Dr. Irina Antonijevic serves as Chief Medical Officer at Trace Neuroscience. To this role, she brings more than three decades of experience in clinical psychiatry and neurology, academia and drug discovery and development. Prior to joining Trace, Dr. Antonijevic served as Chief Medical Officer at EveryONE Medicines, a precision medicine company targeting genetic variants causing fatal, neurodegenerative diseases. In this role, she was responsible for designing and implementing an individualized medicines platform focused on correcting uniquely rare neurogenetic mutations. She previously served as Chief Medical Officer and Head of R&D at Triplet Therapeutics, a company developing treatments for genetic conditions associated with expanded DNA nucleotide repeats. Earlier in her career, Dr. Antonijevic held clinical and scientific roles at various pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, including Wave Life Sciences, vasopharm GmbH, Sanofi Genzyme, Lundbeck, and Schering AG. Dr. Antonijevic is a board-certified physician trained in Psychiatry and Neurology at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry and was an adjunct faculty member at the University of Berlin. She holds an M.D. from the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry and a Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh.

Alexandria (Alex) Hughes is Manager, Patient Strategy & Insights for Parexel. In her current role she is dedicated to bringing the patient voice to study planning and conduct and improving the patient experience and accessibility to clinical research. She has six years of clinical trial experience within patient recruitment and retention, site engagement, and patient innovation across a variety of therapeutic areas and is experienced in conducting psychosocial studies using both quantitative and qualitative research modalities. Ms Hughes received her bachelor’s degree in sociology and a master’s degree in marriage and family therapy from the University of Louisiana at Monroe.

Sue Hauck is Principal Patient Recruitment Lead for Parexel. At Parexel for nearly 20 years, she started as a Creative Designer, then added the role of Patient Recruitment Lead in 2013 and functioning in a dual role capacity. This combined role allows Ms Hauck to understand key points on development and delivery, the importance of understanding the patient population, and flexible strategic planning. Ultimately, blending these various strengths to streamline workflows and implement successful recruitment and retention strategies to achieve LPI. Ms Hauck leads recruitment study team members to deliver practical, experience-based approaches to recruitment to meet deliverables on time and within budget while also working to support Parexel initiatives and new business opportunities.

A 2024 MM+M 40 Under 40 honoree with nearly a decade of experience in medical communications, Quentin took on a new role in 2024 within Klick’s Medical Communications & Innovation team, leveraging both her in-house medical affairs expertise and agency background working across a wide variety of therapeutic areas, including immunology, neurology, psychiatry, and rare disease. Previously, Quentin served as VP, Scientific Director at Health and Wellness Partners, as well as Scientific Communications Manager and Medical Science Liaison at pharmaceutical companies like Mallinckrodt and Orexo. Additionally, her clinical knowledge as an EMT and her lived experience as a rare disease patient and advocate give her a unique point of view that she uses to elevate medical communications for all of her clients.

Quentin’s passion for medical communications inspires her work to innovate across the medical affairs landscape. She stays on top of key trends and advances, and she continually leverages Klick’s digital and creative capabilities to elevate how medical affairs teams educate clinicians, engage with key stakeholders, and amplify scientific exchange, leading to better outcomes for patients, clinicians, and health systems.

Yannis Jemiai is the Chief Scientific Officer at Cytel and head of its Strategic Consulting business unit. With over 15 years of experience in biostatistics and clinical trial design, Dr Jemiai leads a global team dedicated to helping clients design innovative and adaptive clinical trials that accelerate development timelines and improve decision-making. He has also played a pivotal role in shaping Cytel’s software vision and development, ensuring integration of cutting-edge statistical methodologies into industry-leading platforms that transform clinical research.

As a thought leader in the life sciences industry, Dr Jemiai has been instrumental in promoting the adoption of adaptive trial designs, Bayesian methods, and real-world evidence that address the complex challenges of clinical development. Under his leadership, Cytel’s Strategic Consulting team provides strategic insights and robust statistical approaches that empower organizations to navigate complex regulatory landscapes and optimize their trial outcomes.

Dr Jemiai earned a PhD in Biostatistics and a BA from Harvard, as well as an MPH from Columbia University. Passionate about the intersection of science, technology, and healthcare, he champions the role of statisticians and data scientists as strategic leaders and key collaborators in transforming the life sciences industry.

Dr. Huang is a scientist, inventor and serial biotech entrepreneur. She has over 20 years of entrepreneurial and operation experience in the U.S. and Chinese biotechnology industries, building companies from inception. As Co-founder and CEO of BeyondSpring Inc (NASDAQ: BYSI), she is developing innovative cancer therapies with a first-in-class asset, plinabulin, in late-stage clinical development in lung cancer and other solid tumors. In addition, she co-founded SEED Therapeutics, a Target Protein Degradation (TPD) company with investment and R&D collaborations with two global pharma Eli Lilly and Eisai. Prior to founding BeyondSpring and SEED Therapeutics, Dr. Huang co-founded Wuxi MTLH Biotechnology Co. Ltd., where the rights related to the China market of a peptide drug which she designed were sold to Shanghai Pharmaceutical Co.. Additionally, Dr. Huang co-founded Paramax International Inc., a clinical trial CRO, which was acquired by ReSearch Pharmaceutical Services, Inc., and subsequently acquired by Warburg Pincus. Dr. Huang was trained as a research fellow at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, where her ground-breaking work solving the structure of the first E3 ligase in the TPD field was published in Science in 1999. Dr. Huang received her Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley. In addition, she attended the Harvard Business School Executive Education program.

