Sharon Cunningham is CEO and Co-Founder of Shorla Oncology, a commercial stage oncology drug company. Named Ireland's Best Young Entrepreneur 2019 and recognised as one of the 100 most influential CEO's in Ireland by the Business & Finance Media Group 2020, Sharon is a PwC trained Chartered Accountant with an MBA from University College Dublin Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School and a BSc in Finance from University College Cork Ireland.

Dr Barbara Wirostko is the Chief Medical Officer and Co-Founder of Qlaris Bio. Dr Wirostko is a practicing glaucoma specialist and is also a Clinical Adjunct Professor at the University of Utah, Moran Eye Center. She was previously the Chief Medical Officer of EyeGate Pharmaceuticals following its acquisition of Jade Therapeutics where Dr Wirostko was Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer spearheading the development of the Ocular Bandage Gel for human use. Prior to Jade, she served as the Chief Medical Officer of Altheos, a glaucoma company, and held leadership positions in medical and clinical development at Pfizer in Ophthalmology.

Dr Wirostko received her MD from and completed her residency at Columbia University and holds a BA in Microbiology from Cornell University.

TBA

Darius Kharabi is the Chief Business Officer of Kala Pharmaceuticals. He was co-founder and 

CEO of Combangio, a clinical stage ophthalmology mesenchymal stem cell secretome company that Kala acquired in November 2021. He is also the co-founder and COO of Lagunita Biosciences, an early-stage medical investment company. He helped to create and served in board and executive leadership positions in multiple Lagunita portfolio companies, including xCella Biosciences, acquired by Ligand, Kedalion Therapeutics, acquired by Novartis, and Combangio. Prior to Lagunita, he served as VP, Corporate Development and International Sales at OrthAlign, a commercial stage orthopedic surgery navigation company, where his responsibilities included the launch of the KneeAlign® total knee arthroplasty navigation product line in the United States and global markets. Mr. Kharabi started his career as a biotechnology licensing attorney at Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati, PC. He received his BS in Biochemistry from Georgetown University and his JD and MBA degrees from Stanford University.

Howard Matalon is an equity partner of OlenderFeldman LLP in charge of the firm’s Employment Practices and Litigation Group and co-founder of NAV, a cutting-edge software company combining AI assessment and human coaching to improve career trajectory for mid-level and senior employees. Mr Matalon is an accomplished legal advisor with over 30 years of experience offering precision guidance and cost-effective solutions in Human Capital Management to employers and executives alike in a cutting-edge “360 degree” practice across the United States. He previously developed a proactive approach to employment law challenges based on a sophisticated audit and guidance system called HIRES, which maximizes the enterprise value of the workforce for business clients by managing issues in every stage of the employee life cycle, including hiring, onboarding, retention and termination.

Mr Matalon routinely counsels his clients on a wide range of complex employment issues, including hiring practices and business accountability for workplace conditions and adverse employment actions. Mr Matalon received a Professional in Human Resources (PHR) certification from the HR Certification Institute (HRCI). He also coaches select executives in their hiring and separation negotiations. Forbes interviewed Mr Matalon in 2019 on recommended approaches to negotiations of this nature. Mr Matalon utilizes the Leadership and Self Deception principles developed by the Arbinger Institute in every facet of his legal and coaching work.

Mr Matalon received his Bachelor of Arts from Brandeis University and his J.D. from Boston University Law School. He lives with his wife and four ambitious daughters in Far Hills, New Jersey.

Angi Gillen, MS, Senior Director, Head of Patient Experience, is leading a new program at Gilead, building a framework for incorporating Human Centered Design and Patient Voice into Clinical Development. She has over 20 years of proven cross-functional collaboration in drug development with demonstrated results in Clinical Operations and has worked across several therapeutic areas throughout her career. She has a Bachelor of Science degree in Molecular Biology from East Carolina University and a Master of Science in Biotechnology and Bioinformatics from Johns Hopkins University.

As Director of Operational Design & Patient Engagement within Global Development Operations at Amgen, Tracy Artim, MSN, CRNP, leads an amazing group who focuses on bringing the patient and caregiver voice into clinical trial design. This allows Amgen study teams across therapeutic areas to develop trials that have reduced burden, and which meet the needs of diverse groups of patients. Ms Artim focuses on building capabilities within the function and demonstrating value of Patient Engagement to Senior Leadership which has led to year-over-year growth.

Prior to entering the pharmaceutical/biotechnology industry, Ms Artim practiced as a Nurse Practitioner. She obtained her Master of Science in Nursing from the University of Pittsburgh and her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Duquesne University.

