Sam Whitaker is the CEO and Founder of Mural Health, a Philadelphia-based technology company dedicated to making it easy to be a participant in clinical trials. Prior to Mural Health, Sam founded Greenphire, a provider of clinical payment and communication tools. This experience, combined with a desire to create a participant-first solution was the impetus for Mural Health. Mural Health’s technology platform, Mural Link, is patient-first and primarily designed to benefit the study participant and their caregivers, but also improves site operations and drives strategic value to study sponsors.

Mandana Borna is the head of oligonucleotide drug product development at Biogen overseeing all aspects of drug product development from formulation design and container closure selection to process development, scale up and tech transfer to support Biogen’s expanding oligonucleotide portfolio. Her responsibilities encompass every phase of product development from preclinical, and clinical stages through to commercialization and life cycle management. Additionally, Mandana continues to lead the non-viral drug delivery activities at Biogen to advance new technologies and overcome challenges of delivery of oligonucleotide and other large molecule therapeutics. She plays a key role in shaping short-term and long-term drug delivery strategies to support Biogen’s pipeline. In addition to internal drug delivery formulation development, Mandana’s team identifies cutting-edge non-viral delivery technologies, design feasibility studies, performs technical assessment and leads project partnership. Mandana holds PhD degree in Materials Science & Biomedical Engineering from McGill University, and her research is focused on formulation development and drug delivery. She has been invited speaker in multiple drug delivery conferences and serves as a reviewer for several journals.

Wout Brusselaers is the founder and CEO of Deep 6 AI, a precision research company that empowers healthcare organizations and life sciences companies to de-risk and accelerate clinical research. Wout founded Deep 6 AI in 2016 to improve clinical trial outcomes through AI-driven software that mines electronic medical record (EMR) data to precision match patients to trials. Wout leverages his entrepreneurial experience and deep operational expertise to help address the industry’s patient recruitment and retention challenges. Wout holds a Masters in International Economics from the University College Dublin and a Licentiate degree in Economics from Vrije Universiteit Brussel.

Alessandro Cavecchi is the Head of the Pharmaceutical Technology Section within Chiesi Farmaceutici’s R&D department, holding a Magister degree in Industrial Chemistry from the University of Parma (IT). With over 20 years of experience in developing inhalation dosage forms, Alessandro has specialized expertise in Dry Powder Inhalers (DPIs) and pressurized Metered Dose Inhalers (pMDIs). In his current role, he ensures the scientific integrity and robustness of formulation and process development for the dosage forms in Chiesi Farmaceutici's R&D pipeline.

Before joining Chiesi, Alessandro served as Senior Formulation Manager at Zentiva (Sanofi Generics), where he was responsible for the formulation and manufacturing development of generic inhalation products. He also worked at Novartis as a Formulation Fellow, supporting the establishment of the Breezhaler® portfolio.

Dr Alexander Curreri is currently a Senior Scientist in the Discovery Pharmaceutical Sciences group within Merck Research Laboratories. His work focuses on designing drug delivery technologies for a breadth of therapeutic modalities across various disease areas. Dr Curreri drives formulation design and evaluation to support preclinical and FIH studies across the Merck discovery portfolio and into development. Dr Curreri holds a Ph.D. in Bioengineering from Harvard University and B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. In his thesis work, performed in the lab of Professor Samir Mitragotri, he developed novel deep eutectic solvent-based delivery systems for parenterally administered proteins and nucleic acids. During his doctoral studies he also performed research to use deep eutectics for delivery across the skin, gastrointestinal tract, and led a team to evaluate venture creation for a microparticle-laden cell therapy technology.

Daniel Eversole, PhD, is an Associate Director of Digital Strategy within the Data Sciences Institute at Takeda. In this role, Dr Eversole supports clinical trial teams in the identification and deployment of Digital Health Solutions that improve trial execution and enable the capture of clinical features not available during traditional study visits.

Prior to joining Takeda, Dr Eversole managed multiple product portfolios that delivered digitals tools for translational oncologists to identify novel, clinically robust multi-comic biomarkers that better predict response. Dr Eversole earned his Ph.D. and M.S. in Biomedical Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin and a dual B.S. Optics and Biomedical Engineering from The University of Rochester.

Jason Williams is a clinical systems manager with a demonstrated history in clinical trials. Mr Williams has over 10 years of experience working in team management, requirements analysis, Electronic Data Capture (EDC), Electronic Clinical Outcome Assessment (eCOA), Good Clinical Practice (GCP), and with a strong expertise in Interactive Response Technology (IRT/IWRS). Currently serving as Clinical Tools and Technologies, Senior Manager at Takeda, Mr Williams is tasked with IRT vendor oversight, IRT SOP and work instruction creation, standards alignment, and is a subject matter expert for IRT design and implementation (including integrations). Mr Williams especially enjoys expanding his knowledge on new technologies in the ever-evolving landscape of IRT and eClinical.

TBA

Ahmad Namvargolian co-founded Care Access in 2015 to help sponsors achieve exceptional enrollment outcomes. He supports the day-to-day operations of Care Access while architecting its growth into one of the largest and most trusted global networks of clinical research sites and the leader in decentralized clinical trials.

Now, with over 200 research sites spanning three continents, Care Access conducts hundreds of research studies sponsored by top biopharmaceutical companies across a dozen therapeutic areas including cardiology, dementia, and oncology. In addition to its proven track record of globally top-enrolling sites, Care Access partners with new-to-research communities and establishes high-quality research infrastructure locally to expand access to clinical trials and increase representation.

Prior to co-founding Care Access, Ahmad studied at UC Berkeley and the University of Chicago and conducted research on medical devices, public policy, and systems engineering. His passion and expertise is in delivering sustainable, transformative solutions that improve and advance society.

Cem Behmoaram is based in New York, joined Warburg Pincus in 2011 and focuses on investments in the healthcare sector. Cem is involved in the firm’s investments in Summit Health and CityMD, Quantum Health, Norstella, and ParetoHealth amongst others. Prior to joining Warburg Pincus, Cem worked in the Investment Banking Division of Merrill Lynch. He received a Bachelor of Engineering and a Concentration in Economics from McGill University and an MBA from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

With 20 years of experience in managing clinical trials at large Pharma, Biotech and CRO companies, Andrew Mackinnon, Executive GM, Customer Value at Medable, leverages his broad operational expertise to improve how the deployment of modern, digitally enabled clinical trials are utilized. From his involvement in one of the earliest deployments of decentralized methodologies, he has been passionate about the benefits that this approach can bring in reducing the burden of clinical research on both sites and patients.

Heidi Johnson is an advocate for modern clinical trials that incorporate tailored technology and minimize complexity.  Ms Johnson has spent the last several years at Bayer as a Director of DCT Operations within the DCT Strategy and Implementation group. In this role, she has guided study teams to select and implement fit-for-purpose DCT components into their hybrid or fully remote DCT studies, with a particular focus on operational requirements gathering, technical specification review, instructional material development, and user acceptance testing. Prior to this role, she has spent more than 20 years in global study operations at both sponsor and CRO organizations, including study and site management, learning management, and data management.  She holds degrees from Purdue University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill