Many of us who've worked for some time in genomics will remember Katherine Szarama PhD, who was one of the CMS coverage group staff assigned to the ground breaking NCD guaranteeing coverage of FDA-approved NGS companion diagnostics (e.g. Foundation Medicine circa 2017).
Szarama is now Deputy Center Director for CBER, the center for biologicals at FDA.
Find her at Linked In:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/katherine-b-szarama-phd-627a172b/
Szarama worked at CMS 2016-2019. She left CMS to join the Emerson Collective, then Arnold Ventures 2022-2025. She was with the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, ARPA-H, most of 2025, January to fall 2025, before shifting over to the FDA.
See also a note at RAPS.org,
Noting,
According to MedPage Today, Vinay Prasad, the director of CBER, has started to shape his new staff, as announced in an email to his colleagues. Katherine Szarama, PhD, has been appointed acting deputy director of CBER. She previously worked at the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services before joining the FDA. Prasad noted that Szarama “will focus on policy and governmental relations while also participating more broadly within the center.”
