Richard Hughes leverages his background as a health lawyer and industry executive to help health care and life sciences entities navigate a broad range of legal, regulatory, policy, and business strategy issues.
Richard provides strategic business counsel to clients, assembles multidisciplinary teams, and builds market strategies for product development and growth. He also provides counsel, with a particular emphasis on vaccines, prevention, and early intervention, to biopharmaceutical and device companies and a variety of health care clients and offers clients guidance on coverage, payment, legal, regulatory, and policy issues.
Richard previously served as Managing Director at a leading Washington health care advisory firm and Vice President at a major vaccine manufacturer during the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to that, as an attorney at the law firm Epstein Becker Green, Richard advised a national government on the implementation of a single-payor health insurance system and guided clients through the implementation of the Affordable Care Act and the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act.
Earlier in his career, Richard served in several health policy leadership roles. He was a gubernatorial appointee to the Arkansas State Board of Health, where he deliberated regulatory policy, presided over appeals before the state health department, and advocated for vaccine access. Richard has also held roles at the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials and with another leading biopharmaceutical company.
Richard has led many successful efforts to expand access to vaccines and preventive services. His thought leadership and problem-solving strategies have broken barriers to access to vaccines and PrEP for HIV, and his advice on vaccine policy is sought after by leading manufacturers, members of Congress, federal agencies, and the broader advocacy community.
Richard is a Professorial Lecturer in Law at The George Washington University Law School and previously a Professorial Lecturer in Health Policy & Management at the Milken Institute School of Public Health. During law school, Richard served as a legal research assistant to Professor Sara Rosenbaum, renowned health law scholar and Founding Chair of the Department of Health Policy at the Milken Institute School of Public Health. Richard has published in Health Affairs and in law and medical journals, and he is a regular contributor to Health Affairs Forefront.