Speaker Biographies

Christine Antis, Senior Director, Portfolio Governance and Head of Portfolio Decision Sciences, Portfolio Management, GSK
In this role, Christine leads a team of senior directors and managers accountable for the R&D portfolio from target identification through post-launch lifecycle management.  This team provides strategic advice to the portfolio owners, governance boards, & project teams through objective portfolio analytics and evaluations.  Christine started her career as an engineer with a BSE from The University of Michigan and spent a number of years in telecommunications consulting after obtaining an MBA focused on Econometric Modelling at Temple University.  Throughout her career in Pharma, Christine has built a deep business expertise by working across a wide variety of therapeutic areas including Autoimmune diseases, oncology, and infectious diseases.

Michael Baran, Executive Director, WRD, Principal, Pfizer Ventures
As Principal on the Pfizer Ventures team and Executive Director in the Emerging Science and Innovation group, Mike has responsibility for growing venture investment transactions and managing equity investments aligned with future directions of Pfizer. From 2017-2018 Mike served as Senior Director of Portfolio Strategy and was responsible for critically assessing the R&D portfolio from a volume, value, quality, risk and productivity perspective with the ultimate objective of maximizing R&D productivity and value generation.  From 2011-2017 Mike was Senior Director, Scientific Affairs for the R&D President’s Office where he was responsible for enabling and communicating the R&D strategic agenda as well as leading colleague development capabilities. Mike joined Pfizer in 2008 in the market access space providing strategic and analytical support around marketing and managed care contracting with commercial and government payers.  Prior to 2008, Mike worked within the NIH Protein Structure Initiative’s Northeast Structural Genomics Consortium coordinating protein structure production efforts, including bioinformatics, protein expression/purification and 3D structure determination.  Mike is also a co-founder of Nexomics Biosciences, a NJ based biotechnology company focused on providing gene-2-structure services as well as early stage drug target validation.  He is actively involved in the local biotechnology community participating in eLabNYC, an organization which aims to connect entrepreneurs from New York City academic institutions with local scientific and business leaders. Mike earned his Ph.D. from Robert Wood Johnson Medical School / Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey in biochemistry where his research focused on structural biology and scientific software development. He holds a M.B.A. from Rutgers Business School with a focus in pharmaceutical management and received his B.S. in Biochemistry / Information Technology from Syracuse University.

Richard Bayney, PhD, President & Founder, Project & Portfolio Value Creation (PPVC)
Dr. Richard Bayney is President & Founder of Project & Portfolio Value Creation, a consulting boutique providing training and education in project, program, portfolio, resource, and risk management as well as client services in strategic, business, and portfolio planning. He is an adjunct faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Bayney is a 23-year veteran of the Pharmaceutical & Biotechnology industry at Merck & Co., Bayer Corp. and AG, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research & Development. He obtained his M.Sc. and Ph.D. from University of London, MBA from Columbia University, and PMP from the Project Management Institute. In his last corporate position, Dr. Bayney was Head of Decision Analysis & Portfolio Management at Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research & Development.

Greg Cohee, Partner, Pharmica Consulting
Greg Cohee is a scientist, turned project manager, with over twenty years of pharmaceutical industry experience. Greg is a managing partner at Pharmica Consulting and VP, R&D solutions at Intrinsic Clinical Systems. Throughout his drug development career, he has worked in Discovery, Clinical, Program Management, and has developed a variety of innovative technology solutions. Today, Mr. Cohee, and his team of industry professionals, help R&D organizations develop critical capabilities and delivery on their pipelines.

Matthew Cohen, PhD, Partner, Osage University Partners
Matt is a Partner at Osage University Partners (OUP) where he has focused on Life Science investments since 2013. He has participated in sourcing and diligence for many of OUP’s investments and is a board observer at Arrakis Therapeutics, Capella Bioscience, Faraday Pharma, and PMV Pharma. Prior to joining OUP, Matt was a strategy consultant with L.E.K. Consulting serving clients in biopharma, diagnostics, research tools, healthcare, and private equity. Matt holds a Ph.D. in Cell and Molecular Biology from The University of Pennsylvania, and a B.S. in Microbiology from The Pennsylvania State University.

Stephen Curtis, PhD, Principal, MPM Capital
Dr. Stephen (Steve) Curtis oversees MPM’s investment collaboration with Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and brings to his role experience in early-stage, start-up creation and strategic deal structuring and negotiation in the biotech and pharmaceutical industries. He is also responsible for investment identification, due diligence and business development and supports MPM’s partnership with Gilead Sciences.Prior to joining MPM, Steve was Senior Director of Business Development – Emerging Technology and Innovation for Eli Lilly and Company, out of Lilly’s external research hub in Cambridge, MA. In that role, he focused on Lilly’s strategic limited partnerships in top-tier venture funds, direct equity investments in selected biotechnology companies, “build-to-buy” investments and other “shared-risk” drug discovery and early development relationships. Prior to Lilly, Steve co-led the Bioscience Ventures group within 2M Companies, the Dallas-based family office of Morton H. Meyerson, focusing on Seed and Series A biotech investments and portfolio management. Before 2M, he worked at Reata Pharmaceuticals, entering through their Biotechnology Leadership Development program and ultimately running the Technology Evaluation and In-Licensing program. Steve also interned at Siemens Venture Capital in Boston while finishing his graduate studies.Steve completed the competitive, two-year venture capital Kauffman Fellows training program. He earned his Ph.D. in Biological and Biomedical Sciences at Harvard Medical School and a dual B.S. degree, summa cum laude, in Molecular Biology and Applied Economics and Management from Cornell University.