Jasmine Masullo is the Director of Research Services at the non-profit organization CISCRP (The Center for Information and Study on Clinical Research Participation, INC.). She is responsible for overseeing and supporting the design, implementation, analysis and reporting of a variety of CISCRP research studies. This includes the Perceptions & Insights studies, as well as Patient and Caregiver Advisory Boards, workshops, and other custom research projects.

Prior to CISCRP, she worked in the public health field specifically with maternal and child populations in a variety of different capacities.

Randi Isaacs, MD, has served as Chief Medical Officer since November 2020. Previously, from May 2010 until November 2020, Dr Isaacs held roles of increasing responsibility as Clinical Program Leader, Deputy Site Head, and, from August 2015 to November 2020, Executive Director and Clinical Site Head of Translational Clinical Oncology at the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research. She previously held executive leadership roles in oncology and clinical development at Merck, Schering Plough and Sandoz. Prior to transitioning to the biopharmaceutical industry, Dr Isaacs held various academic appointments, including Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Hematology/Oncology at the State University of New York Health Sciences Center and Clinical Assistant Professor of Hematology/Oncology at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. Dr Isaacs has served on the clinical advisory board of C4 Therapeutics, Inc., since May 2021. Dr Isaacs also serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of MMF Investment Fund, a not-for-profit entity, and Tiga Tx, Inc., a privately held entity. Dr Isaacs earned her BA in Chemistry from Wellesley College and holds an MD with honors from Dartmouth Medical School. She completed her residency and postdoctoral training at the University of California San Francisco and University of Pennsylvania and hematology/medical oncology fellowship training at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

Dr. Wassim Fares, MD, MSc, FCCP serves as Senior Vice President, Therapeutic Area Head, Orphan Lung Diseases, and currently leads the company’s research and drug development for its orphan lung programs at MannKind Corporation. A U.S. board-certified pulmonologist, Dr. Fares trained as a clinician and researcher, and has experience as a practicing physician as well as a physician-executive in the biopharma industry. He has served in various executive leadership roles at Merck (MSD), Acceleron Pharma, and Janssen (Johnson & Johnson), with notable contributions such as leading the clinical development of macitentan (Opsumit) and supporting the development of sotatercept targeted for pulmonary hypertension. He has also served as a CMO at Bellerophon. Dr. Fares’ career has included academia including practicing and teaching at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio and tenure as an Associate Professor of Medicine at Yale University. He holds degrees from the American University of Beirut, Lebanon and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. With a relentless dedication to improving patient outcomes, Dr. Fares continues to drive innovation, with a passion for addressing critical unmet needs in conditions such as NTM, IPF, PH, heart failure, thrombosis, CF, and atherosclerosis, among other indications, and with experience in rare and non-rare diseases, inhaled, oral, and parenteral routes of administration; and small and large molecules.

Dr. Nataliya Agafonova serves as Chief Medical Officer at Longeveron, bringing over 20 years of leadership expertise in clinical development and drug development across a diverse range of therapeutic areas. Throughout her distinguished career, Dr. Agafonova has held senior leadership roles at leading biotech and pharmaceutical companies, including Otsuka Pharmaceutical, Bristol Myers Squibb, Celgene, Biogen, Amgen, and Genzyme Corporation. Her work has spanned critical therapeutic areas such as autoimmune diseases, rare disease, hematology, neuroscience, and oncology. She has played a pivotal role in advancing innovative therapies, leading to the successful approval and commercialization of multiple products in both the U.S. and European markets. Dr. Agafonova’s expertise is grounded in her early career as a practicing physician at the Ukrainian Research Institute of Oncology and Radiology. She earned her medical degree from the Ukrainian National Medical University and completed her internal medicine residency at Kharkov State University Hospital in Ukraine. With a proven track record of delivering transformative therapies and improving patient outcomes, Dr. Agafonova continues to drive innovation in regenerative medicine and other groundbreaking fields of medicine.

Catherine Ames, B.A., is a professional patient advocate, published author, and keynote speaker who weaves narrative expertise into health research and communications. Author of the popular column Chronically Catherine, she writes candidly about the complex experience of being a young disabled woman, exploring tough and taboo topics with humor and fabulosity. Her business, Fierce Hope Patient Advocacy & Consulting, provides executive strategic guidance to pharmaceutical companies, non-profits, researchers, health news outlets, and more. @itschronicallycatherine

Sara is a seasoned clinical research professional with over 18 years of experience, including more than nine years in project management and clinical operations. She has a proven track record of providing cross-functional project management oversight for global, full-service projects across multiple therapeutic areas with a focus on neurodegenerative disorders and rare diseases. Sara’s expertise spans both Sponsor and CRO roles, showcasing her versatility and comprehensive understanding of the clinical research landscape.

Sara is passionate about end-to-end project ownership, ensuring high-quality operations and delivering tailored guidance to her clients. She thrives in the fast-paced and dynamic environment of biotech, adeptly managing high-pressure situations and adapting quickly to shifting priorities. Her dedication and hands-on approach have earned her a reputation for excellence and reliability in the industry.

Sara’s commitment to fostering collaboration and delivering results makes her an invaluable partner in driving the success of clinical research initiatives, particularly in the challenging and innovative world of biotech.