Rachel Rath | BARDA Alliance Director
Johnson & Johnson Innovation

Rachel is the Director of the BARDA Alliance for Johnson & Johnson Innovation, based at Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JLABS (JLABS) in Washington, DC. As BARDA Alliance Director, she is responsible for managing BLUE KNIGHT™, a joint initiative between JLABS and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), which aims to stimulate the innovation and incubation of science and technologies. Rachel leads the strategic direction, alliance management, and oversight of all operational activities related to the collaboration with BARDA, including managing the sourcing and selection of high potential companies for JLABS locations and developing global programming. Before joining JLABS, Rachel was the Chief of Staff for the National Evaluation System for health Technology Coordinating Center (NESTcc)—an initiative of the Medical Device Innovation Consortium (MDIC)—that was established with funding from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and was recognized in September 2019 as one of the first collaborative communities with participation by the FDA. Prior to joining NESTcc, Rachel worked at PCORI, helping to launch the Patient-Centered Clinical Research Network (PCORnet), a national effort to engage patients and leverage electronic health data to improve the speed and efficiency of clinical research in the United States. Rachel received her MBA from Georgetown University and MPH in global health policy from The George Washington University.