Shaukat Ali joins Ascendia Pharmaceuticals Inc. as senior director of scientific affairs and technical marketing after having worked in the pharma and biotech industry for nearly 30 years. His areas of expertise include lipid chemistry, liposomes, surfactants base drug delivery systems, self emulsifying drug delivery systems (SEDDS/SMEDDS), Amorphous solid dispersions, oral, parenteral, topical and transdermal drug delivery, immediate and controlled release formulations. He received his PhD in Chemistry from the City University of New York and postdoctoral training from the University of Minnesota and Cornell University. Dr Ali has published over 60 articles in scientific journals and is inventor/co-inventor of several US and European patents. He is the recipient of IPEC’s Henk de Jong industrial research award. He has served as the USP panel of experts for the General Chapters- Physical Analysis (2010-2020), and continues to serve as a panel of experts for the USP Excipient Test Methods committee (2020-2025). He is also serving as the co-chair of AAPS Lipid Focus Group.

Shai Assia is a Product Development leader with more than 15 years of experience in a wide range of responsibilities and organizations. Shai leads the Medical Device Design, Development and Manufacturing for novel Combination Products and Drug-Delivery Platforms. Prior to Clexio Biosciences, Shai was the Head of Medical Devices at MobileODT, developing Optical Detection Technologies for early-stage cancer detection through enhanced visual assessment. Mr Assia holds a BSc in Bio-Medical Engineering from Tel Aviv University as well as a MSc in Mechanical Engineering and MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he received the Leaders for Global Operations Fellowship.

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Dr Isabelle Aubert works as a Senior Scientist at Sunnybrook Research Institute, Professor and Co-Vice Chair of Wellness, Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto. She holds a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Brain Repair and Regeneration, and she is an elected Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. She obtained her PhD in neurosciences, on brain plasticity in aging and neurodegenerative diseases, at McGill University in the Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery. As a Medical Research Council of Canada fellow, Dr Aubert completed her post-doctoral training on regenerative gene therapies for the brain at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. Dr Aubert has over 30 years of expertise in regenerative gene therapies for the aging and diseased brain. At Sunnybrook, she leads the Brain Repair Group in evaluating the impact of focused ultrasound and blood-brain barrier modulation for the delivery of therapeutics to the brain, and on the plasticity of molecular, cellular and cognitive systems in animal models. Through collaborative work, Dr Aubert and team members are developing molecular, cellular and gene therapies that can halt neurodegeneration and promote regeneration, particularly when combined with magnetic resonance image-guided focused ultrasound in preclinical models of neurodegenerative disorders, specializing in Alzheimer’s disease.

Claire Authesserre, PhD, is an engineer graduated from ESPCI Paris and Imperial College of London where she obtained a MSc in Biomedical engineering in 2013. She then completed a PhD in microfluidics at CEA Leti in the Department of Microtechnologies for Healthcare and Biology. In 2017, Dr Authesserre joined EVEON as R&D Fluidics Manager, leading a team of fluidics engineers working closely with both the Mechanical and Digital teams, to design medical devices with optimized performances to fit with customer and patient needs. Since May 2022, Dr Authesserre has been Project Manager.

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Manasi Baker, PhD, is a Senior Scientist in Secant Group’s Translational Product Development team which focuses on the development of the novel polymer platform, Hydralese®, for improved drug delivery applications. Dr Baker focuses on developing multiple long-acting Hydralese form types for both small and large molecule delivery, including microspheres, gastroretentive devices, and subcutaneous implants. She also manages the platform’s intellectual property and provides her polymer expertise to lead customer development projects to success. During her career, Dr Baker has specialized in preformulation and formulation development of various form factors spanning from drug delivery devices to home and personal care products. Dr Baker has a PhD in Pharmaceutics from Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, University of the Sciences, and a Bachelor of Pharmacy from the University of Mumbai.

Tony Bedford is a Commercial Director at Phillips-Medisize and has been involved in the design and development of medical devices for over 25 years. He is part of a global team developing industry-leading solutions and platforms for drug delivery, digital medicine, and connected health. With a First Class Honours Degree in product design, his broad experience covers everything from innovation and market strategy to clinical research and product launch, with a focus on understanding market, stakeholder and user needs. Prior to joining Phillips-Medisize he held project management and business development roles in the consulting industry, working on a wide range of device programs. He has been specializing in drug delivery devices for a number of years.

Sean Bedingfield is a specialist in nonviral RNA delivery with work spanning multiple platforms. He is currently in Lilly’s Genetic Medicine division working in early discovery efforts for delivery platform technologies. He leads a small team in a blend of internal platform development, external collaborations and vetting external technologies. Lilly’s interests are broad and ambitious in genetic medicine, as highlighted by their public partnerships including Dicerna, Verve Therapeutics, Scribe Therapeutics, Entos Pharmaceuticals, Evox Therapeutics and acquisitions such as Prevail and Akouos. Receiving his PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Vanderbilt University, his publications include high impact papers relating to intracellular assay development, RNA delivery leveraging targeted nanoparticles, protein engineering applications (now licensed by Anchor Biologics), and nanomedicine-related material science investigations. Prior to this role, he worked as a technical lead in business development for Pendant Biosciences.

Julien Bérard is Business Development Director over Corbion’s PURASORB® portfolio, which includes lactide and glycolide (co-)polymers. He works closely with partners in the creation of medical devices and long-acting pharmaceutical depots, and is intent on continuously improving PURASORB® materials and associated services to better support customers’ development and innovation efforts. Prior to joining Corbion in 2020, Mr Bérard held several positions in product development (injectable microparticles) and business development at DSM in the Netherlands. He obtained his MSc in Chemistry at the ENSCM of Montpellier (France) before earning an MBA at Rotterdam School of Management (the Netherlands).

Whitney Beysselance Moro joined Evonik as part of the acquisition of the LACTEL® Absorbable Polymers line in 2021. She is currently the Director of Strategic and Technical Marketing for Evonik’s Parenteral Drug Delivery Solutions business. Prior to the acquisition, Dr Moro served as the Director of Scientific and Technical Operations for the Lactel group within DURECT Corporation. In this capacity, she was responsible for managing the analytical testing and development for all LACTEL products, developing and optimizing manufacturing and purification processes for new products (including glucose star polymer), and bridging the gap between technical and customer support for new and existing clients. Dr Moro obtained her PhD in organic medicinal chemistry from the University of Alabama in Birmingham (UAB), USA, which was followed by postdoctoral training at UAB in the discovery of small-molecule antibacterial drugs with activity against novel therapeutic targets for the treatment of biowarfare agents

Deep Bhattacharya is a senior scientist working with Drug Product Design and Development, Pharmaceutical R&D Andover since November 2019. He received his PhD from the University of Nebraska Medical Center, College of Pharmacy in Pharmaceutical Sciences, with a focus in engineering polymer-protein conjugates and polymeric nanoparticles using computational chemistry, biophysical tools, formulation developments, to in vivo characterizations in multiple animal models. After joining Pfizer, he has worked with multiple gene therapy, recombinant proteins, multimodal antibody programs. He is experienced in the formulation development of recombinant protein vaccines and high concentration mAbs. His areas of interest include biophysical assessment of proteins, utilizing NMR for structural determination of biologics, subcutaneous assessments of biologics, early-stage development of biologics, interfacing with early-stage discovery teams for candidate selection, and understanding business strategies for developments of biopharmaceuticals.