of representation and the commitment of caring for the underserved.

Congratulations, Christopher Vélez, MD, on being the 2024 Health Equity award winner.

Vélez is an outspoken advocate for LGBTQ+ and other historically marginalized patient groups, laying the groundwork for health care providers to better care for these patients. He is not only outspoken in regard to this need but publishes research and backs his advocacy with science.

He speaks from his own experiences as an early career GI where he found his identity intersecting with his career, realizing he could become a voice for patients and health care professionals alike.

Vélez proudly worked with our 2023 winner, Sonali Paul, MD, to create a safe space for gastroenterologists in the LGBTQ+ community.

Lifetime Disruptor

The Lifetime Disruptor award, given in collaboration with Women in Endoscopy, goes to a gastroenterologist or hepatologist who consistently pushed their field forward through innovative treatments, practice management, patient care or research.

The awardee is seen as a leader in their subspecialty whose contributions to the field garner recognition of incoming physicians.

This year’s Lifetime Disruptor is Jennifer Christie, AGAF, FASGE.

Christie has led the field of endoscopy for many years, recently serving as the president of the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy and joining the University of Colorado as the Division Head for gastroenterology and hepatology.

Always coming from a place of leadership as well as empathy, Christie put her words and education into action time and again. She pushed to bring procedural GI back to the forefront of treatment, fought for better compensation for us as physicians and spoke out during the difficult times in both medicine and society throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

During her ASGE presidency, Christie launched the Elevate Leadership initiative. This initiative includes a weekend-long retreat targets early-career physicians underrepresented in medicine to equip them with the tools they need for success and improve medicine through diversity.

Though she still has plenty of career ahead of her, WIE and Healio are proud to recognize all she has already done.

Partner in Practice

This year, the Rome Foundation and Healio joined together to collaborate on the newly named Partner in Practice award.

Introduced last year, this award goes to an allied health provider whose innovative approaches improve patient outcomes or quality of care.

The 2024 Partner in Practice winner is Nancee Jaffe, MS, RDN, lead — and founding — dietitian for the UCLA Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases.

What started as a personal journey with a parasite she contracted in Ecuador to an eventual celiac disease diagnosis, Jaffe dedicated her career to helping patients living with digestive disorders get the care they need.

Be it through her integrative clinical nutrition practice at UCLA, her many patient-facing programs and initiatives, her scientific collaborations driving innovative diet solutions for chronic GI conditions, or through her national leadership in nutritional education to dietitians, gastroenterologists and other health care professionals — including as a leader within the Rome Foundation’s newly formed Diet and Nutrition Section — Jaffe epitomizes what it means to be a partner in practice.

Patient Voice

Given in collaboration with ABGH, the Patient Voice award goes to an advocate who moved the needle in public discussions with patients and patient groups, improving communication between patients and providers and using their experience to push legislative or regulatory action.

When an individual has the personal and professional experience to bring together multiple organizations for a cause that is so often overlooked, you have a seemingly unstoppable force.

That is exactly how many would describe Donna Cryer, JD.

Cryer is a powerful combination: Harvard and Georgetown-trained lawyer, liver transplant recipient, health care consultant, living with IBD, motivational speaker and so much more.

She founded and continues to sit on the board of Global Liver Institute, which stands as the only patient-driven liver health nonprofit working in the US, Europe and the UK. She raised more than $10 million for liver health initiatives, becoming a voice for those underrepresented in clinical trials, organ procurement and health care societies across many specialties.

Cryer very much embodies the core value of service in gastroenterology and hepatology.

Industry Breakthrough

The Healio Industry Breakthrough Award goes to a product that stands out as a major disruption to the practice of gastroenterology. The awardee will have been acknowledged in practice guidelines and enthusiastically integrated into practice.

This year’s winner is Voquezna (vonoprazan, Phathom Pharmaceuticals).

Voquezna is a new class of acid suppression therapy and marks the first innovation in the treatment of GERD market in over 3 decades. It was first approved by the FDA in late 2023 for the treatment of erosive esophagitis and relief of related heartburn, and in combination with antibiotics for the eradication of H. pylori infection.

Earlier this year, Voquezna’s indication was expanded for the relief of heartburn associated with non-erosive GERD — the largest category of GERD with an estimated 45 million U.S. adults living with the disease.

Voquezna is the first and only FDA-approved treatment of its kind to help effectively provide 24-hour heartburn relief for adults with GERD, in addition to helping heal and maintain healing of acid-related damage to the lining of the esophagus caused by erosive esophagitis.

Voquezna demonstrated superiority versus a standard-of-care PPI in two pivotal multinational phase 3 trials and its novel mechanism of action provides rapid, potent, and durable acid suppression that is distinct from other prescription and over-the-counter medications.

Phathom Pharmaceuticals chief medical officer Eckhard Leifke accepted the award.