Ken Olovich serves as the Executive Director of Sourcing, Procurement, and Finance for the Chorus Division at Eli Lilly. With a background as a pharmacist from Purdue University and an MBA in Finance, he brings over 32 years of experience to his role at Eli Lilly. In addition to his long-standing career at the company, Ken has remained actively involved in various areas of pharmacy practice. He has been married for 33 years and is the proud father of three children: a daughter who is a Doctor of Physical Therapy, a son who holds a master’s degree in Marine Biology, and a daughter currently pursuing a nursing degree. Outside of his professional life, Ken is a dedicated athlete, an avid pickleball player, and continues to actively pitch in a 55+ baseball league.

Joe O’Rourke serves as the Head of Commercial Development for Walgreens RWE Clinical Trials as the Head of Commercial Development. He brings 20 years of experience in the clinical trials space and has a passion for increasing patient access and diversity to clinical trials. 

Joe’s history involves growing clinical trial companies, recruiting patients, and conducting clinical trials in a leading academic medical center. Prior to Walgreens, Joe served as Vice President of Business Development at WCG Clinical. Over the course of 7 years, he was responsible for the growth of strategic partnerships, clinical trial enabling technologies, growth of endpoint solutions in CNS diseases, as well as the commercial integration of several acquisitions by WCG. 

Prior to WCG, Joe spent 8 years recruiting patients at Acurian (now a part of PPD/Thermo Fisher Scientific) where he spent 4 years in operational delivery in a variety of roles and 4 years in business development. Joe personally delivered and oversaw more than 100 patient recruitment campaigns and helped to accelerate to market blockbuster new medicines in Diabetes and COPD. He also specialized in early digital patient recruitment from 2009-2011. In Joe’s last 4 years there, he was a Business Development leader supporting Acurian’s growth and account management within the large biopharma market segment. 

Joe started his early career as a research assistant at Johns Hopkins, performing metabolic research in wound healing as well as exercise science. Joe has a MBA from Villanova University and a Bachelors in Kinesiology from West Chester University.

Dr Kantor is a scientist, entrepreneur, and company builder with over 10 years of experience in the genetic medicines field. He is Senior Vice President and leads Business and Corporate Development at ReCode. Previously, Dr Kantor served as an entrepreneur in residence at Oxford Science Enterprises, where he led company creation efforts and financings for several Oxford spinouts. Prior to Oxford, Dr Kantor was an investment banker with Evercore Partners and a management consultant at Headland Strategy, advising on corporate strategy, M&A, and ECM transactions. Dr Kantor has co-founded multiple companies in the fields of gene editing and RNA biology. In recognition of his technology developments, he was recognized in 2023 Forbes 30 under 30 in Science and Health Care. Dr Kantor graduated from Duke University summa cum laude with a B.S. in bioengineering and finance and received his PhD in Clinical Neuroscience from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.

Yoshiyuki Nakagawa, PhD, is an Assistant Manager at Asahi Kasei Corporation. He brings six years of academic research experience in biomaterials (2012-2018), during which time he also served as a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Research Fellow from 2016 to 2018. Having earned his PhD degree from The University of Tokyo in 2018, he transitioned to a pivotal role in the development and commercialization of an innovative pharma excipient: hyaluronic acid nanogel, Sonanos™, at Asahi Kasei. Leveraging his background in Biomaterials, Polymer Science, and Chemical Engineering, he is passionate about driving advancements in drug delivery technologies.

Dr Aydt has been with Lipoid LLC for 2 years as Senior Manager of Business Development. He specializes in pharmaceutical formulations of all types. He lives in California and primarily supports West Coast customers.

Andrew Clark is the Director of Pharmaceutical Science at digiM solution where he leads the scientific team focused on the structural characterization of complex drug products. He earned his PhD in experimental physics from Tufts University where he specialized in material characterization of polymeric systems. He has an extensive background in condensed matter physics, polymer physics, and materials science with an emphasis on experimental characterization methods including electron microscopy, X-ray computed tomography, spectroscopic characterization, and thermal analysis. Since joining digiM, he has focused on advancing quantitative imaging as a regulatory tool through close collaboration with the Office of Generic Drugs (OGD) as well as the Office of Product Quality (OPQ) within the FDA. His previous analytical and material characterization expertise, combined with his continued advancement of new cutting-edge tools for regulatory science aims to provide more targeted tools to effectively and accurately develop complex dosage products.

Alexander Saint-Amand is the CEO and Co-Founder of Topography Health and was previously the CEO and Co-Founder of GLG, a global research platform. When his mother fell ill during his college years without a conclusive diagnosis, Alexander founded GLG to create a platform for obtaining second opinions. GLG rapidly grew into the world’s leading insight network, encompassing 200,000 physicians and scientists, as well as other sector experts. Thousands of patients, loved ones, and caregivers sought treatment options and clinical trial insights through GLG, revealing significant gaps in clinical trial access and physician participation. To address these issues, he founded Topography Health, which is dedicated to revolutionizing the physician experience in research and significantly enhancing patient access. Alexander and his team of clinicians, technology experts and operational leaders partner directly with practices, systems and their physicians to expand clinical research access. Topography is backed by a16z and Bain Capital Ventures. 