Tony Dybicz, PMP, Associate Director, Global Regulatory Affairs and Clinical Safety, Merck & Co., Inc.
Tony Dybicz is an Associate Director of Regulatory Affairs at Merck, supporting their Global Regulatory Affairs and Clinical Safety organization in resource capacity management.  Tony has greater than 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, starting his career building and maintaining research and clinical production facilities.  He then transitioned to a variety of strategic project management roles, including managing strategic initiatives and integrated product development and supply teams.  He also established product portfolio governance and prioritization capabilities across a large manufacturing network.  Tony has a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering degree from Drexel University and an MBA with a concentration in Marketing from Villanova University.  He is also a Project Management Professional and a certified change agent.  

Samantha Fairbairn, Director, Business Performance, Business Analysis and External Process Development, Amgen
Samantha Fairbairn is a Director of Business Performance for Amgen's Process Development organization. Throughout her 13 years at Amgen, she has held a variety of roles with increasing responsibility and leadership in the areas project management and business operations.  Samantha is responsible for the systems, tools, and processes which make up the capacity management framework as well as the overall business analysis and performance of the Process Development organization of more than 1800 staff.

Michael Ferrante, Head, R&D Business Capabilities, R&D Strategy and Planning, Bristol-Myers Squibb
Michael Ferrante leads the R&D project, portfolio, and clinical study management capabilities for Bristol-Myers Squibb in Princeton, New Jersey.  In his time at BMS, Mike has led Business Operations for regulatory and oncology, where he led portfolio operations, headcount, budget, and resource management.  Prior to BMS, he served as Managing Director of Consulting Solutions at YourEncore, as well as over eight years with Merck where he left as Senior Director, Business Operations, supporting clinical grants planning and budgeting, functional objectives development and execution, and strategic analysis for all global clinical development and regulatory functions. He also led R&D operations for Merck’s subsidiary in Japan. Mike earned a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Michigan, an M.S. in Chemical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and an MBA from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.

Olivier Fleischmann, Director, Life Sciences PPM Practice, Planisware

Olivier has more than 8 years of experience helping global biotech organizations enhance their NPD processes with the use of Planisware solutions. In the past two years, Olivier has specialized on developing software solutions to perfect clinical trial forecast and enable life science organizations to optimize resource and cash flow allocations across their portfolio pipeline. Olivier holds an MS in Innovation Management and is currently enrolled in the executive MBA program at the Wharton School.

Jonathan Freeman, Senior Advisor, Blackstone Life Sciences, COO Anthos Therapeutics
Jonathan Freeman, Ph.D. is a Senior Advisor at Blackstone Life Sciences (NYSE: BX), co-founder and Chief Operating Officer at Anthos Therapeutics. Jonathan has over 20 years of practical industry experience within the healthcare private equity, start-up, business development, corporate development, and M&A sectors. He previously served as Senior Vice President of Strategy and Portfolio Management, and Head of Business Development and Licensing at Merck KgaA (FWB: MRK); CBO, Vedanta Biosciences within Puretech (LSE: PRTC); Head of M&A and Licensing at Baxter International (NYSE: BAX); and Director of Corporate Development at Serono (NYSE: SRA). Jonathan holds both an MA and First-Class BA (Hons) from Cambridge University, a Ph.D. in Molecular Pharmacology and Drug Metabolism from the ICRF / CRUK, and an MBA from the Universities of Versailles, Paris-Saclay, and Webster, Geneva. Jonathan was previously Vice President of the Swiss PLG, an EMBO fellow at the Swiss Institute of Experimental Cancer Research (ISREC) and has authored several peer-reviewed scientific papers in the fields of oncology and drug metabolism.

George Fountain III, MBA, PMP, Senior Manager, CMC Performance and Analytics, Kite Pharma, a Gilead Company
George Fountain III focuses on resource modeling and business analytics at Kite Pharma. He also leads governance optimization and workforce modeling to support Kite’s first global product launch and growing cell therapy pipeline. Prior to joining Kite, George has a background in CMC Program Management, Upstream Process Development, and Large-scale Manufacturing.

