NJBIZ editors spoke with insiders in the medical, insurance, pharmaceutical, biotech and policy fields to develop a list of the 50 Most Powerful People in Health Care in New Jersey. Here are the movers and shakers who will shape health care as federal legislation continues to reshape the industry. 
Poonam Alaigh 
Commissioner, N.J. Department of Health and Senior Services
A medical doctor and former executive at Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey and GlaxoSmithKline, Alaigh was named to the governor’s cabinet in January. Growing up in Zambia, New York, India and Ethiopia taught her to “connect with people, with issues and with different perspectives.”


Sol Barer
Chairman, CEO, Celgene
Celgene’s rise, Barer said, is one of “bravery, adversity, humanity, disease, arrogance, altruism, greed, naïveté and ultimate redemption.” The company was once “barely able to keep the lights on,” but succeeded in building an empire on thalidomide after finding uses for the controversial drug. Its market cap is nearly $30 billion.


Mary Ann Boccolini
CEO, Samaritan Hospice
As chief of South Jersey’s largest hospice, Boccolini is working to redefine the field of end-of-life medical care. Samaritan cares for 400 patients a day, many in their own homes, while Boccolini advocates for family-centered policies that expand availability of nonhospital choices for the terminally ill.



Jeffrey Brenner
Medical director, Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers
Brenner led a study revealing that a lack of access to primary care was behind excessive reliance on emergency rooms in Camden, where millions in Medicaid and Medicare funds are spent without improving public health. The coalition is working to expand primary care and break dependence on the ER.


Joel Cantor
Executive director, Center for State Health Policy, Rutgers University
Cantor has a major impact on the state’s health policy debate. Through research and conferences, he focuses on such issues as where New Jersey ranks on health care quality and spending, the movement to digital medical records, the impact of hospital closings and how to get more residents covered by health insurance.



Annette Catino
CEO, QualCare
Catino founded QualCare in 1991, and has led its growth into a managed health care system owned by 14 New Jersey hospitals and doctor groups, providing care to more than 750,000 members. She’s an advocate for encouraging individuals to make better nutrition and exercise choices to improve public health.


Mary Ann Christopher
CEO, Visiting Nurse Association of Central Jersey
A registered nurse, Christopher works on the front lines of the state’s effort to deliver better primary care; improve the state of public health; and give more people the option of getting cared for at home, instead of in the hospital. She heads the state’s largest visiting nurse association, which provides care to more than 100,000 people in eight counties. “The biggest imperative for all health care organizations right now is to come together and address the issues of health care availability,” she said. The trend is toward an interdisciplinary delivery of medical care, and nurses are the bridge between community social services and medical expertise, she said. “Today we can care for patients, in their homes, who five years ago would have been in the intensive care unit.” Christopher also chairs the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s nursing initiative, which is addressing the state’s looming nurse shortage by training faculty in the state’s 42 nurse education programs. The initiative is fast-tracking scholars through school “to provide the nurses we need to care for an aging population,” she said.


Richard Clark
Chairman, CEO, Merck & Co. Inc.
Clark is focused on his company’s $41.1 billion purchase of Schering-Plough Corp. last year. His top task is to achieve the promised savings from the merger, though it helps that each of Merck’s top 10 brands rung up sales of more than $1 billion last year. Clark joined Merck in 1972 as a quality control inspector and climbed the ladder to the top office.


Herb Conaway
Assemblyman, chairman, Health and Senior Services Committee
A medical doctor and attorney, Conaway’s agenda includes expanding insurance coverage to deliver less care at emergency rooms, promoting digital tracking of patient care and solving the charity-care crisis threatening hospitals. “We spend a lot on health care … because we don’t have all the information to make good decisions,” he said.




Thomas B. Considine
Commissioner, State Department of Banking and Insurance
Considine, an attorney, joined the Department of Banking and Insurance after a career in the insurance industry. He spent 17 years at MetLife, most recently as vice president and government relations counsel. At the Department of Banking and Insurance, he’ll deal with the cost and availability of health insurance both to employers and individuals.



