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Joe Franklin

Joe Franklin’s practice includes emerging medical technologies, research uses of real world and clinical trial data, and the deployment of artificial intelligence in healthcare and biopharma. He brings experience in both government and the health tech sector to advise clients on the unique challenges and opportunities posed by evolving regulatory frameworks for novel technologies.

Joe was at Verily, Alphabet’s precision health company, from 2021-2024, where his roles included Chief Counsel for Regulatory and Strategic Affairs.

During his years of federal service, Joe held several senior policy roles at FDA, including as policy director for FDA Principal Deputy Commissioner Amy Abernethy. At FDA, Joe played a central role in the Agency’s technology and data modernization strategy and had responsibilities for a broad portfolio of regulatory and scientific programs. While in FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER), Joe built and led the biosimilars policy staff in the Office of New Drugs (OND). Joe was FDA’s Deputy Chief of Staff in 2015.

While serving in FDA’s Office of the Chief Counsel, Joe advised CDER and the Office of the Commissioner on biosimilars, emergency use authorizations, user fees, and controlled substances, among other issues. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Joe worked within the HHS General Counsel’s Immediate Office to advise on the federal response.

On September 30, 2025, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a Request for Public Comment seeking input on “practical approaches to measuring and evaluating the performance of AI-enabled medical devices in the real-world,” including strategies for detecting, assessing, and mitigating performance changes over time (the “Request”). 

The Request

Continue Reading FDA Requests Public Comment on Real-World Evaluation of AI-Enabled Medical Devices

On July 30, 2025, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced a new Health Technology Ecosystem Initiative—a collaborative effort between government and industry to unlock innovation by modernizing healthcare data flows among patients, providers, payers, and technology platforms. The new initiative does not contemplate any new regulations; instead, it is a CMS-led effort intended to empower and accelerate innovation by the private sector through (i) the development of public digital infrastructure and data standards and (ii) voluntary commitments from industry to deliver new technology solutions based on a common data-sharing framework.

It is too early to predict how successful the Health Technology Ecosystem will be—the stubborn prevalence of data silos, lack of interoperability between systems, and challenges with using data for secondary purposes have long been a hurdle to innovation—yet, with 60 organizations, including leading tech firms, already pledging support for the new initiative, the broader industry may see this as an occasion for renewed focus and expanded efforts to bring health technology solutions to market at scale. For life sciences and digital health companies, this new initiative may present a strategic opportunity to better serve patients, empower providers, improve real-world evidence generation, and support innovation leading to better healthcare outcomes. Continue Reading What Life Sciences and Digital Health Companies Need to Know About CMS’s New Health Technology Ecosystem Initiative

As the Covington team discussed in a recent article, use of AI models in biopharma is on the rise, with use cases spanning the life cycle of drugs and biologics, including product development, manufacturing, and pharmacovigilance. Recently, FDA announced its own intentions to aggressively scale the use of AI

Continue Reading Could FDA Model Master Files Facilitate Use of Third-Party AI Models in the Drug Life Cycle?