Jeffrey S. Handen, PhD, Director, Advisory Services, Life Sciences, Grant Thornton LLP 
Jeff Handen is a leader in the Operations Transformation group of Grant Thornton LLP’s Advisory and Consulting sector where he has responsibility for leading the Life Sciences R&D Transformation practice.  In his role Jeff combines scientific and deep industry experience in Clinical Development with expertise in Portfolio and Project Management, Process Improvement, and Decision Support & Analytics. Jeff brings over twenty years’ experience in clinical development, GCP compliance, and systems & process and implementation.

Sean Gallagher, MS, MBA, Assoc. Director of Capacity Management, Janssen R&D
Sean has over 10 years of experience in Project Management and Resource Forecasting in the pharmaceutical industry. Prior to moving to the PMO at Janssen in 2012, Sean worked for 10 years as a Biochemist on recombinant, bacterial, and live virus vaccines in the Merck Research Laboratories. He has a BS in Biology from Holy Family University and holds an MBA and MS in Biology from Drexel University. Outside of work, Sean enjoys spending time hiking and boating with his wife and two beagles.

Cleat Jerden, Executive Director, Business Performance, Business Analysis and External Process Development, Amgen
Cleat Jerden is an Executive Director of Business Performance for Amgen’s Process Development organization.  In his 23 years at Amgen, he has held a variety of roles bridging business analysis and performance with science.  He is one of the individuals responsible for implementing Process Development’s capacity management framework and business process.

Rick Johnston, PhD, Principal, Strategy & Life Sciences, Consulting, IQVIA

Dr. Johnston is the Senior Software Solutions Lead within IQVIA's Consulting Organization. He is an accomplished technical leader with more than 15 years’ experience in building software that solves big data, machine learning and advanced analytics problems in pharma. Software he built is used by more than 90% of the world’s 25 largest pharmaceutical companies. Dr Johnston has a Ph.D. in operations research and bioinformatics from UC Berkeley.

Josh Kaminetz, Business Operations Lead, Strategy Realization Office, Global Regulatory Affairs and Clinical Safety, Merck & Co., Inc.
Josh Kaminetz is Business Operations lead in the Strategy Realization group of Merck’s Global Regulatory Affairs and Clinical Safety subdivision.  His team manages compliance and efficiency of all global business processes and enables leaders to make informed business decisions by providing capacity and demand forecasts.  Josh has a 20+ year professional career in the pharmaceutical industry.  After earning a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Chemistry from the University of Richmond, he spent more than a dozen years in laboratory management for a CRO in Richmond, Virginia.  Shortly after achieving a Master’s of Business Administration degree at Virginia Commonwealth University, he joined Merck Research Laboratories in Upper Gwynedd, PA, spending almost a decade in various operations management roles supporting Discovery and Early Development, before taking his current role as Business Operations lead within Global Regulatory Affairs and Clinical Safety.

Arun Kejariwal, Senior Director, Portfolio Management Capability Development & Innovation, GSK
Arun Kejariwal is Head of R&D Portfolio Management Capability Development & Innovation at GSK, USA.  Arun is responsible for establishing GSK’s Portfolio Management capabilities and proficiencies regarding portfolio optimization, decision science, portfolio performance including leveraging advancements in technology around Advanced Analytics to inform portfolio decisions. 
Prior to joining GSK, Arun worked at Pfizer for nine years and was responsible for end to end portfolio and asset level strategic decision support for Rare Disease, Inflammation (Xeljanz), and Oncology (Ibrance) category and prioritization/optimization of the Global Innovative Pharma Business portfolio. He also led a team responsible for delivering analytics based market insights and business intelligence to inform commercial strategic and tactical decisions for the US and Global Biosimilars and Anti-Infectives business. Before joining Pfizer, Arun worked in R&D division of Merck & Co. for ten years. Arun was the point person for biologics business planning and reported to the head of Bioprocess R&D. Arun also led design and implementation of multiple end to end processes for portfolio and business management. Arun has over 20 years of experience in the research, manufacturing, commercial, and consulting environment. Arun holds a Bachelor and Master of Science in Chemical Engineering from Manipal Institute of Technology, India, and Widener University, USA respectively and a MBA from St. Joseph’s University, USA. He is Six Sigma Black Belt certified and Dare to Try Champion. He has authored a book chapter on strategic portfolio management. 

Matt Kiernan, Partner, Pharmica Consulting
Matt Kiernan is a sports enthusiast with over twenty years of pharmaceutical experience. Matt is a co-founder of Pharmica Consulting, a firm that focuses on project management in the pharmaceutical industry. Mr. Kiernan is also a co-founder of Intrinsic Clinical Systems, which provides modern software for clinical operations and project management. Prior to this Matt worked at Bristol Myers Squibb, Covance and Parexel.