James Cornelius
Chairman, CEO, Bristol-Myers Squibb
An Indianapolis Colts fan, Cornelius believes a team is successful because of teamwork. He said that’s also true of Bristol-Myers Squibb, where he’s working to prepare for the 2012 patent expiration of its blockbuster $8 billion blood-thinner drug Plavix. His strategy has rid the company of noncore businesses while adding promising drugs.


John Crowley
President, CEO, Amicus Therapeutics
Nearly eight years ago, Crowley quit a marketing job to invest in research to treat Pompe disease, a fatal neuromuscular disorder afflicting two of his children, Megan, 13, and Patrick, 12; his eldest son, John Jr., 15, is not affected. His filial duties have won him acclaim as the subject of two books and a film, “Extraordinary Measures,” starring Harrison Ford and Brendan Fraser. CBS Films produced the movie, which released in January. Crowley took his first major step toward finding a treatment for Pompe when he became founding president and chief executive of Novazyme Pharmaceuticals, an Oklahoma City firm researching a cure. As president and CEO of Amicus Therapeutics, in Cranbury, he continues to pursue treatments for Pompe disease and other neurodegenerative disorders. “My personal interests are aligned with business interests — to bring the best possible drugs and technology to as many people struggling with human genetic diseases as quickly as possible,” he said. What’s special about pharmaceuticals and biotechnology “is you can do well and do good, at the same time.”


Ronald J. Del Mauro
CEO, St. Barnabas Health Care System
The leadership of Del Mauro, a 40-year industry veteran, has been critical to the growth of St. Barnabas into New Jersey’s largest medical system, employing 18,200 and treating 2 million patients a year at eight hospitals and at outpatient centers, nursing homes, behavioral health, hospice and home-care programs.



Robert DiPaola
Director, Cancer Institute of New Jersey
He heads New Jersey’s only National Cancer Institute, which oversees nearly $100 million a year in cancer research grants and provides clinical support to oncologists through the CINJ Network of 15 hospitals statewide. DiPaola continues to do research himself, as the principal investigator on a national prostate cancer consortium involving 13 cancer centers nationwide.


Lisa N. Drakeman
President, CEO, Genmab
In late 2009, Genmab launched its blockbuster leukemia drug, Arzerra, three years after GlaxoSmithKline bought its global rights in a $2 billion deal; its pipeline boasts a half-dozen other drugs. Drakeman and her husband, Donald, who founded Medarex, are easily the state’s most visible biotechnology couple.


Robert Franks
CEO, Healthcare Institute of New Jersey
A former Republican state chairman, he served 13 years in the Assembly and four terms in Congress before becoming chief of the organization representing research drug companies in New Jersey. Franks is a leading advocate in Trenton for government policies that encourage drug firms to locate, expand and hire in New Jersey.


Robert Garrett
CEO, Hackensack University Medical Center
Garrett capped a 30-year career at the state’s busiest hospital with his appointment last November to chief executive. Last fall, he introduced a restructuring program to address financial challenges, and positioned Hackensack University Medical Center for growth by developing a heart and vascular hospital.



Steven Goldberg
CEO, Partners In Care
Under Goldberg’s watch, Partners In Care — owned and led by doctors — has grown into three physician groups: United Medical Group, Central Jersey Physician Network and the Vista Health System. Collectively, they represent about 850 physicians delivering $2 billion in health care to about 1 million patients annually.


J. Richard Goldstein
CEO, New Jersey Council of Teaching Hospitals
Doctors who get medical training in New Jersey are leaving the state in alarming numbers: the council’s 2009 “Resident Exit Survey” found that only 32 percent planned to practice medicine here. Goldstein advocates on behalf of policies to stem the medical brain drain, such as reining in high malpractice insurance premiums and halting low Medicaid reimbursement rates.


