Pouria Sanae, Co-founder and CEO
Pouria Sanae is a leading advocate for direct-to-patient (DTP) programs that accelerate patient care. With nearly a decade of experience leading a company that has managed over four million DTP journeys for pharmaceutical, pharmacy, and healthcare sectors, he has unrivaled expertise in healthtech and DTP programs.
Since 2018, he has served as CEO and co-founder of ixlayer where he has led a team to build a one-of-its-kind, DTP platform for biopharma. The platform merges medical and technology innovations creating a compliant infrastructure to connect biopharma clients to the full healthcare ecosystem: labs, patients, payments, providers and prescriptions. ixlayer allows biopharma to deploy personalized, patient customer experience (Cx) programs that meet the highest industry safety standards, helping them connect to patients with speed, transparency, precision and measurable impact.
His passion for patient-centered care drives his work. Under Pouria’s leadership, ixlayer has launched over 47 direct-to-patient programs, addressing a range of conditions, including Alzheimer’s, oncology, cardiology, diabetes, endocrinology, and respiratory diseases. A pioneer in DTP healthcare solutions, he is dedicated to removing barriers and accelerating access to care to improve health outcomes.
Prior to ixlayer, his previous leadership roles were at Yahoo and he was head of product partnership at Helix, one of the largest genome sequencing companies in the U.S. He was also founder and CEO of two startups: data mining company CMS (Complex Made Simple) and eCommerce platform Cityblis.
Pouria’s healthcare career is the culmination of his diverse experiences and unique background. He began his professional journey as a rocket scientist. The first seven years of his career was in the aerospace sector, working with the following organizations: German Aerospace Center (DLR), Airbus Space Division, Syderal Space, Oerlikon Aerospace, and the TERMA Group. These roles had him living in 12 different countries, providing first hand exposure to various healthcare systems. That combined with his upbringing in a patient-driven system in Sweden, it was a natural progression of his talents to ‘take off’ and create a patient-centric system in the U.S.
Pouria holds a Master’s degree in aerospace engineering from Lulea University of Technology in Sweden. He is currently based in San Francisco, CA, home to ixlayer's headquarters, he also enjoys spending time at the company's New York City office.