Elayne Ko, Director, Portfolio Decision Sciences, GSK
Elayne Ko has 20 years of experience in applying decision analysis process, tools and methodologies to facilitate investment decision-making under risks and uncertainties. Her work focuses primarily in the pharmaceutical industry; in particular, drug research and development (R&D) decisions, long-term planning, and disease area/portfolio prioritization. She has worked with both the R&D teams to develop business case recommendations, and senior management who makes investment funding decisions. Elayne has gained experience – in consulting and in corporate settings – across several industries including healthcare information technology, oil & gas, and mining.

Matthew Kokkonen, MBA, Director, Portfolio and Governance, Enterprise Excellence, CSL Behring
Matthew Kokkonen is the Director of Portfolio and Governance at CSL Behring.  This role establishes global standards and a network of portfolios to produce a global portfolio, networking projects to support global strategy.  Previously, he was the Director of the Strategic Portfolio Management office at BioMarin.  Prior to that role, Matthew was a Principal Consultant at a boutique consultancy in Chicago, supporting AbbVie, and Lead Associate at Booz Allen Hamilton, supporting clients such as NASA and the Department of Defense.  Matthew began his career as a Captain in the United States Air Force. Matthew holds an MBA from the University of London, among other degrees.  He has completed a Drug Development program at Harvard, and Matthew is a certified Project Manager through Stanford University.  He completed a certification in Clinical Trial Management and Design through the University of California San Diego.  He is married with twin daughters, and he enjoys travel and the outdoors.

Delfi Krishna, Director, Cell and Gene Therapy Platform, R&D Strategy, Portfolio and Operations, GSK
Current Role: Director of Cell and Gene Therapy Platform, R&D Strategy, Portfolio and Operations
Accountable for 3-5year strategy development, deployment, annual objectives, performance measurement, operational model, strategic workforce plan, talent development and management.
Previous roles: Biopharmaceutical Portfolio Strategy and Operations, Supply Chain Strategy, Matrix Project Leadership. Ph.D in Chemical and BioMolecular Engineering, Specialization in Cell and Gene Therapy

Ivan Kugener, MD, VP, Head, Global Portfolio Management, Strategy, Merck KGaA
Educated as a Medical Doctor, Board certified I supplemented my education with an MBA and a Master in Mathematics. I started my career in the French Navy where I reached the rank of Captain at 25 years old. I spent over 7 years at Abbott Laboratories (90-97) and nearly 5 years at Medtronic (97-01). For 7 years I worked at a private Swiss bank (Lombard Odier Darier Hentsch) where I managed (with a team of five reporting to me) more than USD2bn invested in healthcare private and public equities. I then drove the mid-long term strategic effort for EMD Serono, the US subsidiary of Merck-Serono. I then headed the Medical Affairs at Arthrocare. I now head the Global Portfolio Management function at Merck. Specialties: Sales, Marketing, Finance, Management (5 to over 100), Healthcare (over 20 years experience)

Eric Lake, Partner, Pharmica Consulting
Eric Lake is a Partner and co-founder of Pharmica Consulting, which provides project management expertise to the pharmaceutical industry. He is also the co-founder of Intrinsic Clinical Systems, which creates simple, easy-to-use clinical operations and resource management software. He has over twenty-five years of pharmaceutical industry experience.

Mark Lane, Executive Director of Drug Development, PRA Health Sciences
25 years of experience including leadership roles at some of the world’s premier life science organizations such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Merck, Wyeth, GE Healthcare, and MedImmune (AstraZeneca) in addition to PRA.  An expert in global drug development Mark’s experience encompasses all phases from pre-IND to product launch and post marketing.  He has worked with small molecules, biologics, diagnostics and biosimilars across multiple therapy areas including cardiovascular, diabetes, metabolic and autoimmune diseases and has a strong working knowledge of the various functional activities (R&D, Clinical, Safety, Medical Affairs, Regulatory, marketing/market access) needed to deliver successful products to the patients that need them.  His experience also includes regulatory submissions, agency interactions and meetings. In addition, he also has deep experience in Program, Project, and Portfolio Management helping to ensure company pipelines efficiently deliver on strategic and business objectives.  Mark holds both an MS and PhD in Physiology from Penn State University and prior to joining industry had a successful career as a scientist and internationally recognized speaker at the National Institute on Aging/NIH where his team published 110 papers, articles and book chapters. 

Courtland R. LaVallee, Head, Immuno-oncology Program Management, Program Management, BeiGene USA
Corky has worked in the biopharmaceutical project management industry since 1998, where he started as the PM for the Viagra program at Pfizer. Corky joined Genentech in March 2006 as the Director of Development Project Management, tasked to create from scratch a project management capability focused on supporting drug development teams.  Since then he has held PM leadership positions at companies such as Onyx, Elan and Theravance, and is currently Head of Immuno-Oncology Program Management at BeiGene USA.  Corky has spoken at many conferences, taught the “New Drug Development” course for ten years at DIA and is the author of a chapter on project risk management in the book “Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Project Management in a Changing Global Environment” published by Wiley.

