About

Short Bio

Dr. Raj Panjabi is a distinguished authority in health care, public policy, entrepreneurship, and technology. Dr. Panjabi is Senior Partner at Flagship Pioneering and on faculty at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Panjabi served in the Biden-Harris Administration (2021-2023). As White House Senior Director and Special Assistant to the President, Panjabi served as the top pandemic and health official at the National Security Council. He played a pivotal role in the largest vaccination campaign in history against COVID-19 and responses to public health crises, including Mpox, Influenza and Ebola. He played a lead role executing the 2022 National Biodefense and American Pandemic Preparedness Plans, coordinating over $12 billion in annual investment across 16 federal agencies in biodefense, including in disease surveillance, diagnostics, therapeutics, vaccines and health systems. Panjabi helped oversee implementation of the President’s 2022 Bioeconomy Executive Order, directing federal agencies to drive research and development, streamline regulation, grow manufacturing, and expand markets for biotechnology products, including by leveraging artificial intelligence.

Dr. Panjabi oversaw implementation of the 2022 U.S. Global Health Security Act, authorizing $5 billion and expanding health investments across 50 countries. He co-developed the President’s COVID-19 and health security initiatives with the G7, G20, and regional bodies, including efforts to organize Presidential Summits, launch the Pandemic Fund at the World Bank, negotiate the WHO Pandemic Accord and uphold the UN Biological Weapons Convention.

Panjabi held top healthcare executive roles. Leading the U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative, he helped launch the world’s first malaria vaccine, create a strategy to prevent 1 billion cases and manage a $800 million enterprise protecting 700 million people across 30 countries. For 14 years he was Co-Founder and CEO of Last Mile Health, an enterprise leveraging digital technology to train thousands of healthcare providers serving millions of people.

Dr. Panjabi has cared for outpatients on Medicaid and Medicare in federally qualified health centers pioneering value-based care and inpatients at Mass General Brigham.

Panjabi has served on numerous boards, councils and commissions. One of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People in the World and TIME’s 50 Most Influential People in Healthcare, he was twice named to the FORTUNE World’s 50 Greatest Leaders list. 

Long Bio

The Honorable Raj Panjabi is a distinguished authority in healthcare, public policy, entrepreneurship, and technology. Dr. Panjabi is Senior Partner at Flagship Pioneering, where he leads Preemptive Health and Medicine, and on faculty at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Panjabi served in the Biden-Harris Administration (2021-2023). As White House Senior Director and Special Assistant to the President  for biodefense and global health security, Panjabi served as the top health official at the National Security Council. He played a pivotal role in the largest vaccination campaign in history against COVID-19 and White House responses to public health crises, including Mpox, Influenza, RSV, Ebola, and Marburg, collaborating with international, state, and local officials and CEOs of companies, philanthropies, and non-profit organizations.  He played a lead role executing the 2022 National Biodefense and American Pandemic Preparedness Plans, coordinating over $12 billion in annual investment in biodefense, including in disease surveillance, diagnostics, therapeutics, vaccines and health systems. These investments are being driven by 16 federal agencies, including the Departments of Health and Human Services, Defense, Homeland Security, State, and the U.S. Agency for International Development. Panjabi also helped oversee implementation of the President’s 2022 Executive Order on Advancing Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Innovation, which directed federal agencies to drive research and development, streamline regulation, grow manufacturing, and expand markets for biotechnology products, including by leveraging artificial intelligence and synthetic biology. 

Internationally, Dr. Panjabi oversaw negotiation and White House implementation of the 2022 U.S. Global Health Security and International Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response Act, which authorized $5 billion, expanding U.S. health investments in over 50 countries across Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. He co-developed the President’s COVID-19 and health security initiatives with the G7, G20, European Union, ASEAN, Quad (India, Australia, Japan, U.S.), CARICOM, and African Union, including efforts to organize Presidential Summits, launch the Pandemic Fund at the World Bank, negotiate the Pandemic Accord at the World Health Organization, and uphold the United Nations' Biological Weapons Convention. 

Panjabi previously held top executive roles in the private and public sector. Panjabi was appointed by President Biden as the head of the U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative, where he oversaw efforts to help launch the world’s first malaria vaccine, create a new strategy to help prevent 1 billion malaria cases, and manage $800 million of annual investment in diagnostics, treatments, and disease surveillance to protect 700 million people across 30 countries in Africa and Asia. Previously, he served for fourteen years as Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Last Mile Health, an enterprise that leverages digital technology to train thousands of healthcare providers delivering medicines and diagnostics to millions of people. As CEO, he established the board of directors, raised hundreds of millions of dollars from leading investors, scaled a multinational operation, and was the subject of a Harvard Business School case study. 

Dr. Panjabi was inspired by work with the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium early in his career training community health practitioners in telemedicine. An actively licensed physician, from 2008-2021, Dr. Panjabi cared for outpatients on Medicaid and Medicare in federally qualified health centers pioneering value-based care and for inpatients at Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women’s Hospitals. While in the White House, he brought his frontline experiences to bear while contributing to White House review of select health policies, including a Presidential report on supporting America’s Public Health Workforce and the CMS 2024 Physician Fee Schedule which implemented a new rule to pay separately for Community Health Integration, Social Determinants of Health Risk Assessment, and Principal Illness Navigation services for patients with cancer and chronic illnesses.

Panjabi has been Entrepreneur in Residence at Emerson Collective and lectured at Harvard Medical School, Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and Harvard Business School. He has delivered hundreds of speeches and presentations, including award-winning TED Talks, and authored numerous publications in the scientific and popular press. 

From the board room to the White House Situation Room, Panjabi has led teams through high-stakes decisions, including service on numerous boards, councils and commissions. These organizations include venture backed AI-driven health technology companies, Merck for Mothers, Johnson & Johnson Global Public Health, the Global Fund for AIDS Tuberculosis and Malaria (as part of the U.S. constituency), the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense (Ex-Officio Member), WHO Foundation, the Skoll Foundation, Echoing Green, Doctors for America, Last Mile Health, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Presidential Foundation, Healthcare Without Harm and Practice GreenHealth, and the World Health Organization’s Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, (as advisor to former Heads of State, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia and Helen Clark of New Zealand). 

One of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People in the World and TIME’s 50 Most Influential People in Healthcare, and twice named to the FORTUNE World’s 50 Greatest Leaders list, Panjabi has received the TED Prize, Clinton Global Citizen Award from President Bill Clinton, Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, and World Economic Forum’s Social Entrepreneur of the Year award. Panjabi was knighted by President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and the Government of Liberia, and in 2023 received the Dean’s Medal, the highest recognition Johns Hopkins University confers on public health leaders and the university’s Distinguished Public Service Award. 

Panjabi earned a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry and doctoral degree in medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a master’s degree in epidemiology and biostatistics at Johns Hopkins University and trained in internal medicine and as a clinical fellow at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital.

Panjabi's parents migrated from India to Liberia, where Panjabi was born and raised. After civil war broke out in Liberia in 1989, Panjabi and his family fled and were resettled in North Carolina. He now lives with his family in the Washington, D.C. area.