Greg Moakes, an analytical chemist by training, received his PhD in Chemistry from Georgia Tech and later his MBA from Southern Methodist University in Dallas. He started his career working in the specialty materials business, spending time in global procurement, innovation leadership, sales leadership, and business development roles. Dr Moakes has over 15 years’ experience in launching products in the biomaterials, medical polymers, and drug-eluting implant fields. Dr Moakes currently leads commercial activities for the Sorrel wearable drug delivery device platform. He is passionate about partnering with pharmaceutical companies to ensure their combination products give the most intuitive, stress-free experience for patients.

Sukanya Murali is a Technical Services Manager at BD Medical-Pharmaceutical Systems. In this role, she serves as a key technical contact for some of BD’s top pharma customers in the vaccine and biologics therapeutic areas, supporting them in their drug-device combination product development and commercialization. In addition, she serves as a key scientific liaison in bringing innovative technologies and solutions to pharma’s drug delivery needs, such as deep cold storage, novel biologics and vaccines, traceability, and sustainability. Sukanya has several years of experience in the healthcare, medical devices and advanced materials industries and brings a diverse background in drug delivery, specialty polymers, connected devices, sustainability, and other related disciplines. Sukanya holds a PhD in Materials Science and Engineering and a Master’s in Chemical Engineering.

Courtney Nicholas Sutton is the Head of Portfolio Strategy at SHL Medical where she leads the strategy for current and future drug delivery systems. She previously worked for AstraZeneca and Regeneron where she led device development teams, new technology evaluation, primary container development, and drove the device strategy for early stage molecules. Courtney holds a Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Marianne Ølholm is Senior Vice President at Novo Nordisk with the responsibility for research and development of devices and delivery solutions across the entire Novo Nordisk portfolio. Dr Ølholm has extensive R&D and leadership experience from various roles in Novo Nordisk over the last 25 years, mainly in Denmark but also has international leadership experience from establishing an organization in the research centre in Beijing. In her previous experience within development, Dr Ølholm has successfully driven projects in the obesity clinical development pipeline, first as Project Vice President with responsibility for specific projects, and later as Corporate Project Vice President with responsibility for the obesity and NASH development portfolio. Dr Ølholm is originally trained as a DVM with a PhD within in vivo pharmacology as well as a DMSc and has published several articles in international, peer-reviewed journals. She has also authored numerous abstracts and serves as an ad hoc reviewer for several scientific publications. Since 2021, Dr Ølholm has headed up the device and delivery solution area and ensured a clear strategic direction and efficient execution of the extensive portfolio in Novo Nordisk.

Dr Juan Oviedo is the Head of Machine Learning at Nanite, an AI-driven non-viral drug delivery company. Previously, he completed a PhD at MIT at the intersection of artificial intelligence and material science. His work focused on accelerating the screening, development and optimization of new functional materials and molecules using active learning. He has previous experience at Microsoft and CERN.

Dr Usha Pillai has three decades of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, academia, and consulting. She has deep knowledge of the industry and has been a consultant to biotech companies for over a decade. Dr Pillai serves as a Senior Advisor for Pharmacin. In this capacity she works closely with the Executive team on their proprietary formulation technology, SpraySol™. Dr Pillai also serves on the Connecticut Bioscience Growth Council, the Advisory Board of the Biotechnology Academic and Career Pathway (BioPath), and the Garde Arts Center in New London, CT. Previously, Dr Pillai held various positions with increasing responsibilities and complexities at Pfizer, Inc. She is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP). Dr Pillai holds a Bachelor’s degree in Pharmacy; an Executive Masters in Technology Management; and a PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences. She also trained as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Arizona in Tucson, AZ.

Jessica Placido-Weber is a Toxicologist on the Medical and Scientific Affairs team in Pharmaceutical Systems at BD. She is responsible for leading the ISO 10993 biocompatibility strategy for wearable injectors, reviewing, and interpreting biological and chemical study reports, and conducting toxicological risk assessments. In addition, she prepares biological evaluation plans and reports, as per the ISO 10993 guidelines. She previously held a role as a Contracting Toxicologist with Ethicon, where she authored biological evaluation reports to capture changes mandated by European Union (EU) Medical Device Regulation (MDR). Dr. Placido-Weber has also worked as a Toxicologist in the personal care products and cosmetics industry, as well as a Forensic Toxicologist. She has extensive knowledge in the areas of Extractables, analytical testing strategies, and risk assessment, and is working towards her national certification under the American Board of Toxicology.

