TBA

Leida Bowen, as an Associate Director at AbbVie, is primarily tasked with enhancing the company's Clinical Trial Diversity strategy. She collaborates with numerous teams to improve clinical trial processes, ensuring increased participation from diverse physicians and patients. Additionally, she works with external stakeholders to raise clinical research awareness in underrepresented communities. At AbbVie, Leida has been an instrumental figure in diverse roles, including Associate Director in Research and Development and Senior Medical Science Liaison in Dermatology and Gastroenterology. Leida is a graduate of Florida A&M University, where she received her Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD). During her time at Florida A&M University, Leida conducted malaria research with the Minority Health International Research Training program in Ghana, West Africa. Upon graduation, she completed a post-doctoral fellowship in Pharmacovigilance at Johnson & Johnson. Leida resides in South Florida with her husband two children.

Donna’s diverse career in healthcare began in nursing and evolved to focus on technologies that support patients in clinical research. With nearly 20 years in the clinical trials space and expertise in patient centricity, improving enrollment success, eCOA, BYOD, and more, Donna is a published author and presents regularly at pharmaceutical industry conferences. In her current leadership role at YPrime, she is the subject matter expert for eCOA, providing strategic direction that drives key partnerships through innovation.

Bill Illis is the Global Head of Collaboration and Technology Strategy, in the Global Drug Development, Analytics line function at Novartis and is currently responsible for developing the Analytics Technology strategy, initiating, and overseeing a portfolio of analytics capability development and improvement projects.

Mr Illis has over 25 years of industry experience in R&D spanning subject areas of Cancer Epidemiology, Health Care Cost/Utilization Research; Preclinical Safety, and Clinical Development and Regulatory Affairs, and functional leadership in Data Mgmt, Programming, Statistics, Data Standards, Data Governance, Information Technology and Operations.

Mr Illis has led business and information technology functions at Novartis, and has developed and led transformation projects in data and digital across the pharma R&D landscape. Mr Illis was appointed as workstream lead for the TransCelerate Digital Data Flow initiative in June 2018. Mr Illis holds a Master’s Degree in Public Health (Biostatistics) from the University of Michigan and a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Providence College.

Heidi is currently a Vendor Program Strategy Director, where she is responsible for driving clinical trial vendor strategies at the program level, with the objective of early vendor partnerships to deliver faster trial start-up.

She’s held various roles across clinical trial operations over a 20-year career and has a vast experience in trial operations and early strategic cross-functional planning.

Nicholas (Nick) Schill, PhD is an experienced pharmaceutical and combination product development professional with a passion for developing and implementing innovative solutions. Nick started his industry career with Baxter Healthcare supporting exploratory and early phase R&D programs, bioanalytical development, biologics process development, and a Phase 3 cell therapy clinical development program. At Baxalta, and later with Shire, Nick led or supported numerous combination product development and device development programs for Baxalta/Shire's hematology and immunology franchises. After departing Shire, Nick led the Product Development & Commercialization team at Kymanox, a life sciences consulting firm which provides program strategy and technical leadership for the development of drug-device combination products and medical devices, including injection, infusion, reconstitution, nasal delivery, and electromechanical devices. In April 2025, Nick joined AbbVie to lead the Landscaping and Product Definition team which identifies and evaluates novel and established delivery system technologies of interest from potential third-party partners to support AbbVie’s development pipeline. Nick holds a BS from St. Norbert College and a PhD in Cellular and Molecular Biology from the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Dr Smith’s career is centered on driving scientific innovations to patients. She creates effective teamwork among scientists, entrepreneurs, and legal teams, driving enterprise value. With her assistance, dozens of biopharma companies have raised over $50 MM non-dilutive funding plus licensing and partnership deals. Dr Smith first engaged with Fzata, Inc. in 2016 as a consultant. In 2022, inspired by the world-changing potential of the BioPYM platform, she joined full time as Chief Business Officer to lead fund raising and partnering efforts. She works closely with the CEO to define and execute corporate vision and strategy. Company 2024 highlights: $10MM in non-dilutive NIH funding, FZ002 lead asset will enter phase 1, and winner of “Finalist” at Bio International Startup Stadium. From 2013-2021, Dr. Smith was CEO at SoMax Consulting. While at SoMax she worked with dozens of biotech startups through the Maryland life science incubator system; BioHealth Innovations; Johns Hopkins Univ.; and Univ. of Maryland, Baltimore. Prior to SoMax, Dr. Smith was Associate Director of Technology Search and Development at Celsion Corp., an oncology therapeutics company. Dr Smith earned a PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Chicago (1999). An interest in expediting the transition of scientific discoveries to patients led her to a position as project manager at the University of Chicago Technology Transfer Office -redirecting her career to early stage pharma strategic business development and licensing. Dr. Smith earned an MBA from University of Chicago Booth School of Business (2006).

Benjamin Winkeljann is an engineer and entrepreneur, specializing in the development of drug delivery systems for RNA delivery and the optimization of pharmaceutical processes. He conducted his PhD in bioengineering within the Technical University of Munich’s Munich School of Bioengineering. Following a short postdoctoral phase at the same institution, he shifted his focus towards pharmaceutical technology by accepting a postdoctoral scientist position at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich's Department for Pharmacy. Here, his work concentrated on simulation-assisted optimization for the formulation of RNA therapeutics. In 2023, he advanced to become a Group Leader and started pursuing a University Lecturer Qualification in Pharmaceutical Technology and Drug Delivery. In the same year, Winkeljann co-founded RNhale GmbH in Munich, where he currently serves as CEO. He is also a Principal Investigator at the Comprehensive Pneumology Center Munich (CPC-M), German Center for Lung Research (DLZ), Munich.

Dr. Majmundar is a seasoned physician executive with over two decades of experience across the public, private, pharmaceutical and payer sectors, including clinical practice serving in multi-specialty group practice, FQHC,  emergency room and academic settings. She recently served as Chief Medical Officer for a startup commercial health plan and prior to this role served as a medical director for a large managed care organization. She holds dual board certifications in Family Medicine and Health Care Quality and Management. Connect with her on LinkedIn. 

Amanda Moore has nearly 20 years of clinical operations and development experience in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry with a track record of leading innovation in clinical trials, pioneering operating committee relationships, and oversight of global development programs. Ms Moore joined Abeona in October 2020, holding positions of increasing responsibility, and most recently served as Senior Director, Head of Program Leadership. Previously, she has served in clinical operations and development roles with Biogen, Reckitt Benckiser, Sage Therapeutics and Intercell. Ms Moore holds a master’s degree in Health Science from the George Washington University.