Peter Caetano is a Senior Director, Global Regulatory Affairs, and Global Regulatory Lead for multiple indications of novel biologicals at Ipsen in Cambridge, MA, US. He had previous regulatory roles at Allergan-AbbVie in the UK, Genzyme-Sanofi in Cambridge, MA, and Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati, Ohio. Peter’s 16-years of regulatory expertise ranges from first in human clinical trials to submissions, with many novel drugs approved thereafter, and post-market compliance. Peter successfully leads interactions with health authorities such as US FDA, EU EMA, Japan PMDA, China NMPA, or Brazil's ANVISA. This in therapeutic areas as diverse as neurology, rare diseases, endocrinology, oncology, rheumatology, or reproductive health. He leads and has led teams performing regulatory activities such as CTAs/INDs, PIP/PSP, parallel advice, BLAs/MAAs, variations, advisory committees, commercial regulatory compliance, inspections, etc. Additionally, he is a trusted regulatory advisor for external innovation and due diligence, quickly devising, challenging, or improving clinical and regulatory development plans in a variety of indications, including those yet without regulatory precedent. Outside of regulatory, he was in pharmaceutical sales and was a professor in a medical school. Dr. Caetano has a solid academic background focused on pharmaceutical development and regulatory. He has a PhD in Pharmaceutics, where at the University of Michigan he collaborated with FDA, USP (United States Pharmacopeia) and Viatris (formerly Mylan, UpJohn), with internships at BMS and Merck. Moreover, Peter completed a PharmD at Ohio State, an MPH at Harvard, an MBA at ESSEC-Mannheim, and postgraduate diplomas at the universities of Oxford, Hertfordshire, and London.

Colleen is Reverba’s authority for all things science. Her long-standing background and understanding of the evolving pharmaceutical landscape is key for Reverba when helping clients develop solutions to address critical challenges and communicate with diverse audiences from HCPs to patients, to payers. During her 20 years in medical communications, she has provided strategic insights and has driven medical content development and execution for diverse client initiatives with a focus on clinical trial engagement activities, insights-generating programs, publications, congress activities, internal and external training programs., among others. Known for her strong scientific insight and in-depth understanding of the global pharmaceutical industry, Colleen has become a trusted advisor to some of the largest pharmaceutical companies worldwide. “What makes MedComms rewarding is having the opportunity to develop and execute innovative strategies that not only support client business needs but also fill important gaps in scientific knowledge for their target audiences.” Prior to her medical communications strategy role, Colleen held senior positions across a spectrum of R&D functions in the Canadian, US, and global pharmaceutical industry in medical affairs, clinical development, regulatory affairs, and clinical operations. In these roles, Colleen honed her skills in fields ranging from drug development strategy and medical scientific communications to trial design and execution across multiple therapeutic areas, including endocrinology, gastroenterology, neurology, respirology, cardiology and oncology.

Michael has worked in the clinical research technology space for 18 years focused on solutions to help research organizations successfully streamline their trials to help bring therapies to patients. After joining Devana Solutions, now part of RealTime eClinical Solutions, Michael’s focused shifted from post-enrollment to pre-enrollment technology, implementing the power of the Devana technology in multi-site research centers, health systems and academic organizations to become a wraparound of the entire tech stack to provide critical end-to-end functionality from pipeline management, study startup workflows and metric capture and analysis. Michael’s passion is understanding the unique needs of each client partner to provide the best possible outcomes for maximizing their potential.

Stéfan Halbherr holds a degree in biochemistry and immunology from the University of Bern, Switzerland. During his PhD, he developed innovative self-amplifying RNA vaccines targeting influenza A viruses. A founding member of InnoMedica, Stéfan was instrumental in transforming the company into a leader in nano-drug delivery technologies. Since 2013, he has led the R&D department, successfully advancing research concepts into clinical-stage therapies with significant market potential. In 2019, Stéfan assumed the roles of Country Manager and President of the Board at InnoMedica Switzerland AG, while continuing to spearhead R&D efforts that have resulted in a diversified pipeline of clinical-stage products. Notably, InnoMedica's oncology portfolio features Talidox, an advanced therapy aimed at reducing severe side effects of widely-used drugs while enhancing antitumor efficacy. Stéfan is also the inventor and patent holder of Talineuren, a novel nanodrug currently in Phase IIb trial (randomized, placebo-controlled, multicenter) for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease. Under his leadership, InnoMedica has evolved into a vertically integrated, advanced clinical-stage pharmaceutical company, raising over CHF 80 million in funding and building a team of more than 50 employees.