Martin Lehr, CEO, Context Therapeutics
Mr. Lehr is the Co-founder and CEO of Context Therapeutics. In addition, Mr. Lehr is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Integral Molecular, an antibody discovery company, the Editorial Advisory Board of Life Science Leader magazine, and the Steering Committee for Bio International 2019. Previously, Martin was part of the founding team at Osage University Partners, a venture capital fund focused on academic spinouts from leading research institutions. At Osage, Martin focused on early stage oncology and rare disease opportunities. Prior to Osage, Martin conducted research at the Sloan Kettering Institute in DNA repair and at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in thrombosis and hemostasis.  Martin is a Director of BioBreak, a biotech executive peer networking group with over 2,500 active members across the United States. He holds an M.A. in Biotechnology from Columbia University and a B.A. in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania.

Candy Liang, Director, Strategic Planning, Akebia Therapeutics
Candy currently is the Director of Strategic Planning in Akebia Therapeutics, overseeing corporate, TA and asset strategy development and execution. She has 10 years of experience in strategy development and operations. Prior to Akebia Therapeutics, she was a strategy consultant in Deloitte Consulting, where she developed and helped implement 10+ frachise and BU strategy in large pharma to improve commercial and corporate performance

Kathy Liu, Associate Director, Capacity Management, Janssen
Kathy Liu  (MBA, PMP) has over 14 years of experience with Janssen R&D PMO in various positions including drug development team project planning, capacity management and portfolio-level resource forecasting. She has supported several functional senior leadership teams including Global Regulatory Affairs, Early Development Clinical Operations, and Data Management. Prior to joining Janssen, Kathy worked for Telecom in Marketing Operations. She is an alumna at Rutgers University, holding BA in Economics and Computer Science, and MBA from Fairleigh Dickinson University. Outside of work, she enjoys gardening and tending her apiary.

Rob Long, Executive Director, Uplifting Athletes
A suburban Philadelphia native, Rob is a former All-American punter at Syracuse and has lived the rare disease journey. In December of 2010, late in his senior season, Rob was diagnosed with anaplastic astrocytoma, a rare and aggressive form of brain cancer. His prognosis at the time was less than encouraging, and his surgery, recovery and treatment took 16 months. Prior to his diagnosis, Rob was on a path to the NFL as a punter, but that opportunity was lost by the time he was healthy enough to train again. A graduate of Syracuse University, Rob pursued a Masters in New Media Management from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. He also received a B.S. from the Martin J. Whitman School of Management. Rob played football all four years for the Orange and was voted by his teammates as a team captain his final two seasons. He became the second Executive Director of Uplifting Athletes at the end of 2018. Prior to taking over as the Executive Director, Rob served as Uplifting Athletes' Director of Rare Disease Engagement for nearly two years. Rob has a steadfast commitment and connection to the Rare Disease Community as a rare brain cancer patient. As a former star college football student-athlete, his passion and drive to advance the mission of Uplifting Athletes is inspirational. Rob and his wife, Irie, reside in South Philadelphia.

Peter Malamis, CCO, ImmunoRestoration, Inc.
Peter is an experienced and entrepreneurial executive who creates measurable performance improvement or life-science start-ups, emerging and growth companies, divisions, and teams through research, analytics, and strategy development. He currently serves as the Chief Commercial Officer of ImmunoRestoration, Inc. and CEO of CRO Analytics, Inc.

Sam Mathew, MBA, Portfolio Analytics & Capacity Management Group Leader, Janssen
Bio coming soon…

Kristy McGuire, Global Project Planner, Strategy & Business Operations, Integrated Planning, Analytics & Partnering, EMD Serono
Global Pharmaceutical Project Planner, providing strategic insights in demand forecasting and project planning for R&D Biopharma. Biochemistry background with 8 years in wet chemistry, followed by roles in Laboratory Management and Pharma Project Management in the greater Boston area. Northeastern University (B.S. Biochemistry) and Villanova University (Master Certificate, Project Management) alumna, with a propensity for preparedness and an appetency for advancement in therapies for unmet medical needs.

Jane Moon, MBA, PMP, Senior Manager, CMC Performance and Analytics, Kite Pharma, a Gilead Company
Jane Moon focuses on driving the CMC commercialization framework and developing business process guidelines at Kite Pharma. She also assists with CMC change management and portfolio management efforts to support Kite’s growing cell therapy pipeline. Prior to joining Kite, Jane has a background in R&D Commercialization, Preclinical Business Operations, and Quality Analytical Laboratories. 

Charles Morris, Chief Medical Officer, Radius Health

Charles Morris, MBChB, MRCP, has served as our Chief Medical Officer since September 2018. Prior to joining Radius, Dr. Morris served as Chief Development Officer at PsiOxus Therapeutics, Ltd., a cancer gene therapy company, since September 2016. Prior to PsiOxus, he was Chief Development Officer at ImmunoGen, Inc., a biotechnology company focused on antibody-drug conjugate therapeutics, from November 2012 to August 2016. Prior to that, Dr. Morris was Chief Medical Officer at Allos Therapeutics, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company focused on anti-cancer therapeutics, and served in various leadership positions at Cephalon, a biopharmaceutical company, and AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals (formerly Zeneca Pharmaceuticals), a pharmaceutical company. Dr. Morris is a graduate of Sheffield University Medical School and is a Member of the Royal College of Physicians of London.