Katherine Grant-Davis
CEO, New Jersey Primary Care Association
Grant-Davis heads the association for New Jersey’s 20 federally qualified health centers, which care for 400,000 of the state’s uninsured and underinsured. She advocates for restoring cuts to the state’s FamilyCare program, and for expanding access to community-based primary medical care that reduces emergency room visits and financial pressures on hospitals.



Jerzy Gruhn
President, Novo Nordisk
A 20-year industry veteran, Gruhn runs the U.S. subsidiary of the Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk, which made up 36 percent of the company’s global sales of $9.5 billion in 2009. Under Gruhn, the firm’s U.S. revenue grew 21 percent last year. In his native Poland, Gruhn launched diabetes support programs, and helped launch insulins in the country.


Fred M. Jacobs
Director, St. Barnabas Quality Institute
A former state health commissioner, Jacobs played a key role in 2006 legislation that banned indoor smoking. At St. Barnabas, he advocates for programs to manage childhood asthma, diabetes and childhood obesity, and to curb the exposure of children to secondhand smoke. He joined Saint Barnabas in 1969 and is a former president of its medical staff.


John Johnson
Senior vice president, president, Global Oncology, Eli Lilly & Co.
Johnson’s mission to bring cancer drugs to market led to his latest promotion, from chief executive of ImClone Systems to head parent company Eli Lilly’s global oncology business. Johnson rose so rapidly during his two stints with Johnson & Johnson that industry observers joked about the company adding another “Johnson” to its name.



Stephen K. Jones
CEO, Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital
A 30-year veteran of hospital leadership, Jones was named chief executive in 2007 of the principal teaching hospital of the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. He runs a hospital recognized for high overall clinical quality that trains doctors, nurses and pharmacists.


David Knowlton
CEO, New Jersey Health Care Quality Institute
Knowlton’s organization advocates for higher health outcomes in a state where high levels of spending have yet to translate into high marks on overall health quality. He argues employers, who provide high levels of financial support to the health care system, should insist on having a say in policy.



Michael T. Kornett
CEO, Medical Society of New Jersey
Kornett helps doctors resolve payment disputes with insurance companies and the government, and helps usher New Jersey’s many small medical practices into the digital age. His work ranges from recent legislation that created a mechanism for out-of-network doctors to get paid by insurance companies, to helping physicians set up or dissolve medical practices.


George Laufenberg
Administrative manager, New Jersey Carpenters Fund
Laufenberg has a voice in shaping public health policy through his role as the negotiator of plans covering 17,000 New Jersey carpenters, retirees and their dependents. He urges his members to become better health care consumers, and works with the Legislature, doctors and hospitals on creating a more rational system.



Risa Lavizzo-Mourey
CEO, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
She leads one of the nation’s largest foundations, funding programs nationwide to improve health care. In 2009, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation gave $89 million to New Jersey programs ranging from children’s health and camping for health-impaired kids, to a major initiative to reverse the state’s nursing shortage by training faculty.


John Lawrence
President, Aetna New Jersey
A 21-year insurance industry veteran who heads the state’s second-largest health insurer, Lawrence is a regular speaker on health care policy issues. The small- and middle-market health insurance market in New Jersey — and the cost pressures that hurt the employers that provide that coverage — are his main focus.



Amy Mansue
CEO, Children’s Specialized Hospital
Named in 2003 to lead the state’s largest pediatric rehabilitation hospital, Mansue helps seriously injured children live as independently as possible. “Our families are faced with children born with disabilities or who suffered traumatic injuries, and we have an obligation to make sure the services and programs they need are in place,” she said.



William J. Marino
CEO, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey
Marino has been engaged in the debate over how to lower costs and raise the quality of health care since taking the helm of the state’s largest health insurer 16 years ago. “But even with our efforts, the cost increases are still high — three times the rate of inflation,” he said. Undaunted, Marino right now has the “out-of-network” issue on his radar: insurers can be required to pay higher prices for care when their members go outside their provider network, and the state Legislature is holding hearings to resolve the issue. Quality is the other side of the coin. Marino said New Jersey is known for spending lavishly on care that doesn’t necessarily yield healthier people. He uses his influence to push for evidence-based medicine, where care that improves patient health becomes standard practice. Marino said squeezing waste out of the system will remain a top priority. “Everybody on the political spectrum … agrees that 20 [percent] to 30 percent of the cost of care does not add clinical value to the patient. There are ways to take that out of the system, but it requires massive behavior change.”


