Lissette Steele is founder and managing partner of Verge Scientific Communications, an-award winning strategy firm supporting innovators in life sciences and tech bio. For nearly 25 years, Lissette has partnered with companies working at the intersection of science and technology to advance novel medicines and products with the potential to transform human health. She has worked across a broad range of disease indications that disproportionately affect diverse populations. For the last eight years, Lissette has advised startup health companies and venture firms, including organizations leveraging novel technologies, data, and machine learning and artificial intelligence to improve target and patient selection in drug discovery and development, and technologies to ensure access to care. Before starting Verge, Lissette held senior roles in health care communications, shaping strategic marketing efforts for therapeutics, medical devices, diagnostics and health technologies. She was part of the team that launched the first and only therapy indicated specifically for African Americans for congestive heart failure, and has directed communications efforts targeted to both Latino and African American patients living with metabolic and cardiovascular disease, and HIV/AIDS.