A skilled researcher with more than 20 years' experience working in the pharmaceutical industry across many different areas. Dr. Dews believes that research should be accessible, understandable, and co-designed and she has a track record of working with patients and organisations to develop shared scientific priorities and outcomes that matter.

Sarah was diagnosed with Young Onset Parkinson’s Disease 5 years ago and finds her purpose inspiring others in the Parkinson’s community to continue to live their best life with a strong hope for a medical breakthrough.

For nearly 30 years she worked in the biopharma industry focused on Prostate Cancer, Lysosomal Storage Disorders (Gaucher Disease, Fabry Disease, MPS 1, Pompe Disease) and with Neuromuscular Specialists treating Spinal Muscular Atrophy.

Since her diagnosis Ms Zenner-Dolan has volunteered as an Ambassador for the Davis Phinney Foundation, a member of the Endpoints Working Group at Critical Path Institute, as a boxing coach at Rock Steady Boxing, and has participated in three clinical research trials.

Dr Patrick Gallogly (he/him), MB BCh BAO (Hons), MSc, MRCP (UK) is a medical advisor for Pfizer UK’s oncology medical affairs team. As part of his non-promotional role, he provides UK medical support throughout a medicine’s life cycle, including liaising with the healthcare community to communicate scientific data and identify areas of unmet medical need as well as supporting with clinical trial site set up. He is a passionate LGBTQ+ advocate, and has taken on diversity, equity, and inclusion roles within Pfizer, as well as partnering with patient organisations to help address healthcare inequalities faced by this community. He obtained his medical degree from Queens University Belfast, and prior to entering the pharmaceutical industry he spent seven years working as an NHS doctor. He is a member of the Royal College of Physicians (UK), and has a master’s degree in clinical and health sciences with ageing from Newcastle University.

Andrew Garvey leads GSK’s global work with patient organizations (excluding the US). He is responsible for leading the work to develop collaborations with patient organizations to bring patient insight into GSK, improve the management of diseases and to strengthen the capabilities of patient organizations. Mr Garvey has worked at GSK for 20 years in sales and marketing, public affairs and communications roles before leading on first GSK’s patient advocacy work in the UK, then across Europe and now globally.

Dr Oleksandr Gorbenko is a global expert in patient science, medical affairs, public health, and community engagement with overall 25 years’ experience in biopharma industry. He graduated as a medical doctor (general practice) in O.Bogomolets’ National Medical University and Shupyk National Healthcare University of Ukraine and later worked on his PhD dissertation in the Ukrainian Institute of Public Health MOH. His experience across pharma includes several medical and commercial roles in affiliates of big biopharma companies (Nycomed/Takeda, Richter Gedeon, GSK) as well as senior global medical roles at GSK and ViiV Healthcare headquarters in the UK. He has an additional experience with UN/UNFPA on community engagement, women empowerment and combating gender-based violence. Since 2019 Dr Gorbenko has a role of Global Patient Affairs Director at Ipsen with the focus on patient experience mapping, developing necessary capacities/capabilities cross-functionally, advice-seeking and insights gathering with patient experts throughout the Medicines Development Continuum, partnership with several patient organisations, substantiation and inclusion of the specific PRO/PCO measurements as endpoints, defining the patient value attributes within the Target Value Profiles (TVP) for new medicines, and other programmes. Board Certified Medical Affairs Professional (ACMA, 2020) and member of MAPS Focus Area Working Group on Patient Centricity.

Emily Hardie is a Senior Clinical Research Associate at Kyowa Kirin International. With 10 years of experience in managing and overseeing clinical operations, she currently leads two real-world evidence studies as part of the Health Economics Outcomes Research (HEOR) team. In her role, Ms Hardie collaborates closely with the project team, contract research organizations (CROs), and investigators to ensure successful study delivery in alignment with study plans and guidelines. She is passionate about leveraging real-world evidence to generate meaningful insights and contributing to evidence-based healthcare decision-making. She is dedicated to advancing patient-centric research and driving innovations for improved patient outcomes. Ms Hardie holds a BSc in Psychology from the University of Leeds.