Nicholas Brooke is the Founder and Executive Director of The Synergist, an incubator and managing organization to multi-stakeholder platforms that brings key players together with the express aim of solving significant societal problems through collective actions. The Synergist also helps individual organizations to build the capacity and capability to better engage with key stakeholders in partnerships to solve societal issues.

Under Mr Brooke’s leadership, The Synergist acts as a backbone, providing vision, strategy, stakeholder alignment and execution on multiple international, multi-stakeholder programs. Bringing his Synergist and caregiver hats together, he is the Executive Director of PFMD.org, a pre-competitive multi-stakeholder global collaborative platform dedicated to stimulating innovation in medicine and device lifecycles, digital health and health system through systematic patient engagement, WITH patients.

Mr Brooke is Economist by training and was previously CEO of an award-winning digital agency, providing cutting-edge digital strategy to global corporations across multiple sectors. His deep understanding of how digital strategy can facilitate and accelerate collective action, and generate evidence for informed decisions drove him to see the potential for an independent organization that can enable partnerships and drive them to jointly solve societal challenges.

Working with key players from across the public-private spectrum, The Synergist currently manages shared value programs including From Testing to Targeted Treatment (FT3), Motherhood Collective Impact, and PFMD as well as contributes to European public-private partnerships including IMI-Conception, IMI-Paradigm, and IMI-Gravitate.

Beth Brooks is Head, Patient Insights and Behavioral Sciences (PIBS), within the Patient-Informed Development and Health Value Translation team at Sanofi.

The PIBS team generates insights about patient populations of interest to the R&D organization. Among other things, the team uses this information to establish diversity and inclusion recruitment objectives for studies in the United States. Based on these insights and additional findings, the team uses behavioral science principles to develop tools to address recruitment and retention challenges that some patient populations may present in clinical trials.

Hayley Chapman brings over 25 years of expertise in healthcare to her role as Senior Program Director at Patient Focused Medicines Development (PFMD)/The Synergist. Based in Canada, she holds a Master of Health Science from the University of Toronto and has held leadership roles in the pharmaceutical industry and patient organizations, specializing in Marketing and Community Engagement. A recognized expert in building and evaluating strategic partnerships between biopharma companies and patient organizations, Ms Chapman is dedicated to embedding patient-centricity within healthcare innovation. Her work is deeply informed by her personal caregiving journey after her child's cancer diagnosis, which fuels her commitment to reshaping patient engagement practices across the industry. At PFMD, Ms Chapman spearheads critical initiatives focused on leveraging patient experience data (PED) and patient engagement intelligence to drive more effective, evidence-based healthcare decision-making. Additionally, she leads efforts to integrate patient-centered approaches into corporate ESG and sustainability strategies, aligning patient insights with investment and organizational decision-making. By overseeing operational efficiencies and methodology integration across PFMD projects, she ensures strategic alignment and meaningful patient impact across the healthcare ecosystem.

Ebony Dashiell-Aje, PhD, is a leading expert in clinical outcome assessment (COA) design and implementation, advising on COAs, study endpoint issues and regulatory science. As a health outcomes researcher and methodologist, Dr Dashiell-Aje is driven by her passion for public health and promoting patient-focused medical product development. Dr Dashiell-Aje has notably contributed her research expertise in academic, consulting and regulatory environments to arrive at evidence-based solutions, and to shape health policy.

As Senior Director for R&D Patient Science, Lisa Kerr is leading the development of AstraZeneca’s R&D Patient Centricity Framework within the Chief Medical Office. With over 20 years' experience in Pharma, across R&D, Digital and Operations, leading the development of some of AZ’s most complex products, she is now focused on driving scientific and digital innovation with a passion for people to bring the voice of patients into into the heart of clinical trial design and execution in AZ.

Ms Kerr is also a key leader in I&D, as Founder and Executive Sponsor for Safe Space – AZ’s Mental Health Awareness Employee Resource Group, which has grown to over 3,500 members with Chapters in 5 continents. She has raised the profile of mental health within AZ, including co-development with Microsoft of the HealthyMind app in MSTeams - so all employees can simply access the relevant mental health support in their locations, in their languages via a digital flowchart. Recognizing when suffering from mental health issues, finding information in complex suites of brochures and websites is challenging even for highly educated technology literate professionals… the app was designed with patients, for patients.

Her drive to combine science, technology with a human-centric approach underpins her ambition to transform AZs R&D process to deliver Patient-Centric and Inclusive trials, that also make a positive measurable impact on health outcomes and the business. Outside of work, apart from being a mum/step-mum to three teenagers she can usually be found walking her dog, singing, cooking and eating or all of the above!