Timothy Nieman, Senior Manager, Portfolio Analysis, Portfolio Management Office, BioMarin Pharmaceutical
Mr. Nieman has 30 years of experience as a risk and decision analyst and petroleum scientist, work that spans the oil and gas industry, US government agencies, and the biotech industry. His experience includes 10 years as a petroleum geophysicist, 20 years as a consultant leading projects in the energy and environmental sectors, and, currently, 1 year as a portfolio and decision analyst in the biotech industry. He has also taught numerous professional courses in decision analysis, economics and quantitative modeling.

Jay Patel, Director, Oncology Operations, US Oncology, Bristol-Myers Squibb
With a formal education in Computer Science, and credentials from The Project Management Institute, Jay is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP), Certified Business Analysis Professional, Six Sigma Black Belt and educated from MIT on Artificial Intelligence. His expertise is in deployment of large pharma projects, specifically launches of new Medicines. Jay has led teams involved in over 18 complete drug launches and is one of the world’s top experts on Oncology Drug Launches. His combined career experience has now driven him to establish a leadership position in Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare and Pharma. Jay is currently involved in several new Immunotherapy drug launches, delivering more treatment options to cancer patients.  Jay lives in New Jersey with his wife and has two children.

Daniel Patrick, Senior Director, Global Project Management and Leadership, Daiichi Sankyo
Mr. Patrick has more than 25 years of experience in the Life Sciences and Financial Services industries. He is presently Senior Director & Global Group Leader, Global Project Management & Leadership, at Daiichi Sankyo Co. (a global pharmaceutical company) where he is responsible for developing and implementing strategies for project and portfolio management, including decision analysis, project planning, resource planning and cost management. He has previously worked at JP Morgan (M&A), Merck & Co, Celgene Corporation, and Tayganpoint Consulting Group. Dan holds a BS in Finance from Manhattan College and an MBA in Finance & Marketing from the Simon Business School of the University of Rochester.  He is also a certified Six Sigma Black Belt and has authored numerous articles on project management and R&D portfolio management.

Dave Penndorf, VP, Life Sciences PPM Practice, Planisware

Dave has worked with Life Science organizations for 15 years at Planisware. He has expertise in integrating strategic portfolio, project, resource and cost management into a single solution while supporting the individual needs of the matrixed pharma organizations. Today, Dave oversees Planisware’s life science best practices, the related product R&D, and Planisware's customers' successes and satisfaction. Dave received a dual degree in Cognitive Science and in Philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania.

Charles Persinger, Senior Research Advisor, Portfolio Strategy & Decision Sciences, Eli Lilly and Company
Charles Persinger is a Senior Research Advisor for Portfolio Strategy and Decision Sciences at Eli Lilly and Company.  He has nearly 20 years of experience enabling Decision Quality on important, complex decisions at Lilly, a company awarded the Raiffa-Howard Award for organizational decision quality by the Society of Decision Professionals.  Charles currently leads Lilly’s decision consulting practice, decision education efforts and approach to assessing the probability of technical success for projects in their R&D portfolio.  He holds a bachelor’s degree in Engineering Science and Mechanics from Virginia Tech, an MBA from Duke University, and a Professional Certificate in Strategic Decision and Risk Management from Stanford University.

Alexander Rucci, Senior Business Capability Analyst, R&D Strategy & Planning, Bristol-Myers Squibb Alex joined BMS in 2015 as a Business Capability Specialist. His focus has been in support of our enterprise wide planning tool, ePlan. Over the past four years, he has grown in his role and is consistently recognized as a strong partner in building technical and process solutions for stakeholders in Medical, Schedule Management, Project Management, and Resource Management. Prior to joining BMS, he worked at Xerimis, a Clinical Packaging Company. At Xerimis he worked in Validation of environments and tools related to the storage and packaging of clinical materials. He worked under the regulations of cGMP and standards of the U.S. Pharmacopeia. Alex earned a Master’s in Chemical and Biochemical Engineering and a Bachelor’s degree in Pure Mathematics from Rutgers University.  He and his wife Colleen just welcomed a new son, Leo, earlier this year.  

