Briya Taps AI Veteran to Unlock U.S. Health Data Market

NEW YORK, NY – February 05, 2026 – Health AI technology company Briya has announced a significant strategic move to accelerate its U.S. expansion, appointing industry veteran Brian Creighton as its new Executive Director of Client Strategy. The hire signals an aggressive push by the company to scale its privacy-preserving data platform and solidify its role in solving one of modern medicine’s most persistent challenges: securely connecting life sciences researchers with high-quality, real-world clinical data.

Creighton, whose career spans over two decades at the intersection of medical imaging, AI, and healthcare sales, is tasked with leading Briya's strategic partnerships and business expansion. His appointment comes as the demand for actionable health data intensifies, driving the need for platforms that can navigate the complex web of privacy regulations, data silos, and technical hurdles that have long slowed medical discovery.

A Strategic Hire for an Ambitious Expansion

Brian Creighton joins Briya from a distinguished career that includes senior leadership roles at Merative and, notably, IBM Watson Health. As VP of Sales at Merative, he focused on cloud-native imaging solutions, and at IBM Watson Health, he managed sales operations and complex software implementations within the Health Information Exchange sector. This deep experience in commercializing and implementing advanced technologies within the intricate healthcare ecosystem is precisely what Briya is banking on to drive its next phase of growth.

"Brian's deep expertise and proven track record in expanding the implementation of AI technologies will be instrumental as we navigate our next phase of growth," said David Lazerson, Co-founder and CEO of Briya, in the company's official announcement. "His understanding of the complexities of operating in the healthcare space will prove essential as we continue to deliver a platform that accelerates the pace of discovery and innovation."

Creighton's role is not just about sales; it's about strategy. He is charged with building the enterprise relationships necessary to scale Briya's core offering, the Briya AIRE platform. This involves convincing hospitals to join its data network and demonstrating to pharmaceutical and academic researchers that the platform can provide faster, more secure access to the data they need for clinical trials and epidemiological studies.

Confronting Healthcare's Data Dilemma

The fundamental problem Briya aims to solve is a paradox: healthcare generates vast amounts of data, yet researchers struggle to access it. This data is often locked away in fragmented, non-standardized electronic health records across thousands of different hospital systems. Even when access is possible, the process is slow and fraught with regulatory and privacy risks.

Strict privacy laws like HIPAA in the U.S. and GDPR in Europe are essential for protecting patients, but they create high barriers for data sharing. Traditional methods of anonymizing data, meant to strip it of personal identifiers, have proven vulnerable. Researchers have shown that it's sometimes possible to re-identify individuals by cross-referencing supposedly anonymous datasets with public information, creating significant legal and ethical liabilities for healthcare institutions.

This is the dilemma Briya confronts directly. The company has built its technology around a 'federated data' architecture. In this model, the data never leaves the hospital's secure servers. Instead, Briya’s platform sends the researcher's query to the data, and only the aggregated, fully anonymized results are returned. This approach is designed to give healthcare organizations complete control and peace of mind while still enabling powerful, large-scale research.

The Power of the AIRE Platform

At the heart of Briya’s strategy is its flagship product, Briya AIRE™, which it bills as a clinical-grade AI research engine. The platform is designed to act as a virtual data analyst for researchers, eliminating the need for complex coding. Scientists can ask questions in natural language, and the AI translates them into precise queries that can run across multiple, disparate data sources, including unstructured doctors' notes and clinical records.

Briya's technology standardizes incoming data to common formats like FHIR or OMOP, making it interoperable. The platform then uses smart contracts to automatically enforce data use agreements and privacy regulations, ensuring compliance is built into every query. By providing real-time, on-demand data extraction that is already linked, standardized, and de-identified, Briya aims to drastically reduce the time it takes to move from a research hypothesis to actionable insight.

"I'm excited to join Briya at a pivotal moment for the company," Creighton stated. "As demand grows for secure, interoperable, and actionable health data, Briya is solving one of the most critical challenges in healthcare innovation. I look forward to bringing my experience to help expand Briya's impact across life sciences, research, and care delivery."

Building a Network for Discovery

Briya's success hinges on building a robust network of both data providers (hospitals) and data consumers (researchers). The company, which has raised a total of $17 million across its Seed and Series A funding rounds, has already made headway. A key example is its 2025 strategic partnership with Tanner Health, a provider in the Southern U.S., to create the "Briya/Tanner Network." This collaboration aims to provide secure access to real-world data to foster clinical innovation, serving as a blueprint for future partnerships.

Creighton's appointment is a clear signal that Briya is ready to replicate and scale this model across the U.S. His expertise in forging large-scale enterprise deals within healthcare is critical to convincing more health systems to join the network, thereby increasing the value of the platform for the entire research ecosystem.

To that end, Creighton is already representing Briya on the front lines of the industry. He is currently at the SCOPE Summit in Orlando, Florida, a premier global event for clinical trial innovation. His presence there underscores Briya's focus on engaging directly with the pharmaceutical sponsors, research networks, and clinical operations leaders who are its target customers. At a summit where themes like Generative AI and ClinTech investment are top of mind, Briya's message of accelerating research through a secure, AI-driven data platform is perfectly timed.