IntuitiveX appoints Desney Tan as senior advisor, chief technologist

Life science consultancy IntuitiveX has named Desney Tan senior advisor and chief technologist. In the role, Tan will advise the IntuitiveX team on matters regarding strategy, research, technical development, and business creation.

"We are absolutely thrilled to have Desney join the IntuitiveX team as our senior advisor and chief technologist," Dr. Jeffrey Roh, CEO of IntuitiveX, said. "Desney has been a leading innovator in the digital health space his entire career and will add significant value to our mission of helping life science startups take their ideas from concept to commercialization."

Tan is the current general manager of Microsoft Healthcare, where his duties include the development of strategy, research, technical development, and business creation. He also focuses on AI-based healthcare solutions, as well as multi-omics technology, which uses data from “omes” such as genomes and microbiomes. He has worked at Microsoft for 15 years in various capacities, including as senior director of the company’s medical devices group and principal research manager of its computational user experiences group.

Tan is also an affiliate professor in the computer science faculty at the University of Washington. From 1999 to 2002, he worked for Walt Disney Imagineering as a virtual reality designer, developer, and user experience playtester for rides at DisneyQuest theme parks. He holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the University of Notre Dame, as well as a PhD in philosophy from Carnegie Mellon University.

"Medical innovation is hard, very hard. It is also arguably one of the most critical things we must succeed at as a society," Tan said. "IntuitiveX works with the most creative and driven entrepreneurs to turn their ideas into reality and in so doing, to help them improve human health and wellbeing. I am extremely honored to join this amazing team and look forward to helping accelerate innovative success."

IntuitiveX is based in Seattle, Washington. It assists companies – often those involved in healthcare in some capacity – via services such as the creation of in strategies that move from conceptualization to commercialization; the securement of patents; research and development; and IP monetization.