Welcoming two new Partners to our team

We have recently welcomed two new Partners to our team in New York City. They are accomplished professionals with extensive experience and exceptional talent, bringing invaluable expertise to our team and clients.

Please join us in welcoming the following new team members:

Varun Renjen is a physician who has been supporting biopharma clients as a strategy consultant for the past 15 years. His areas of focus are commercial strategy, growth strategy, medical affairs, and deals for life science companies worldwide.  He has supported both big pharma companies as well as emerging earlier-stage companies on a variety of strategic issues.

As a trained physician, Varun has worked and supported across all therapeutic areas and has been a clinical SME across projects. Core therapeutic areas include CNS, hematology/oncology, immunology, orphan diseases, and cardiometabolic amongst others. Within core therapeutic areas in commercial strategy, Varun has worked on disease area strategy, portfolio strategy/optimization, go to market strategy, market development, new product planning, asset evaluation, and commercial assessment/due diligence. Varun also has an extensive thought leadership history and has spoken and chaired several international sessions on a variety of topics.

Varun is most excited about helping our clients develop, prioritize, and commercialize therapeutics that will ultimately help people. The reason he became a consultant as a physician was to have the ability to help more people than he could have ever possibly helped practicing medicine.

Jo Ann brings over 20 years of C-level strategy and operational experience in the Healthcare field specializing in digital technology and data-driven business transformation initiatives, including: global digital and data analytics centers of excellence, enterprise and business unit AI/GenAI value programs, tech/data productization, 360 HCP customer master ecosystems, medical affairs digital innovation, sales force effectiveness platforms, M&A, and strategic partnerships with data providers, Big Tech and emerging tech companies.

She partners with clients to harness the power of their data, analytics, and AI to solve complex problems and drive sustainable business growth. Her expertise includes defining the strategy, business value case, data and capability readiness, and responsible AI requirements to develop proof of concepts (POCs), minimal viable products, and implementation at scale. She has delivered first to market NLP/ML solutions for Pharma clients in scientific literature review, conversational AI for patient support, and generative medical writing POCs, to name a few.

Prior to Putnam, Jo Ann was a Managing Director at Ernst & Young, LLC, in the Health Sciences & Wellness Commercial Consulting practice where she led business transformation initiatives in customer engagement, omnichannel and digital marketing, content excellence, GenAI innovation, and health equity data-driven commercial excellence. Earlier she also held the role of Chief Digital Officer (CDO) at Omnicom Health Group where she set the strategic direction for digital, data analytics and operational excellence.

She has a master’s in computer science, from New Jersey Institute of Technology and holds two bachelor’s degrees, in computer science and political science, from Rutgers University. She is also an advocate for women’s health and is the Chairwoman of the Northern New Jersey American Heart Association Board of Directors.

She’s most looking forward to meeting the Putnam team – learning about everyone’s experience, how they came to Putnam, and how they contribute to the growth of our company.