Ramil Burden joined Optum in February 2022 and is CEO of Optum Life Sciences. Ramil joined Optum from GlaxoSmithKline where he worked for 17 years in government affairs, corporate strategy, and as a General Manager in Africa (based in Kenya), Malaysia (based in Kuala Lumpa), and most recently in the UK. Prior to joining GSK Ramil worked in the UK civil service at the Department for Trade and Industry, including roles in the European Commission (based in Brussels) and 2 years in 10 Downing Street as the Prime Minister’s trade and industry adviser. He has a BSc in Maths & German, MSC in Statistics, and MSc in Economics. Ramil lives in Washington DC, with his wife Sarah and their two children. He loves playing sports, reading, snowboarding, and diving.

Dr. Mark Lee was most recently Senior Vice President and Global Head for Personalized Healthcare, Product Development at Genentech/Roche. Prior to joining Genentech, Dr Lee was a member of the founding leadership team and Head of Clinical Development and Medical Affairs at GRAIL, where his team built one of the largest clinical research programs in genomic medicine aimed at early cancer detection. Some of his previous roles include Lead for Oncology Clinical Sciences at Google[x] Life Sciences, Chief Medical Officer at Boreal Genomics, and Vice President of Oncology Development at Genomic Health, where he led the successful development and validation of the Oncotype DX Colon and Prostate Cancer Assays. Dr Lee received a PhD in Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology from Harvard, and a MD from Stanford University, where he completed his internal medicine residency and medical oncology fellowship.

Christian Jones is Chief Commercial Officer at Nanoform, an innovative nanoparticle medicine enabling company. Nanoform works to improve the lives of patients globally by overcoming drug development and delivery challenges through its cutting-edge technologies to NanoImprove drug loading, bioavailability, administration and patient experience for small and large medications.  

Previously, Christian held senior commercial roles at leading CDMOs including Dr Reddy’s Laboratories and Johnson Matthey Plc., and led global business development for Prosonix Ltd, where he helped to transform their offering from a crystallization platform into a particle engineering/drug delivery business, which was later sold for £100 million.  Christian holds a master’s in chemistry from the University of Leeds, UK, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Patrick Lim Soo, PhD, is currently a Group Lead and Senior Principal Scientist at Pfizer. He is a member of the management team in the Drug Product Design & Development group within Pfizer’s Biotherapeutics Pharmaceutical Sciences organization focused on identifying and developing drug delivery solutions to support Pfizer’s entire biotherapeutics portfolio (including mammalian and microbial fermentation derived candidate molecules, vaccines, gene medicine, nanomedicines, targeted delivery strategies, and novel delivery device development). Dr Lim Soo is the current Chair and Co-Founder of the IQ Consortium Nanotechnology and Nanomaterial Working Group. The mission of this group is for the member companies to collaborate on CMC challenges facing industry in characterizing, developing and manufacturing nanomaterials and align with regulatory/government agencies as partners to better understand what is needed to approve nanotechnologies in a pre-competitive manner. Prior to his position at Pfizer, Dr Lim Soo was Research Leader at Tarveda Therapeutics where he led efforts for the filing of two IND applications to the U.S. FDA and was co-leading the formulation group in the development of targeted drug conjugates. He received his PhD in polymer chemistry from McGill University and completed his postdoctoral research fellowship in pharmaceutics from the University of Toronto. Dr Lim Soo has co-authored 16 peer-reviewed papers (four of those publications while working in industry) and is an inventor on eight patents or patent applications.

TBA

Laxman Halleppanavar is currently the Head of Portfolio Strategy and Management at Credence MedSystems, leading the Injectable Device Portfolio Strategy and Management team for internal and external customer endeavors. Previously, Mr Halleppanavar was the Director - PharmSci Technical Team Lead at Pfizer. He came to Pfizer upon its acquisition of Hospira where Mr Halleppanavar was responsible for combination product development from early-stage development to manufacturing scale up leading to commercial launch. Prior to Pfizer, Mr Halleppanavar was the Program Manager at GE Healthcare responsible for development, manufacturing, and commercialization of multiple medical device/patient monitoring platforms namely, patient worn devices, blood pressure cuffs, bedside monitoring devices, networked central & remote monitoring stations.

Kristie Boswell is a board-certified family nurse practitioner with five years’ experience working full time in Clemson Rural Health (CRH)’s mobile outreach program. In addition to her practice, Kristie serves as the Assistant Director for Mobile Health Operations and coordinates mobile clinics for CRH’s satellite brick and mortar offices in Walhalla, Clemson, and Orangeburg. She is the primary nurse practitioner on the mobile health unit and travels throughout the Upstate and Midlands of South Carolina serving rural patients of diverse backgrounds. Kristie’s areas of expertise include women’s health, reproductive health, substance user health, and rural outreach. Kristie has written APRN protocols related to women’s health, MAT, PrEP, and hepatitis C (HCV) for Clemson Rural Health clinicians and integrated these practices into mobile health unit service delivery. Most recently, she achieved her HIV Specialist certification from the American Academy of HIV Medicine. Her goal is to continue expansion of Clemson Rural Health’s mobile health operations and further increase access to care for our rural populations.

As the Corporate Global Head of Accessibility at Merck & Co., Inc., Stephen Framil, DMA has been an ardent advocate and practitioner of equitable access across the range of human experience: including the built environment, food sustainability, education, performing arts, and the digital landscape. With over 30 years of executive leadership in business strategy and innovation, policy and governance, procedure and operations, and portfolio management expertise, Dr Framil continues to lead and champion accessibility in multinational corporations, non-profit education, and the performing arts.

Sherry Huber is a Clinical Research Nurse Coordinator, Sr. (CRNC) in the Duke Office of Clinical Research (DOCR). Ms Huber has a BS in Nursing and BS in Accounting from the University of South Carolina.  She has worked as a CRNC at Duke for 3 years and has experience working on various investigational drug trials, vaccine trials, interventional studies and observational studies. Prior to research, she worked in the emergency department, labor & delivery, home health, public health, school nursing and nursing management.

Since moving to the clinical research space, Ms Huber  has worked on studies in the following clinical areas: dermatology, urogynecology, cardiology, neurosurgery, neurology, oncology, vaccines and Covid-19 treatment studies.

Barbara Estay is a Clinical Research Specialist, Sr. in the Duke Office of Clinical Research (DOCR). Ms Estay was born and raised in Santiago, Chile and moved to the New York area with her family at the start of her college career. Life experiences have taken Ms Estay to live in multiple cities in the US and around the world (Miami, Chicago, Columbus, Seattle, and Tokyo). She has a BA in Economics from Manhattanville College in Purchase, NY.

In June 2021, Ms Estay joined Duke to work in recruitment where she helps identify potential research participants and match them with clinical research studies that fit their health and research needs. She also spends part of her time interpreting during study visits and translating papers for research.

Sally Taylor is a Research Program Leader in the Duke Office of Clinical Research (DOCR). Sally moved into clinical research building on a 30-year career. She is an experienced program administrator with a focus on operational efficiencies, data management, policy regulatory compliance, and customer service. She has worked in a range of industries including global travel, management consulting, institutional advancement consulting, and non-profit work focused on K-12 education. She has a BA from Trinity College in Hartford, CT.

 Since moving to the clinical research space, she has worked on and managed studies focused on COVID-19, epilepsy, gynecological cancer, orthopedic surgery, and Mpox. She is currently project managing a grant focused on research equity and diversity.