Former White House Health Policy Expert Strengthens APCO’s Growing Health Advisory Board

Washington, D.C. (June 20, 2012) – Bob Kocher, M.D., former special assistant to President Obama on health care and economic policy and former member of the National Economic Council, joins APCO’s Health Advisory Board and International Advisory Council, Founder and CEO Margery Kraus announced today.

“Dr. Kocher brings years of relevant health care and health policy experience, and his extensive knowledge makes him an exceptional addition to APCO’s growing Health Advisory Board,” said Kraus.

During his time at the White House, Kocher helped form health care reform legislation, was an active leader in the First Lady’s “Let’s Move” childhood obesity initiative, worked to build the foundation of Partnership for a Healthier America and served on the Federal Advisory Panel, which was given the task of developing a national anti-obesity strategy.

“I am pleased to join this dynamic group of experts and look forward to working with other industry leaders on issues that directly affect the current state of health care in our country,” said Kocher.

Prior to his tenure at the White House, Kocher was a partner at McKinsey & Co., where he led McKinsey Global Institute’s health care economics work and worked with various constituencies in the health care ecosystem to improve health policy, productivity, clinical outcomes and patient experience. He currently serves as a partner at Venrock, a venture capital firm that focuses on technology, health care and energy.

Kocher currently serves on the board of Castlight and the advisory boards of Harvard Medical School’s Health Care Policy Department, the University of Southern California’s Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics, the National Institute for Health Care Management, and ChildObesity180. He is also a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Engelberg Center for Health Reform and co-chair of the Health Data Initiative, a joint effort of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Institute of Medicine to release health care data to improve health care cost and quality through private-sector innovation.

APCO’s Health Advisory Board is a specialty group of the International Advisory Council that comprises former chief medical officers, public health leaders, heads of communication of large pharmaceutical and insurance companies, and former health policy officials.

Kocher joins many other health care and health policy experts at APCO, including Sir Liam Donaldson, former chief medical officer for England and chief medical adviser to the UK government; Leslie Norwalk, former acting administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS); Helen Ostrowski, former CEO of Porter Novelli and established leader in health care communication; Kavita Patel, former health policy advisor to the Obama administration; Bill Pierce, deputy assistant secretary for public affairs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS); Wayne Pines, former chief spokesman and chief of consumer education and information for the U.S. Food & Drug Administration; Kenneth Thorpe, former deputy assistant secretary at HHS; Lambert van der Walde, former CMS capital markets advisor; and Richard Wade, former senior executive at the American Hospital Association.