Richard Miller
CEO, Virtua
Miller is among the state’s major advocates for getting New Jersey’s health care sector to embrace medical technology to lower costs. Under his leadership, Virtua is building a state-of-the-art digital hospital focused on acute care and outpatient services. Through alliances with major health partners, Miller seeks to provide Virtua with access to advanced medical practices.


George Norcross III
Board chairman, Cooper University Hospital
The Democratic power broker joined the Cooper board in 1990, helping to lead the hospital’s turnaround from a financially troubled institution to one of the major teaching hospitals in the state. He has been honored for his work as a Cooper trustee by the New Jersey Council of Teaching Hospitals. Norcross is chairman of Marlton-based Connor Strong.


William F. Owen Jr.
President, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey
Owen brought his knowledge of business and medicine to the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in 2007, when he assumed leadership of the university. He is former chief scientist of a Baxter Healthcare division, former chancellor of the University of Tennessee Health Science Center and former professor at Duke University School of Medicine.


Mehmet C. Oz
TV personality, Harpo Productions
Through his appearances on “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” “The Dr. Oz Show” and his best-selling health and nutrition books, the Bergen County resident reaches millions with his message that individuals must assume responsibility for their own health, from diet and exercise to medical care. Oz has also been mentioned as a possible candidate for political office in New Jersey.


Judith M. Persichilli
CEO designate, Catholic Health East
A registered nurse who was chief executive of Catholic Health East’s St. Francis Medical Center, in Trenton, for eight years, Persichilli will by year-end become CEO of Catholic Health East, one of the nation’s largest health care systems, though the New Jersey native is expected to remain involved with local issues.


Barry S. Rabner
CEO, Princeton HealthCare System
Rabner is leading the construction of University Medical Center of Princeton’s new $447 million Plainsboro hospital campus, a product of hospital design focused on better patient care; it’s to open by the end of 2011. The hospital will save money by cogenerating its own power, and “by providing a building where the staff will be more efficient” and provide the best care in a climate of reduced funding for health care, he said. In the future, patient hospital stays will be shorter and reimbursement rates will be lower — and Princeton will be ready, with a campus offering an acute care hospital, a children’s hospital, doctors’ offices and assisted living for seniors. “We’re using 1,200 pieces of research on how to design a hospital to achieve many goals,” ranging from cutting energy waste to eliminating medical errors, he said. And in the past two years, Princeton has raised $110 million of its $115 million goal for the new hospital. “We are fortunate to be located in a region where there are a significant number of generous people with wealth who value what we are trying get done and have supported us,” Rabner said.


Uwe E. Reinhardt
Professor of Economics, Princeton University
A leading voice in the debate over health care reform, Reinhardt chaired the landmark New Jersey Commission on Rationalizing Health Care Resources (the Reinhardt Commission), which reported in 2008 that contrary to the national picture, many New Jersey hospitals are “truly in poor financial health.”


Judy Roman
CEO, AmeriHealth New Jersey
Roman leads the company’s effort to provide affordable health insurance for small and midsized companies. After taking over the top spot in 2006, Roman reorganized the management team to support the company’s expansion throughout the state. She also is vice chair of the Chamber of Commerce of Southern New Jersey.



Betsy Ryan
CEO, New Jersey Hospital Association
Ryan is a key health care policy voice in Trenton, where she has spoken against budget cuts when nearly half the state’s hospitals lose money, and many have laid off workers amid a surge in charity care and emergency-room visits. Unlike businesses facing the recession, hospitals provide services 24/7 and “can’t simply adjust by reducing output or cutting back on hours.”