Nathan Sanburn, Senior Advisor, Global Business Development and Strategic Collaborations, Oncology Business Unit, Eli Lilly and Company
Nathan Sanburn serves as the Sr Director for Business Development and External Collaborations in the Oncology Business Unit at Lilly.  He is a molecular biologist by training, with over 23 years of experience across R&D, clinical trials, and business transactions. In his current role, Mr Sanburn has responsibility across BD strategy and execution of in-license and out-license transactions for late phase oncology as well as Clinical Collaborations.   He has been instrumental in multiple recent acquisitions and licensing agreements while furthering development of internal and external molecules through combination R&D collaborations.In Mr Sanburn’s 19+ years at Lilly, his experience includes clinical Project Management, Oncology Scientific Search and Evaluation, Medical Affairs, and Business Development/Collaborations.  Highlights across this time include multiple new drug submissions/approvals, orchestrating strategies in ImmunoOncology and BD, leading a team of oncology MSL’s in the Eastern US through 2 major launches, and execution of portfolio-changing transactions. Prior to Eli Lilly, Mr Sanburn worked in the National Gene Vector Laboratory at Indiana University Medical Center conducting research and manufacturing of retroviral vectors for gene transfer in human clinical trials.  In this role, he served as the leading laboratory scientist for building a GMP facility producing and safety testing drug product. Mr Sanburn received his BS in Biology from Indiana University, MS in Biology from Purdue University, and currently resides in Indianapolis, IN.

Rangaprasad Sarangarajan, Chief Scientific Officer & SVP, Clinical and Translational Sciences, Research & Development, BERG LLC
Rangaprasad (Ranga) Sarangarajan, Ph.D., is the Senior Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer at BERG who oversees all Research and Development activities including pharmaceutical development & translational sciences strategy development and planning. Dr. Sarangarajan is the co-inventor and co-architect of the BERG Interrogative Biology® technology. This ground-breaking technology is currently focused on next generation R&D innovation in the integration of artificial intelligence-based analytics, bioinformatics and Real-World Data (RWD), and Real-World Evidence (RWE) for speeding up identification/validation of targets, tractability, drug discovery and pharmaceutical development. He is also actively involved in the development of clinical programs in the late stage progress towards registration. Dr. Sarangarajan has numerous U.S. and international patents (granted and pending), covering areas of the discovery platform, cancer, neurology, metabolic diseases, diabetes, obesity and diagnostics. He has published extensively and has presented his research at national and international medical and scientific meetings. He co-authored and co-edited Cellular Respiration and Carcinogenesis, a first of its kind treatise on the role of mitochondrial function and metabolic network regulation in the etiology of cancer as it pertains to the seminal observations made by Otto Warburg. Dr. Sarangarajan has a B.S. in Pharmacy and a graduate degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Cincinnati College of Pharmacy with a focus on pharmacology and toxicology. He went on to pursue post-graduate training in genetics, molecular and cell biology for several years prior to joining Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences (now MCPHS University) and served in the capacity of Assistant/Associate Professor. In addition to primary appointments, he has served in several leadership positions in institutional administration and operations, leading teams to achieve successful implementation of group specific goals.

Benoit Schmitt, PhD, PMP, Senior Alliance & Portfolio Manager, Galapagos
Benoit Schmitt joined Galapagos in 2006 and currently serves as Senior Portfolio & Alliance manager. In this capacity Benoit is responsible for the research portfolio processes linked to resources forecasting, planning, budgeting and reporting. In this role he also manages cross-functional projects aiming at operational excellence. Before joining the portfolio management group that he helped to set-up, Benoit spent 6 years within the chemistry department having increasing responsibilities up to principal Scientist. Benoit earned both an Engineering degree in Chemistry and a PhD in Medicinal Chemistry from Strasbourg University. He also holds a PMP certification and two masters of science.

Raghu Sethuram, Senior Director, Global Portfolio Management, Pfizer Consumer Healthcare
Bio coming soon…

Richard Sonnenblick, PhD, CEO, Enrich Consulting
Richard has helped more than 100 firms implement prioritization and portfolio review processes, scoring systems, and financial valuation and forecasting methods. His consulting experiences fostered the release of several cloud-based offerings for product forecasting and portfolio analysis, including Enrich Viewport and the Enrich Analytics Platform. Dr. Sonnenblick holds a PhD and MS from Carnegie Mellon University in Public Policy, and a BA in Physics from the UC, Santa Cruz.

Avi Spier, Executive Director, Search and Evaluation, Business Development & Licensing, Novartis
Dr. Spier was educated in Biological Sciences at Oxford University, received his Ph.D. in molecular neuroscience from Cambridge University at the MRC-Laboratory of Molecular Biology and trained as a postdoc at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), La Jolla, CA. In 2001, Dr. Spier co-founded La Jolla based Allon Therapeutics, Inc. and led the peptide therapeutic neurodegenerative disease focused company as its President and CEO through two financing rounds and up to its entry onto the Toronto Stock Exchange. In 2004, Dr. Spier joined the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation (GNF), as its Director of Business Development. Currently Dr. Spier serves as Executive Director, Novartis BD&L, leading search and evaluation activities for the Cardiovascular, Metabolic and Diabetes (CVM), Global Discovery Chemistry (GDC), Chemical Biology and Therapeutics (CBT), Microbiome organizations of NIBR and covering the UK Region.

