SoPE Houston is uniquely positioned in the home of the world’s largest medical center. Under the guidance of Dr. Sudhen Desai, the SoPE chapter organically assembles medical entrepreneurs in every stage startup, from idea conception to mature entrepreneurs with an eye towards exit. The SoPE Houston board is assembled with diversity in mind – leaders in medical entrepreneurship, seasoned medical inventors and entrepreneurs, a lawyer in the health IT space, and a materials scientist in additive manufacturing. Houston SoPE supports local entrepreneurs in many ways, including hosting talks, providing feedback on idea vetting and investment pitches, and providing access to a network of subject matter experts, both technical and financial.
Sara Rogers, PharmD
Director of Clinical Affairs, American Society of Pharmacovigilance
Sara Rogers is a founding board member and Director of Clinical Affairs at the American Society of Pharmacovigilance where she leads the Society’s clinical, research, and educational initiatives. Dr. Rogers is a member of the Clinical Pharmacogenetics Implementation Consortium (CPIC), Chairman of the Pharmacogenomics Access and Reimbursement Coalition (PARC), and an organizational member of the NIH National Human Genomics Research Institute (NHGRI) Inter-Society Coordinating Committee. She co-developed and serves on the Steering Committee for the Standardizing Laboratory Practices in Pharmacogenomics (STRIPE) Collaborative Community, a public-private multidisciplinary initiative to accelerate the development of personalized medicine practices as a standard of care. The STRIPE Initiative has engaged stakeholders across 15 different health care sectors in participating, including the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH).
As a clinician-scientist, Dr. Rogers conducts patient-centered research aimed at understanding the ethical and practical implications of pharmacogenomics. Prior to serving in these roles, Dr. Rogers was an Ambulatory Treatment Center Pharmacist at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. She received her PharmD from the University of Houston College of Pharmacy and holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas at Austin with a concentration in biology.
Email: sara@stopadr.org
Phone: (469) 939-8475
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sara-rogers-texas/
Dr. Velamuri, M.D. is a board-certified Internal Medicine physician who has served on process improvement, health informatics and patient safety committees at numerous large hospitals in and around the greater Houston area. He was named lead hospitalist at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM)- Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI) on the sepsis committee, was appointed the 2018 Sepsis Champion for HCA-Houston and has served as the Medical Director of Kindred Hospitals Houston which is a Fortune 500 company. He is an active board member at the Texas Medical Center Sepsis Collaborative.
He has worked as a hospitalist taking care of patients in internal medicine for heart, lung, liver transplant and LVADs at CHI- St. Luke’s- Houston (Baylor College of Medicine) prior to transitioning to HCA- Houston. He has been a guest speaker for GHSHRM ‘19 (Greater Houston society for Healthcare Risk Management), the FBI’s Biotechnology Security Summit ‘19, HIMSS Houston educational session on sepsis workflow ’19, University of Berkley Cal Hacks for COVID panel ’20, Keynote speaker for Stanford University’s Hack from Home healthcare innovation hackathon ’20, Phoenix Award recipient HTX ‘20.
Dr. Velamuri is an advisor to the TMC Innovation center companies– a partner with the US Department of Health and Human Services in their BARDA-led initiative to stop sepsis. He mentors, invests and advises companies; serves as a SME for investment firms and healthcare systems internationally in the biotech space apart from serving on non-profit boards. He is driven to bring innovation to Hospitals in order decrease unnecessary suffering of patients as President and CEO of Luminare, Inc. His work with Luminare was awarded “Most Promising Web & IT Company” in the US by the Rice Alliance for Web & IT and is a part of the Texas Medical Center’s Innovation Institute (TMCx).
Luminare also built and deployed Quickscreen to 5MM people in Houston during the COVID crises for self-assessment and been used over 1,000,000 times in over 500 organizations, and partnered with the CDC on their software to stop sepsis in hospitals. Their solution is also being used to deploy the COVID vaccine in partnership with cities.
Dr.Velamuri completed medical school at the St.Petersburg Medical University of Pavlov where he wrote a textbook chapter on neuroanatomy, done research on ischemic preconditioning of the brain & heart and research on adult bone-marrow derived stem-cell research on decreasing stroke and myocardial infarction. Internal Medicine residency at BCM Houston. He lives in Houston, speaks 5 languages and for fun likes to bike or be at a beach or out in the woods.
Email: sarma.velamuri@luminaremed.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarmavelamuri/
Phone: (832) 693-7075
Five Top Reasons You Should Attend Houston SoPE Chapter events
- Learn by Example & perfect your own!
- Understand what seasoned investors expect in real life terms
- Networking with like-minded professionals
- Create your own Due Diligence process
- Be Part of It!
English 
Chinese 
Hindi 
Spanish 
Arabic 
German 
French 
Portuguese 
Bengali 
Russian 
Persian 
Indonesian 
Urdu 
Japanese 
Marathi 
Telugu 
Turkish 
Tamil 
Korean 
Italian 
Hebrew 
Vietnamese