Stephen Head joined Astellas Pharma Europe 4 years ago as the lead for Patient Partnerships in the European region and has since expanded his responsibilities to lead the International Region. He has a strong heritage in patient advocacy and healthcare, having worked as a paediatric nurse within HIV, immunology and infectious diseases before joining industry. Prior to joining Astellas, he led HIV patient advocacy at Gilead Sciences Europe for 16 years but also worked on strategic advocacy programmes with key patient organisations working in cancer, HIV and liver disease which gave him extensive knowledge of advocacy and policy related issues. His main area of interest centres on how to bring the patient voice into all areas of industry and in doing so, he has developed strong relationships with patent advocacy groups across diseases.

David James, Director of Patient Projects and Influencing, has been with Prostate Cancer Research (PCR) for over 3 years. During this time, he established and grew the Patient Projects and Influencing departments, developing a programme of work which focuses on supporting and empowering those with low health literacy and underserved communities, and championing greater equity in research and care. As part of this work, he developed a new educational platform, the infopool (www.theinfopool.co.uk), which focusses on providing easy-to-understand information and tools on diagnosis, treatments, side effects and more, including a clinical trial finder developed with ancora.ai. In just one year, the infopool is already being used in 150+ NHS hospitals and had 115,000+ visitors. Mr James has led on several projects with industry partners focussed on developing patient-friendly and accessible information, protocol and study reviews and the creation of tools to empower patients to make more informed decisions about participation in research. He is also leading on PCR's first-of-its-kind patient data platform, Prostate Progress (www.ProstateProgress.org) - a project that is linking patient- reported and clinical data to facilitate integrated patient-centric research, and to serve as a centralised and standardised repository of prostate cancer data to be utilised by healthcare providers, researchers, and patients. Prostate Progress has been announced as NHS England’s first Driver Project in its Data for R&D Programme and launches June 17. Before working at PCR, Mr James spent close to a decade in political and community organising and project management, in the USA, Middle East and South Asia.

Beyza Klein is an accomplished Global Patient Advocacy Director in R&D at Johnson & Johnson, focusing on Oncology. She leads the development and implementation of innovative, insight-driven strategies, projects, and sponsorships that embed the patient voice across the clinical development lifecycle to enhance trial planning and design, improving recruitment and retention, and ultimately driving stronger study performance and outcomes.

With a career dedicated to advancing patient-centered healthcare, Beyza champions the use of patient insights and real-world evidence across R&D functions to inform decision-making and accelerate access to meaningful therapies. Her work focuses on scalable, sustainable approaches that strengthen collaboration across functions, geographies, and with patient organizations to ensure clinical research reflects diverse patient needs and experiences.

Trained as a sociologist with a postgraduate degree from the University of Sydney, Beyza brings deep expertise in qualitative and quantitative research methodologies, with publications in peer-reviewed journals. Based in Basel, Switzerland, she partners across J&J’s global R&D organization to elevate patient engagement as a strategic driver of innovation and impact.

Her passion is to translate the patient voice into evidence that shapes healthcare systems, influences stakeholders, and improves outcomes for patients worldwide.

All medicines development should have but one goal: To make treatments that matter accessible to patients. This has been – and continues to be – the guiding principle of Anders Lassen’s professional focus. With a background in public health and law, he has worked with the patient voice in various settings, including healthcare systems research, medicines regulation and the pharmaceutical industry. Today, he is heading the Patient Insights group at Lundbeck, striving to make the patient voice actionable in brain disease and enable a strong patient focus in the company’s research and development activities.

Léa Proulx is a scientist by training and has been working at Roche for 10+ years. She's currently working as the Patient Voice Partner within the early Research and Development group. Her role consists of working with Project Team in early clinical research to ensure Patient Communities are an active partner when teams are discussing early development & clinical strategy, taking into account a deeper understanding of patient and caregiver needs. The idea behind this early and systematic partnership is to co-creating innovations and solutions that matter to the Patient Community. She truly believes in having a trustful, long-term partnership and collaboration between patients, industry and other stakeholders where everyone has the opportunity to have their voice heard in order to improve outcomes for patient communities and support shaping the healthcare ecosystem of tomorrow.

TBD