Nidhi Saxena is a healthcare leader with 20+ years of experience spanning market research, global operations, data & insights, and patient engagement across Fortune 500 companies. She currently leads Global Patient Engagement Strategy at J&J R&D, driving patient-centric innovation and large-scale solutions. Known as a collaborative, solution-driven leader, Nidhi focuses on patient centricity, innovation, and talent development to transform organizational impact.

Tiffany Bratts has over 19 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, spanning multiple disciplines across Research & Development. She serves as the Director of Clinical Patient Engagement and Inclusion at Gilead Sciences, where she leads strategic initiatives to embed patient voice into clinical trial design and improve diversity in research. Her mission is to guide trial planning and operational strategies to ensure that every patient has the opportunity to engage in research capable of transforming lives.

With over 30 years of experience across Sales, Training, Marketing, Market Access, Patient Advocacy, and Corporate Affairs, Josée Pelletier brings deep cross-functional expertise to advancing patient-focused innovation in drug development. She is currently Senior Director, Global Patient Advocacy – Research & Drug Development at Bristol Myers Squibb, where she leads global early engagement strategies to ensure patient perspectives are embedded in clinical trial design and execution. Her therapeutic experience spans oncology and multiple other areas, with a strong track record in leading global patient insight initiatives, developing early engagement frameworks, and driving strategic collaborations that support more inclusive, impactful research. Grounded in a background in science and supported by an Executive MBA, Josée combines analytical rigor with business acumen to align stakeholders around shared goals. Bilingual in English and French and experienced across Canadian, US, and international markets, she brings a global mindset, cultural agility, and a deep commitment to purposeful partnership in elevating the patient voice across the healthcare ecosystem.

Laurie Myers has the honor of serving as the global health literacy director for Merck & Co., Inc. For the past eight years, she has led the company’s health literacy efforts in support of improved patient communications about clinical trials, medication, disease education, and packaging. She is also passionate about diversity and inclusion, specifically health literacy as a tool to address healthcare disparities. Myers speaks globally, and is frequently invited to serve on national and international working groups, often with patient advocates, regulators, and leaders from all sectors of health care. She advocates for policy change to make it easier for patients and their families to understand information about clinical trials and medication. Myers earned a national health literacy research award for efforts to include people with low health literacy in market research, and to confirm their understanding. She was recently named a 2018 Medical Marketing & Media Top 40 Healthcare Transformer. She has co-authored multiple publications. Myers graduated from Yale University, and earned an MBA in healthcare management from the Wharton School. She joined Merck in 1999. Before Merck, she worked for many years serving people with developmental disabilities.

Caroline Melendez Daigle is the Vice President of Services for Carebox Health Solutions. Carebox connects patients and physicians seeking treatment options with clinical trials. The Clinical Trial Navigators, who are part of the Carebox Services team, help patients, families, and health care providers find clinical trials appropriate for a patient’s specific situation. Caroline started as a Clinical Trial Navigator over 20 years ago and personally helped thousands of patients and their families find treatment options in clinical trials. Caroline was also part of the clinical research program at Rockefeller University in New York and holds a BA in Psychology from The University of Texas at Austin.

As SVP, Strategy and Value at Jumo Health, Mike Burton is responsible for developing strategic, insight-driven, and behaviorally grounded proposals, identifying quantitative value that can be driven from the Jumo Health solutions as well as ensuring value realization. Mr Burton spent the last 12 years at Veeva and Tendo where he built value engineering into a trusted service for hundreds of customers plus go to market strategy and CRO partnership positions. Previously, he spent 15 years in operational clinical trial roles across CROs and large pharma.

Penny Heaton, M.D., is the Global Head of the Johnson & Johnson Office of the Chief Medical Officer which keeps patients at the center of the company’s efforts to tackle the world’s toughest health challenges through its leadership in Medical Safety, Epidemiology, Bioethics and product Lifecycle Management.

Jon is Cofounder and CEO of Stingray Therapeutics, Inc., a clinical immune oncology company, started in 2016. Stingray is developing an inhibitor of the only known innate immune checkpoint in colorectal and other cancers. Stingray is a CPRIT awardee and a double awardee from the National Cancer Institute. Stingray has raised $10M equity and received $20M in non-dilutive grants and awards to date with $10M of grants still ahead to spend. Jon is also Cofounder of Iterion Therapeutics started in 2010 developing a potent and safe WNT inhibitor. Also, a former CEO and CoFounder of Salarius Pharmaceuticals started in 2012. Jon is a former Board Member of Vasculonics started in 2017. From 2007 through 2010, Jon was COO of Jubilant Innovation, Ltd., the Indian venturing arm of the multi-billion $ Jubilant Life Sciences contract research and development group. Prior to 2007, Jon was Managing Partner of Horizon Biotechnologies LLC. Jon is a published author with two works – The Pharmaceutical Industry section of “The Business of Healthcare Innovation”, Cambridge University Press, 2012 and 2005, and “Prescription Pricing in Chain and Independent Pharmacies”, University of Pennsylvania Press 1976. Jon achieved the SVP level at Eli Lilly and Company and worked as an executive in Corporate Strategy, Business Development, Marketing and Sales, and Finance. While at Lilly, Jon did 40 business development deals and launched 4 products into the US market. Jon is a graduate of the Wharton School (MBA, Finance) and Northwestern University (BA, Economics).