Sarah Woods is a Rare Disease Patient, Rare Mom and Patient Speaker with over 20 years of experience as a business leader and communications professional. Sarah has a passion for helping rare disease patients and caregivers through providing patient resources and rare diseases awareness, nationwide, as the Founder of the Serenely Guided Foundation for Rare Diseases, a 501(c)(3) public charity and non-profit organization. Through her own personal rare disease journey, Sarah brings innovative and experiential thought leadership to the areas of building patient-centricity in clinical trial design by placing patients and caregivers in leadership roles at sites and within pharmaceuticals to consult on strategies in order to incorporate patient perspectives every step of the way to achieve better health outcomes for the entire rare disease community. You can view Sarah's LinkedIn HERE.

Upendra Marathi, PhD is a co-founder, investor, and an inventor at 7 Hills Pharma. He has led the development of three novel pain and cardiovascular drugs, including one which has recently been approved by the FDA. He co-developed one of the first genetically modified stem cells to improve bone marrow function in chemotherapeutic patients.  As an investor and an entrepreneur, he was involved in the founding and launch of several biotechnology companies.  He has helped raise nearly $100 million in equity and non-dilutive funding for these companies. Upendra was a post-doctoral fellow at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, and earned a Ph.D. in Pharmacology from Loyola University Chicago.  Upendra has an M.B.A. from Rice University and has served as a faculty member.

Ruma Bhagat, MD, MPH is a physician and public health leader with over 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry. She is a seasoned clinical research professional and currently serves as Executive Director, Head of Strategy in the Population Science team at Genentech, a member of the Roche Group. Throughout her career, Ruma has held diverse roles in Clinical Science, Clinical Operations, and Process Excellence, building a strong foundation in the drug development lifecycle. She leads cross-functional initiatives aimed at advancing health equity and promoting inclusive research by broadening the scientific representation of historically understudied patient populations in clinical trials.

An intrapreneur at heart, Ruma is passionate about driving organizational change and fostering innovation in how research is conducted. She is a recognized thought leader and advocate for inclusivity in clinical research, often emphasizing that “research without inclusiveness is not research.” Her work is rooted in the belief that equitable representation in clinical trials is essential to reducing global healthcare disparities and ensuring timely access to treatments for all patients.

Jean-François Millau is the Co-Founder and CEO of TATUM Bioscience, a company pioneering next-generation immunotherapies. A scientist-entrepreneur with a Ph.D. in Biotechnology and a degree from Grenoble Business School, he has authored numerous cancer research publications, holds multiple patents, and led the development of the first biochip to measure DNA repair activity.

Driven by the conviction that synthetic biology will transform immuno-oncology, Jean-François co-founded TATUM Bioscience to develop nanofilament-directed immunotherapy designed to outsmart cancer and deliver breakthrough clinical outcomes.

Sabina Schmidt Goldstein-Becerra is a passionate leader dedicated to putting youth at the center of pediatric healthcare, innovation, and research. As Executive Director of iCAN, she empowers pediatric patients to actively shape their healthcare journeys. With a background in education and child development, Sabina works with all stakeholder- industry leaders, youth, and parents- to bridge critical gaps in pediatric healthcare and ensure the landscape reflects the unique needs and voices of children, making their perspectives central to research, innovation, and decision-making.

Raj Puri, MD, PhD, joined Iovance in March 2022 as Executive Vice President, Regulatory Strategy and Translational Medicine. Dr Puri was promoted to Chief Regulatory Officer on November 22, 2024. He has decades of experience with the evaluation and regulation of advanced therapies, including cell and gene therapy, cancer vaccines and cellular immunotherapy. Dr Puri previously spent 33 years working at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), including more than 19 years as the Director of the Division of Cellular and Gene Therapies (DCGT) in the Office of Tissues and Advanced Therapies at the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER). He also participated and supervised development of FDA policies and guidance documents for advanced therapies. Dr Puri was also a Chief of the Tumor Vaccines and Biotechnology Branch within DCGT and oversaw research programs of 13 principal investigators. As a Principal Investigator and throughout his career, Dr Puri led cancer research and discovery of novel immunotherapies. He has published more than 300 research and review articles and participated in more than 220 speaking engagements at scientific, government, industry and professional societies. Dr Puri has been granted numerous patents on his discoveries and many of his patents are licensed for further developments. While at FDA, Dr Puri established seven Cooperative Research and Development Agreements (CRADAs) with different companies to develop his discoveries for cancer therapy. He has received numerous awards including the FDA Award of Merit, FDA CBER’s Scientific Achievement Award, FDA Commissioner’s Special Citations and the SITC Collaborator Award. Dr Puri trained at the Surgery Branch of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), where he worked in the laboratory of Dr Steven Rosenberg on adoptive immunotherapy approaches for cancer. Dr Puri was also trained at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. He received an MD from the University of Juarez Medical School Institute of Biosciences and a PhD in Medical Sciences from the Central Drug Research Institute, Lucknow, India.

Dr. Jennifer Low created Wield Therapeutics to bring effective therapies to patients using precision medicine. Her career is marked by over 30 years of drug development experience culminating in a proven ability build high-performing teams and guide programs from early-stage research through clinical development to global regulatory approvals. Prior to co-founding Wield, she served as one of the initial team members and Chief Medical Officer at Loxo Oncology, and oversaw a portion of the late-stage oncology pipeline at Genentech leading to multiple drug approvals. More recently, as the head of Therapeutics at 23andMe, she oversaw drug development, leveraging genetics-driven strategies to advance multiple programs in the pipeline into clinical trials. Jennifer holds a BS from Caltech and an MD and PhD from Georgetown University and completed a medical oncology fellowship at the National Cancer Institute. She has co-authored papers appearing in the New England Journal of Medicine, Science, Journal of Clinical Oncology and Cancer Discovery. 

Tarek graduated Summa Cum Laude from Babson College with a B.S. in Business Administration and a concentration in Entrepreneurship. He began his career by co-founding Ando, a logistics technology startup acquired by Moova, and subsequently joined private equity firm Gatewood Capital Partners in New York as an Analyst.

In late 2020, Tarek co-founded OncoPrecision, a next-generation oncology therapeutics company spun out of Dr. Gastón Soria’s Synthetic Lethality Laboratory — a group that led several successful multi-year drug discovery partnerships with GSK. As CEO, he oversees OncoPrecision's strategy, capital formation, and business development. He was recognized as EY Entrepreneur of the Year in 2024.