Seven Questions for Miruna Sasu, Cancer Data and Research Guru
Data is more important than ever before for health care organizations. In today's techy environment, hospitals and clinics can derive insights from vast patient records to deliver care more safely, effectively and efficiently.
But patient data is often unstructured, and insights aren't always easy to glean—especially in specialties like oncology, where care records are particularly long and complex. That's where COTA Healthcare comes in. Its platform pulls data from electronic medical records at hospitals and clinics, cleans and adjudicates the clinical notes and then returns them to the health care organizations for cancer research and drug development purposes.
That work has enormous potential, as the American Cancer Society estimates that more than 2 million new cancer cases will be diagnosed in 2025 alone. Despite the wide-ranging impacts, this mission is deeply personal for Miruna Sasu, the president and CEO of COTA Healthcare.
Ahead of Newsweek's Women's Global Impact forum, Sasu told Newsweek how her work intertwines with her identity.
Miruna Sasu is the president and CEO of COTA Healthcare and will be speaking at Newsweek's Women's Global Impact forum on August 5 in New York City.
Miruna Sasu is the president and CEO of COTA Healthcare and will be speaking at Newsweek's Women's Global Impact forum on August 5 in New York City.
Newsweek Illustration/Canva
Newsweek: Walk me through your career trajectory. What sparked your interest in science / health care? Do you recall any formative experiences or mentors?
Sasu: "The fight against cancer is personal for me. When I first moved to the U.S., my grandfather was diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer. Enrolling him in a clinical trial saved his life and gave us 35 more years with him. That time changed the course of my life. It allowed me to pursue my education and career, and it's a big part of why I do this work.
The path to my current role has taken a few turns. I started in food safety with the federal government, then moved into life sciences at Bristol Myers Squibb, where I first worked with real-world data. I continued that work at Johnson & Johnson, focusing on making clinical trials more efficient. Eventually, I felt a strong pull to work entirely in cancer, which brought me to COTA.
Along the way, I have been fortunate to have mentors who offered their time, insight and belief in me. Some of them recognized my leadership potential before I was ready to see it in myself. That kind of support shaped who I am and how I lead. It taught me to stay curious, to act with courage and to lead with empathy and purpose."
What challenges did you face along the way, and what accomplishments are you most proud of?
"There have been plenty of challenges. Change is hard, especially in health care. Most people care deeply about making a meaningful impact on patient outcomes, but org structures don't always make it easy. A lot of my work has focused on getting people aligned across departments and functions and on building trust so we can move forward together."
What problems do you aim to solve in your current role? How do you measure progress toward your goals?
"We are trying to solve a core problem in health care: how to use data to improve outcomes for patients. It's about making data not just available but actionable. We want to help pharma find the right patients for trials faster, support providers with better insights and ultimately help people get the care they need sooner."
What are some recent projects or advancements that you're particularly excited about?
"One of the most exciting developments at COTA is the launch of CAILIN, a new suite of AI-powered cancer data tools. For a long time, working with real-world data has required deep technical expertise and significant time to extract insights. CAILIN changes that by allowing users to ask complex research questions in plain language and receive answers within seconds. It also supports our medical abstractors by guiding them through the data curation process more efficiently, which helps improve both speed and quality.
We are already seeing the impact of CAILIN across our work. Researchers, clinicians and life sciences teams can now access the insights they need without relying solely on data scientists. This kind of access accelerates decision-making and makes it easier for more people to work directly with high-quality oncology data. CAILIN is not a replacement for human expertise, but it is a powerful tool that helps us do more, faster. It is a meaningful step forward in cancer research, and I am incredibly proud of the team that made it possible."
What are you most passionate about? Does your current role enable you to explore this passion?
"I care deeply about using data to solve real-world problems. My passion lies in making health care more equitable, more effective and more humane. I'm also passionate about people. Building a healthy, inclusive team culture where people feel valued and motivated is something I work on just as intentionally as product or strategy. The two go hand in hand."
Has being a woman shaped your leadership style and/or the way that you think about your work in the health care industry?
"It has. Being a woman in leadership has taught me how to lead with both strength and empathy. I've had to work harder at times to prove myself, and that has made me more aware of how I show up and how I support others. I've learned to listen more, to trust my instincts and to lead with clarity. And I've made it a point to open doors for others wherever I can."
Women make up 70% of the global health care workforce but hold just 25% of the industry's leadership positions. What do you make of this gender gap? How might we begin to close it?
"It's a real gap, and it reflects long-standing structural issues, not a lack of qualified women. We need to be more intentional about creating pathways to leadership. That includes mentorship, sponsorship, fair hiring practices and making sure women have real opportunities to grow and lead.
Representation also matters. When women see others leading at the highest levels, it expands what feels possible. I take that responsibility seriously and try to be the kind of leader I would have looked up to earlier in my own journey and to carve out paths for others to have an opportunity to do the same."
Sasu will join Newsweek at this year's inaugural Women's Global Impact forum. The August 5 event, hosted at Newsweek's headquarters in New York City, will bring together some of the world's top female executives and connect them with rising stars across industries and job functions.
For more information on the event, please visit the Women's Global Impact homepage.
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"Clinical trials [on humans] could test the impact of low-dose supplementation on cognitive health and dementia risk." Before lithium is proved to be safe and effective in protecting against neurodegeneration in humans, Yankner emphasized that people should not take lithium compounds on their own. Do you have a health story to share with Newsweek? Do you have a question about Alzheimer's? Let us know via health@ Reference Aron, L., Ngian, Z. K., Qiu, C., Choi, J., Liang, M., Drake, D. M., Hamplova, S. E., Lacey, E. K., Roche, P., Yuan, M., Hazaveh, S. S., Lee, E. A., Bennett, D. A., & Yankner, B. A. (2025). Lithium deficiency and the onset of Alzheimer's disease. Nature.
