Doroshin at the PFC vaccine site opening with Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney, Councilman Bobby Hennon, Councilman Mark Squila, Dr. Karol Osipowicz, and deputy health commissioner Dr. Caroline Johnson (right to left).
Andrei Doroshin is an American entrepreneur. He was the CEO of Philly Fighting COVID, a nonprofit organization that was responsible for the creation of the first large scale vaccination site in the world for COVID in Philadelphia[1]. Doroshin is also a pioneer neuroscientist that works on spaceflight medicine and the effects of spaceflight on the human brain.
Career
Most notably, Doroshin was the CEO of the Philadelphia nonprofit Philly Fighting Covid that manufactured over 5,000 face shields, tested over 21,000 people, and vaccinated over 6,800 people.[2] Doroshin was the CBO at Volta Therapeutics where he led business development with VOLTA which is developing medical devices that optimize the current manufacturing methods of T-cell Therapies and push the future of personalized immunotherapy to the point of care.[3] Doroshin was also the founder of TALA Resorts, a resort development company currently in the planning phase of its first location in Austin, Texas.
Philly Fighting Covid (PFC)
Founding and face shields
In March 2020, Doroshin founded a non-profit corporation named Philly Fighting Covid.[4] He created the company in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The organization first created face-shields during the global PPE shortage.[5] Doroshin brought together a team of engineers, operations personnel, supply chain experts, and volunteers to build a sustained face shield manufacturing operation.[6] Doroshin oversaw the creation of a research and design facility, manufacturing facility, and a decontamination and packaging facility.[7] The shields had an anti-fog coating and were compliant with FDA COVID Emergency Use Authorization Sec 564. In total, Philly Fighting Covid manufactured, cleaned, packaged, and delivered over 5,000 face shields.[8]
COVID-19 testing
Doroshin opened the first testing site in Philadelphia that did not require a doctor's note, patient symptoms, or insurance/payment.[9][10] Initially, Philly Fighting Covid (PFC) was doing 300 tests a week and operated solely with personal and donor funds.
In July 2020, PFC partnered with the Philadelphia Department of Public Health and received funding ($194,234) to conduct COVID-19 testing. With this support from the city, PFC tested over 1,000 patients per week.[11] The contract did not specify specific testing locations but PFC represented that the organization would focus on underserved communities and frontline healthworkers. [2] They began work in the Fishtown neighborhood where they were offered a space under I95 that allowed for easy drive-thru access. They began by only testing 100-200 patients a day and only operating 2-3 times a week, but slowly grew to achieving numbers at this location exceeding 700 patients a day and operating over five times a week, often times working holidays. Doroshin and his team expanded their operation to more underserved and at risk communities such as Society Hill, which had a highly at risk elderly population and Erie Street which had a community with limited access to healthcare. Due to the ongoing issues with the health department not paying PFC for outstanding invoices and for equipment necessary to operating in the harsh winter climate, as well as their request that PFC open the first large scale vaccination site in the world for COVID, PFC discontinued their COVID testing operation.
COVID-19 vaccinations
On December 24, Doroshin was notified by the Philadelphia Department of Public Health to open the first COVID mass vaccine site in the world on January 8.[12] Doroshin hired cybersecurity experts, software engineers, medical operations staff, process engineers, and contracted with PREPMOD (a software recommended by the CDC) to ensure that our data systems would be operational. Doroshin hired over 20 registered nurses, 20 providers (nurse practitioners, pharmacist, MD, DO, or PA) and brought on over 30 nursing students to run the clinic.[13] Working closely with the Philadelphia Department of Public Health, the clinic was opened for healthcare workers in Philadelphia.[14] Doroshin's team vaccinated over 6,800 vaccines in five days of operation.[15] Owing to growing media pressure, the City of Philadelphia's Health Commissioner abruptly cut ties with PFC citing the sale of medical data and a for profit entity change as the reason.[2]
Controversy
Owing to the media-based claims of data sale and for profit entity conversion the city cut ties with PFC.[2] The City of Philadelphia's Inspector General conducted an investigation into the matter after the extreme backlash of media attention. The report stated the city of Philadelphia cut ties with PFC due to media pressure and that the operation was sound.
Doroshin was also engulfed in controversy after Doroshin took vaccines home and vaccinated friends. Doroshin defended his actions stating Health Department officials had authorized PFC to administer vaccines outside of priority 1a group to avoid vaccine waste as was part of the standing order authorized by Dr. Caroline Johnson, the then deputy health commissioner.[16]
Research
Doroshin was a researcher at the Drexel University Neuroimaging laboratory where was working with ESA (European Space Agency) and Roscosmos (Russian Space Agency) astronauts and cosmonauts to do the first ever resting state and functional research on the effects of space on the brain. The research was done in conjunction with a team of scientists from the University of Antwerp.[1]
Doroshin also investigated the relationship between corruption, frontal lobe function, and occupation.[17]
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