Jordan Stein, RPh, MBA, PMP, Director. Project Management Lead, Innovative Medicines, Bristol-Myers Squibb
Jordan Stein has 20 years of Clinical Operations and Project Management experience in the Pharmaceutical industry.  He is currently Director and Project Management Lead, Innovative Medicines focusing on drug development programs in Immunoscience at Bristol-Myers Squibb.  Previously at Bristol-Myers Squibb, he was Director, Project Management Lead for the International Immuno-Oncology Network (II-ON), one of the first peer-to-peer collaborations to bring industry and academia together - which aims to advance I-O science and translational medicine through innovation.  He managed a global network of 200 investigators across 16 academic oncology institutions encompassing over 180 projects.  He was also Associate Director of BioPharma Project Management (BPM) where he managed global research and development programs in the US, Europe and Asia Pacific regions.  He was also the Systems Lead overseeing processes and technology where he implemented an enterprise risk, opportunity and change management financial system and timeline tools.  Prior experience includes Merck Research Laboratories and PRA Health Sciences where he led the implementation of Critical Chain Project Management.  He is a speaker at National Project Management Meetings and is a former member of the PMI Pharmaceutical Community of Practice Committee.  Mr. Stein has a BS in Pharmacy from Temple University, an MBA from Pennsylvania State University and is a Registered Pharmacist.  He is also a Certified PMP Project Manager.

Crissy Tevis, Director, TOPS Portfolio Management, Technical Operations, BioMarin Pharmaceuticals
Mrs. Tevis has 24 years of experience in the specialty chemical, industrial, high-tech, beverage and biopharmaceutical industries. Her experience includes 15 years as a project management consultant and 5 years leading the Technical Operations Portfolio Management Office at BioMarin.

Dan Tierno, Associate Director, Global Clinical Data Sciences and Analytics, Bayer
Mr. Dan Tierno has over 20 years of experience in pharmaceutical portfolio management, R&D and commercialization.  Mr. Tierno also specializes in cell and gene editing technologies, mHealth, and strategies for use of advanced analytics in clinical trials. Mr. Tierno has spoken on the following topics: training scientists for rare disease therapeutic development, impacts of genomics in clinical trial design for cell and gene therapies, and defining and generating value via portfolio management. In 2019, topics Mr. Tierno will be speaking on include innovative models for cell and gene therapy clinical trials, funding and payer models for novel therapeutics, and the relationship between STEM programs in early education and entrepreneurship. Mr. Tierno holds his B.S. in Nutrition Science from New York Institute of Technology, his Honors M.B.A. from the Zicklin School of Business at Baruch College, and his M.A. in Biotechnology from Columbia University.

Shari Wahl, Executive Director, Oncology Transactions, Business Development & Licensing, Merck
Shari Wahl received a BA in economics from Douglass College, Rutgers University, NJ, an MBA in finance and international business from NYU’s Leonard N. Stern School of Business and is a licensed certified public accountant (CPA) in the State of New Jersey. Shari joined Merck in 1990 and held a number of positions within Merck’s finance organization joining BD&L in 2002.   In her current position, Shari is responsible for negotiating oncology licensing and collaboration agreements.

David Wolter, Vice President, Consulting, IQVIA

David Wolter is a Vice President of IQVIA’s Consulting Services group. He has more than 15 years of experience in management consulting as well as with modeling system development, and is the lead of the US Strategy & Portfolio Analysis Solution Team. His past work has covered a wide range of activities including product valuations, detailed forecasting exercises, analogue analyses, and decision-analysis/strategy projects – both with and without the support of software tools. David has an MBA from Stanford GSB.

Ronnie You, Senior Manager, Capacity Management, Janssen
Ronnie You (CMA, CIA, PMP) is the capacity manager at Janssen Pharmaceuticals R&D PMO. He has over 13 years experiences in project management, resource budget planning, and research operation financial reporting from both pharmaceutical industry and clinical research organizations (CRO). Prior joining Janssen in 2015, Ronnie worked at InVentiv Health Clinical and Covance in clinical trials financial management and performance analysis/reporting capacity. He is passionate about data analysis and adopting new technology to translate business insight, promote data driven decision, and expand organization resource forecasting capabilities. Ronnie holds MBA in Finance and MS in Computer Information System (CIS) from Georgia State University.

Michael Zachariou, PhD, Executive Director, Technical Operations CMC Product and Portfolio Management, Technical Operations, BioMarin Pharmaceuticals
Dr. Zachariou has over 30 years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry. He has held positions in Business Development, Research, Process Sciences and Manufacturing in the US and Australia working for Bayer, Promega, Commonwealth Serum Labs (CSL) and CSIRO. For the last 12 years he has been at BioMarin where he established the Portfolio Management group and the CMC Portfolio. More recently he has been involved in developing strategy and governance for the Technical Operations Organization at BioMarin.