Jodie Huddleston is the Senior Managing Director and Head of Clinical Solutions for Life Sciences at Press Ganey with 30 years of experience leading clinical trial operations in the CRO, academic medical, community hospital, and vendor support services spaces. Over the past ten years, Jodie has been primarily focused on strategy and operations for decentralized clinical trial solutions with a focus on patient-centric innovation and direct-to-patient services.  Jodie has extensive experience in building and growing innovative offerings and disruptive models in Life Sciences. Prior to joining Press Ganey, she held leadership roles at Worldwide Clinical Trials, ICON, IQVIA, Lightship and CVS Health. Earlier in her career, Jodie worked in academia leading clinical trial operations at University Hospitals of Cleveland, Case Western Reserve University and Children’s Hospital in Colorado. She also built out a new Site Network model for the Center for Clinical Trials at Catholic Health Initiatives where she served as National Director.  Additionally, Jodie was Principal of her own consulting firm for many years and was contracted by several well-known start-up companies to assist them in building and implementation of innovative clinical trial solutions.

Deirdre Bevard brings over three decades of expertise in the pharmaceutical industry and is known for authentic and transformative leadership. As the Senior Vice President of R&D Strategic Operations at CSL, she oversees a global team focused on portfolio management, clinical operations delivery, integrated business operations, digital strategies, and patient-centered drug development. Ms Bevard’s leadership philosophy emphasizes collaboration, integrity, and innovation, creating inclusive environments where teams thrive and deliver impactful results. Her diverse experience spans key roles at Elligo Health Research, Nektar Therapeutics, and Endo Pharmaceuticals, as well as a CRO and a start-up software company. This broad perspective gives her a diverse perspective and fuels her passion for bridging clinical research and healthcare through partnering with patients, communities, and providers to accelerate medical advancements and enhance health equity. Ms Bevard is committed to making a lasting impact on the industry. She thrives in strategic and collaborative environments, and is frequently sought for her vision, insights, and enterprise connectivity. Beyond her professional achievements, Ms Bevard enjoys family time, good books, a well-crafted cocktail, and a good laugh. Her leadership style reflects her mindset to take her work seriously, but maintain a lighthearted approach about herself, embracing humility.

Terttu Haring, MD, is a Clinical Operations Executive with a strong focus on Investigators, Sites and Patients. She received her MD from Maastricht University in the Netherlands. 

Over her nearly 30 years in the industry, she has seen clinical trials from different angles in research sites, in large pharma and in CRO setting. Roles she has had include investigator and research director; management of local and regional clin ops teams in Netherlands, Europe & Africa; leadership of global trial operations and data management activities and pushing digital innovations to clinical operations.

Development of new treatment options needs patients to enroll in clinical trials. It is Terttu’s mission to bring trials to patients around the world, setting investigators up for successful and effective trial execution so we bring treatments for life with less symptoms and more years to the market faster.

Candice Fitzgerald – MMedSc, BAppSc Global Head Clinical Development & Operations – Regions

Ms Fitzgerald has 20+ year’s experience in clinical operations and medical affairs for various multi-national pharmaceutical and biotech companies (Roche, AstraZeneca, Alexion, Boehringer-Ingelheim) and contract research organisations (CROs). She has held various positions at a Director level in medical affairs / clinical operations managing large teams with responsibilities spanning team leadership, senior management teams, compliance oversight, CRO Functional Service Provider (FSP) model partnerships, cross functional commercial and R&D teams, strategic medical planning, direction, change management and governance.

Ms Fitzgerald moved from Australia to Germany with her 4 boys and husband in 2021. Since this time, she has led and been involved in key Medicine Excellence transformation projects with the aim of reducing Clinical Development cycle times and creating highest value for our patients and clinical trial sites. Ms Fitzgerald holds a Master of Medical Science (Drug Development), University of NSW, Australia and a Bachelor of Applied Science (Health Information Management), University of Sydney, Australia.

E is a passionate leader in building device development capabilities and improving combination product development processes. He has 20+ years’ experience in delivery device technology assessment, combination product development, manufacturing process development, commercial scale-up and life cycle management. E currently holds the position of Head of Injection Systems at Takeda. Previously he was Director of device development with AstraZeneca. He built a very strong device team and managed multiple combination product programs in the therapeutic areas of respiratory, inflammation, autoimmune, cardiovascular, renal, and metabolic diseases. Prior to AstraZeneca, he was device lead with Janssen Pharmaceuticals and Becton Dickinson, where he led and launched/relaunched injection device and combination products. E obtained his Bachelor and PhD degrees in mechanical engineering and a master’s degree in polymer physics.

As the Executive Director- Drug Product Design & Development, Advait leads the organization within Pfizer’s Biotherapeutics Pharmaceutical Sciences organization focused on identifying and developing formulations and processes to support Pfizer’s entire biotech & vaccine portfolio with accountability for novel delivery technologies, vaccines, RNA-based modalities. and microbial and mammalian produced proteins. The focus is on all things related to Drug Product from the early Research stages up to Licensure including Commercial and Life Cycle Management support. In his role as- Head of Nanoparticle Development, Advait’s accountability includes scientific, technical, strategic, and regulatory leadership of Pfizer’s mRNA/LNP and nanoparticle-based portfolio. Advait is accountable for establishing internal capabilities and expertise for formulation, process development, scale-up, and tech transfer to enable clinical and commercial supplies. In addition to this, there is a focus on external strategic alliances and collaborations.

Advait received his PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, Mercer University (Atlanta, GA) and a MS in Pharmaceutics from Auburn University, Auburn, AL. He also has a BS in Pharmacy from Pune University (India). He is a member of AAPS and Controlled Release and is an inventor on more than 12 patents, published over 35 articles in professional scientific journals, and presented more than 50 short papers, posters, and talks.

Sindhuja Kuchibhatla is a Senior Manager in the Device Technology & Innovation team at GSK. Her role involves leading new technology developments and innovation processes of complex and emerging combination products to suit the evolving GSK pipeline. Prior to GSK, Sindhuja worked at Regeneron, where she led the New Technologies Management team to strategically enable new drug delivery technology opportunities across key therapeutic areas such as Oncology and Immune & Inflammation. She also spent her early career at West Pharmaceutical Services on their Innovation & Technology team, designing novel connected drug delivery solutions. Sindhuja's background is in Biomedical Engineering. She attended The College of New Jersey for her undergraduate program and Cornell University for her Master’s program.

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Adam Procopio is a Distinguished Scientist in Pharmaceutical Sciences and Clinical Supplies; a department in Merck Research Laboratories, Merck & Co. covering Discovery to Launch of Oral and Parenteral Drug Product Development and Clinical Supply. He leads CMC teams in the due diligence evaluations across all drug substance modalities (small molecule, biologics, vaccines) and multiple drug product presentations representing all areas of Biopharmaceutical Research, Development, and Commercialization. Prior to this role, Adam was a Director in Device Development where he was responsible for developing Medical Devices and Combination Products of the Merck sterile pipeline. Before these roles, and a large part of his 24-year career at Merck, Adam was a member of the Oral Formulation Sciences group and led the Compaction Research Laboratory where his group was responsible for all aspects of tableting commercial scale-up prediction and mechanical property characterization of drug products from Phase I to Commercial Launch as well as integrating Finite Element Analysis (FEA) in product design. He holds a BS, MS and PhD degrees in Materials Science and Engineering from Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA where he also served as an Adjunct Professor.