Wardell Sanders
President, New Jersey Association of Health Plans
Sanders has headed the trade group for the nine major state health plans since 2006. Previously, he spent 15 years in state government, where he was involved in the 1993 reform of the state’s health insurance programs. He has been appointed by New Jersey governors to commissions studying the impact of mandated health benefits and the availability of medical care.


James Sapirstein
CEO, Tobira Therapeutics
Sapirstein’s biotech company may seem like any other, but it is widely seen as a dark horse with its promising drug for the human immunodeficiency virus. Backed by big-name venture funds, this veteran of 23 drug launches could have a first-in-class human immunodeficiency virus cure on the market in two years.


John P. Sheridan Jr.
CEO, Cooper University Hospital
Sheridan’s 40-year career in law, government and health care has included stints as state Commissioner of Transportation and chief of NJ Transit. In 2007, he was named chief executive of Cooper University Hospital, the leading health care provider in South Jersey. He serves on the board of the Carrier Clinic psychiatric hospital in Belle Mead.



Christine Stearns
Vice president, New Jersey Business & Industry Association
The exploding cost of health coverage is often cited by New Jersey Business & Industry Association members as their worst business problem, and Stearns speaks on their behalf to the Legislature, lobbying for policies to ease cost increases that have prompted many employers to shift more of the cost to employees.


Alfred Tallia
Chair, Department of Family Medicine, UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School
Tallia’s research specialty is the organization and quality of primary care, and he is a leading voice in the movement to improve the practice of medicine. He has been honored for his pioneering and innovative community-based training of family practice physicians. He authored a landmark study demonstrating family medicine residencies reduce patient care costs for hospitals.


David Tilton
CEO, AtlantiCare
Tilton leads a major health care provider with 60 locations in South Jersey, including AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center. AtlantiCare was one of five organizations to receive the 2009 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, which recognizes leadership in quality and continuous improvement and responsiveness to customers and clients.


Jennifer Velez
Commissioner, New Jersey Department of Human Services
The governor’s decision to renominate Velez to the post she’s held since 2007 has been praised for maintaining effective leadership at an agency that serves patients in the state’s five psychiatric hospitals and seven centers for people with developmental disabilities. She advocates for persons with disabilities and for reducing the ranks of the uninsured.


Joseph F. Vitale
Senator, vice chairman, Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee
The author of the state’s FamilyCare program, Vitale is an advocate in the Legislature for improving health care access, quality and affordability. Among the legislation Vitale has sponsored are provisions that improve the market for medical malpractice insurance, publicize hospital errors and require health insurers to provide coverage for autism and other developmental disabilities.


Loretta Weinberg
Senator, chair, Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee
Weinberg was named chairwoman of the Senate Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee in January, but she’s been a leader on health policy in Trenton since the early 1990s. She takes particular pride in her role in legislation that guarantees new mothers and their babies the right to a 48-hour hospital stay after delivery, and the ban on indoor smoking in New Jersey. These days, providing affordable health insurance to those who can pay for it — and access to health care, for those who cannot — consumes much of her energy. “If I had to sum up the biggest constituent problem we get in our office, it is access to health care and the arguments people have with their insurance companies,” she said. She’s working to mitigate budget cutbacks to the FamilyCare program, which covers poor families: “It is not good economics to create more uninsured people in the state.” Going forward, Weinberg sees preventive medicine, and lifestyle choices that keep people healthy, as critical factors in repairing the nation’s broken health care system.


William Weldon
Chairman, CEO, Johnson & Johnson
Weldon’s job is not just to steer growth at a Big Pharma company and its 280-plus subsidiaries with nearly 120,000 employees worldwide. He also zealously guards its “Credo,” authored by Robert Wood Johnson more than 60 years ago. The credo is the company’s standard for crisis response and powered J&J’s 1982 Tylenol recall.

All profiles were written by NJBIZ reporter Beth Fitzgerald, except Sol Barer, Richard Clark, James Cornelius, Lisa N. Drakeman, Jerzy Gruhn, John Johnson, James Sapirstein and William Weldon, which were written by NJBIZ reporter Shankar P.