As founder and head of the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC, Friedlander leads 40 research teams with more than 450 faculty, staff and students working together to solve major health challenges, including brain disorders, heart disease and cancer.

Under his leadership, the institute, which was founded in 2010, had been awarded more than $379 million in grants and contracts as of September 2024, including two $50 million gifts.

In June 2024, the Focused Ultrasound Foundation, a Charlottesville-based nonprofit that promotes the use of ultrasonic energy to target tissue deep in the body, designated Virginia Tech a Focused Ultrasound Center of Excellence, making it the sixth such center in the United States and one of only 12 in the world. Friedlander chairs the center.

The Roanoke Blacksburg Innovation Alliance, Virginia Tech and Carilion Clinic are spearheading the region’s efforts within a statewide project to make Virginia a biotechnology leader. Virginia Tech announced in February the region’s $4.9 million GO Virginia grant.

A neuroscientist, Friedlander also leads academic programs for medical, doctoral, graduate and undergraduate students at Virginia Tech. At the medical school, he coordinates research curriculum and opportunities for students.

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Since 2023, McBride has been CEO of UNOS, the nonprofit that has managed the national Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) for more than four decades.

UNOS has come under congressional scrutiny in recent years, and a law signed in September 2023 authorized the Health Resources & Services Administration to break the OPTN management contract into separate awards. In September 2024, for the first time in its history, HRSA awarded separate contracts to multiple vendors for OPTN modernization work.

The HRSA also held special elections to create a separate board that was seated July 1. Previously, the OPTN board and UNOS’s board were made up of the same people.

In April, news surfaced that UNOS had reduced its staff —by roughly 10%, according to one report.

Although some of UNOS’s woes — including Senate and White House investigations in recent years — predate McBride’s tenure as CEO, she has been with the organization since 1995, when she took a position as senior biostatistician. In 2014, she became its chief operating officer overseeing the federal OPTN contract. She was named interim CEO in 2022 and became the nonprofit’s permanent head seven months later.

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Shannon has overseen this division of UVA Health since 2021, starting as an interim chief executive and then as permanent CEO. With about 2,700 employees, UVA Community Health includes three Northern Virginia hospitals — Prince William Medical Center, Haymarket Medical Center and Culpeper Medical Center — as well as an integrated network of medical practices, cancer care and outpatient services. The university health system acquired Novant Health UVA Health in 2021, after running the system as a joint venture.

Shannon has more than three decades in health care and was a partner at Grant Thornton, where he helped lead the transition to integrate UVA Community Health into UVA Health.

In January, UVA Health announced a $2 million donation from The Cecil and Irene Hylton Foundation to support the Prince William Medical Center’s mother-baby unit upgrades. Plans include incorporating new clinical technology and equipment, like ultraviolet incubators and AI-powered diagnostic tools.

FAVORITE TEAM: Denver Broncos

MOST VALUED POSSESSION: Our cabin

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A former ER doctor, Just has been CEO of UVA Physicians Group since 2023. Founded in 1979, the nonprofit university-associated organization supports UVA Health physicians and providers at U.Va. Medical Center and numerous clinical practice group locations.

More than 1,100 University of Virginia clinical faculty members were dually employed by UPG and U.Va.’s medical school in fiscal 2024. UPG also has over 40 physicians in its clinical practice group and has 160-plus advanced practice providers.

Just previously served as president of Augusta Medical Group and vice president of Augusta Health beginning in 2018, and he was chair of the emergency medicine department for the health system as well.

In April, Just co-authored an op-ed addressing the controversy involving former UVA Health CEO Dr. K. Craig Kent’s resignation in February, after a group of 128 U.Va. physicians sent university leaders a letter expressing no confidence in Kent in 2024. He asked that officials and others “refrain from engaging in conjecture” after some current and former health system board members ascribed the physicians’ motivations, in part, to greed.

Just earned his medical degree and MBA from U.Va. and completed his residency at U.Va. Medical Center.

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Tugman became president and CEO of Centra Health in October 2024, after serving in an interim capacity since Amy Carrier’s departure in March 2024. The regional nonprofit health system serves more than 500,000 people and has four hospitals along with numerous primary care and specialty practices.

Tugman was previously CEO of Piedmont Community Health Plan, a Centra health insurance subsidiary that ended coverage this year. Earlier in his career, Tugman was vice president and general counsel for Lynchburg’s Fleet Laboratories.

Centra has several construction projects underway. The Centra Langhorne Medical Center, a five-story medical office building in Lynchburg, is expected to be completed by late 2025. Spread between Campbell County and Lynchburg, the Centra Simons Run Medical Campus, a collaboration between Centra and Lifepoint Health affiliates, is expected to open in 2026. The 72-bed Centra Behavioral Health Hospital and 50-bed Centra Rehabilitation Hospital comprising the campus will replace inpatient units at Centra Virginia Baptist Hospital.

The health system anticipates breaking ground on a five-story tower at its Lynchburg General Hospital in the fall.

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Stamp leads Fortune 500 pharma manufacturer Merck’s location in Elkton. A former analytical chemist at the start of his career, Stamp joined Merck in 1997 as a project engineer and worked his way up.

The company founded a plant in the Rockingham County town in 1941. To expand its human papillomavirus vaccine manufacturing capacity, in 2022 Merck completed a major expansion of its Elkton facility, where 1,200 employees work.

In March, the company opened a $1 billion vaccine manufacturing facility in Durham, North Carolina.

Also in March, a federal judge ruled in Merck’s favor in a lawsuit that accused the company of concealing the risks of Gardasil, an HPV vaccine. In June, the FDA approved Enflonsia for prevention of respiratory syncytial virus in infants. Merck reported more than $64.16 billion in 2024 sales, up from about $60.11 billion in 2023.

WHAT MAKES ME HAPPIEST: I like to fire up the smoker on the weekends — brisket and ribs are my go-to.

TRAITS I ADMIRE: When someone can read a room, understand what’s going on and respond in a thoughtful way, that makes a big difference in how teams work together.

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Smits joined Civica as head of its sterile injectable manufacturing facility in Petersburg in fall 2023. A group of U.S. hospitals and philanthropic organizations established Civica in 2018 to address chronic generic drug shortages, and the nonprofit is part of Petersburg’s pharmaceutical hub.

The Utah drugmaker received the occupancy permit for its $140 million, 140,000-square-foot Petersburg facility in late 2022. The facility isn’t manufacturing commercial drugs yet; Civica anticipates drugs from the facility will be available in 2026. The plant will produce three types of insulin, along with other drugs on the Food and Drug Administration’s shortages list. Civica currently has about 240 employees at the site but plans to hire approximately 300 for the facility.

Before joining Civica, Smits was Sage Therapeutics’ vice president of quality. Prior to that, she served as site quality head of Takeda Pharmaceutical Co.’s Massachusetts biologics operations.

She has a master’s degree from Utrecht University’s medical school and an MBA from Santa Clara University.

Civica expects to start building a roughly $25 million, 50,000-square-foot lab in Chesterfield County this year, with plans to hire about 50 employees for it.

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