Dr Sanyogitta (Sanya) Puri is currently Senior Director & Head of Non-viral Delivery with the RNA & GT organization at Novo Nordisk. She leads a global department with multidisciplinary teams across Denmark and Boston, that are accountable for a portfolio of nucleic acid therapeutics with novel delivery systems within Novo Nordisk. Prior to this role, Dr Puri was Director of the Advanced Drug Delivery team, AstraZeneca Cambridge, UK, where she led a team of multidisciplinary drug delivery, formulation and clinical development scientists. Over her 10+ years & industrial career, Dr Puri has worked on design and development of oligonucleotide, peptide, mRNA and targeted nanomedicine products across oncology, cardiovascular, respiratory and rare disease areas. Dr Puri holds a degree in Pharmacy from India and PhD in Nanoparticle drug delivery from Nottingham University, UK. Dr Puri is known for being passionate about innovative drug delivery and has a track record of preclinical to clinical translation of novel medicines through both internal capability build and external partnerships.

John Quackenbush is Professor of Computational Biology and Bioinformatics and Chair of the Department of Biostatistics at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health and Professor at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. John’s PhD was in Theoretical Physics but a fellowship to work on the Human Genome Project led him through the Salk Institute, Stanford University, and The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR), before joining Harvard in 2005. Dr Quackenbush’s research uses massive data to probe how many small effects combine to influence our health and risk of disease. His published work has more than 89,000 citations and among his honors are recognition in 2013 as a White House Open Science Champion of Change and election in 2022 to the National Academy of Medicine. In 2012 he founded Genospace, a precision medicine software company that was sold to Hospital Corporation of America in 2017.

Dr Veena Rao, PhD, is President and Chief Business Office at Portal Instruments. As a distinguished leader and innovator in the fields of medical device, pharma, biotech and digital health, she plays a pivotal role in spearheading Portal’s development and partnership initiatives and steering its short and long-term commercial strategy. Dr Rao brings a wealth of experience from her prior role as Chief Commercial Officer and Head of Corporate Development & Strategy at Beta Bionics, where she demonstrated her expertise in product launches and building successful commercial organizations. Prior to that, with over a decade of valuable contributions at Eli Lilly, including serving as Vice President of External Innovation in the Lilly Device, Delivery and Digital Health groups, she possesses an in-depth understanding of the pharmaceutical and device industries. Dr Rao holds a PhD in Chemical Engineering from Stanford University and an MBA from the University of Virginia Darden School of Business.

Mat Legut, PhD, is a co-founder and CEO of OverT Bio, an NYC-based cell and gene therapy. Previously, Dr Legut was a Hope Funds Fellow in the lab of Neville Sanjana at NYU and the NY Genome Center where he developed high-throughput approaches to discover novel regulators of the immune response. Dr Legut holds a BSc from the University of Wroclaw, Poland, and a PhD in Cancer Immunology from Cardiff University, UK. In addition to his academic career, Dr Legut has collaborated with several UK-based cell therapy companies on preclinical development of cell therapy programs.

At Merck, Dr Gregory Lubiniecki, vice president, oncology clinical research, is a senior leader who oversees cancer research. He’s also a practicing clinician, continuing to see patients — adding a human connection to his research.

For Dr Lubiniecki, having a “one-on-one connection” with patients is important both personally and professionally, and helps to keep the patient experience at the forefront when designing clinical studies.

Dr Lubiniecki’s drive to pursue a career in oncology was motivated by his family’s experience with cancer — watching his mother go through surgery and chemotherapy while he was in high school — and his own scientific curiosity. “The complexity of the molecular biology involved in cancer was very intriguing to me,” he said.

Dr Lubiniecki and his team play a critical role in advancing Merck’s effort to help save and improve lives around the world through leading-edge science. With an ongoing connection to patients and his research firmly focused on the future, Dr Lubiniecki is excited about where cancer care may go next.