DNDI - Key Persons

Alistair Swanson

Job Titles:

Head of Product Development, NTD Leishmaniasis - Mycetoma Cluster

Amelia Folkes

Job Titles:

Head of Global Executive Office

Amelia Folkes joined DNDi in September 2016 and Heads the Global Executive Office. Amelia has over 12 years experience in the International Organization and Non-Governmental Organizations sector, including in the Executive office of MSF International supporting the Secretary General and the International President, at the MSF Access Campaign as the Coordination and Legal Officer, and at UNHCR supporting the High Commissioner's Representative in the United Kingdom. Previously, Amelia practiced as a lawyer with top international law firm Allen & Overy LLP, specializing in commercial law in London and Prague, with a focus on derivatives and structured finance law. Amelia earned her LLB law degree from The University of Manchester, England, and her postgraduate professional legal qualification with distinction from BPP University Law School in London, England.

Amit Malik

Job Titles:

Chartered Accountant
Head of Regional Operations, South Asia

Amit Malik joined DNDi in January 2019 as Head of Regional Operations, South Asia. Before joining DNDi, Amit was in finance leadership role with BBC Media Action, a UK international charity, specializing in development communication, based in Delhi, India. He has worked with different Country teams/offices in his past roles and has been instrumental in leading key strategic and financial insights to the business. Amit is a Chartered Accountant and PGDBM in Finance by qualification, with 18 years of experience in social and commercial sectors.

Anderson Leal

Job Titles:

HR & Organization Director
Senior HR Officer for the Latin America Office

Anderson Leal joined DNDi in July 2014 as Senior HR Officer for the Latin America Office. In 2021, he moved to Switzerland to start in a global HR position and took over the HR leadership position in 2023. Before joining DNDi, Anderson worked as generalist HR in multinational companies in the private sector. With more than 15 years' experience in HR, he has progressively extended his generalist knowledge in areas such as HR Business Partnering, HR Strategy, Compensation & Benefits, Talent Management, DEI, and HR Administration. Anderson holds an Accountancy Degree and a Business Administration Degree. He post graduated in Organizational Psychology and is currently studying Leadership Human Development at Fundação Getulio Vargas in Brazil. He is proficient in Portuguese, English, Spanish, and speaks basic French.

Anna Crago

Job Titles:

Head of External Relations

Anna Crago joined DNDi in 2020. She leads a global team mobilising philanthropic funding to ensure that people suffering from neglected diseases can expect a better future, with safe and effective treatments for their illnesses. Anna has mobilised resources for organisations for 14 years, most recently holding global and regional roles at UNICEF focusing on major gift fundraising. She has particular expertise in growing organizational capacity, strategy and narrative for successful fundraising. Prior to her transition into the non-profit space she honed her business development and marketing skills as a book publisher in the UK and Australia. Anna holds a Masters of Applied Anthropology and Participatory Development (Gender and Development) from the Australian National University and a BA from Macquarie University.

Bernhards Ogutu

Job Titles:

Chief Research Officer, KEMRI

Carmen Pérez Casas

Job Titles:

Senior Technical Manager, Strategy, Unitaid

Carmen Pérez Casas (Pharmacist, MsC Virology LSHTM, FRCP Edin) is Senior Technical Manager, Strategy, at Unitaid. In her position, she identifies and supports interventions to surmount access barriers to best options for treatment, diagnosis or prevention of major diseases affecting low and middle-income countries. A focus of her work is currently on COVID-19 therapeutics, in addition to HIV/coinfections and comorbidities, as well as new technologies across infectious diseases such as long-acting tools and innovative delivery forms for pediatric treatments.

Carol Ruffell

Job Titles:

Southern Africa Director, DNDi and GARDP
Specialist

Carol Ruffell is an experienced specialist in the global public health sector, having worked primarily within the HIV/AIDS and TB arena. She is an experienced executive with knowledge of the global public health system and good insight of the Southern African health sector. She has more than 20 years of experience in the corporate pharmaceutical industry (J&J, GSK, Adcock Ingram) and in community pharmacy. She holds a Bachelor of Pharmacy from Rhodes University, a Master's in Public Health from the University of Liverpool, and a certificate in Business Project Management.

Caroline Menétrey

Job Titles:

Clinical Project Leader

Caroline Menétrey joined DNDi in January 2018 as a Senior Clinical Manager in the Hepatitis C team and took over the Clinical Project Leader role in the same team from October 2019 to February 2023. In March 2023, Caroline joined the cryptococcal meningitis team to lead the Sustained release 5FC project. Caroline has more than 15 years of Clinical Project Management experience. She has been managing and coordinating multi-center international clinical projects and project teams in phases II/III/IV at Merck Serono as well as observational studies across Europe, Africa, North and Latin America, and Asia Pacific while working at Quintiles. During that time, she developed experience as a project leader and people manager. She has delivered projects across many disease areas, mainly neurology and infectious diseases. Caroline holds a Pharmacy degree from the University of Lausanne.

Charles Mowbray

Job Titles:

Discovery Director

Chirac Bulanga

Job Titles:

Director
Finance

Mr Chirac Bulanga joined DNDi in March 2013 as Country Operations Manager. Chirac is currently the Director of the DNDi regional office in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Chirac is a finance, administration, HR, and logistics professional with more than 15 years of progressive experience from a wide range of organizations and governmental institutions.

Chris Bird

Job Titles:

General Counsel and Company Secretary at Wellcome

Chris Bird is General Counsel and Company Secretary at Wellcome, a UK-based charitable foundation, where he is responsible for all legal, governance, and regulatory compliance issues. Before joining Wellcome, Chris was an Attorney with Osborne Clarke LLP, working in London, Brussels, and Bristol.

Christos Christou

Job Titles:

International President, Médecins Sans Frontières

Collins Mutua

Job Titles:

Head of Biostatistics

Collins W. Munene

Job Titles:

Head of Regional Operations, Eastern Africa

Craig Tipple

Job Titles:

Medical Director

Daisuke Imoto

Job Titles:

Business Development and Alliance Management Director

Dale Kempf

Job Titles:

Distinguished Research Fellow and Former Director of Neglected Diseases Research, AbbVie

Delali Attiogbe Attipoe

Job Titles:

North America Director

Denise Guimaraes

Job Titles:

Head of Regional Operations, Latin America

Dominique Junod-Moser

Job Titles:

Legal Affairs Director

Dorothy Mbori-Ngacha

Job Titles:

Senior HIV Specialist on EMTCT and Paediatric HIV, UNICEF

Dr Alwyn Mwinga - CEO

Job Titles:

Chief Executive Officer
Board Patient Representative / CEO ZAMBART Project, Zambia
CEO ZAMBART Project, Zambia

Dr Alwyn Gladwyn Zebron Mwinga is Chief Executive Officer of the Zambia AIDS Related Tuberculosis Project (Zambart). Before joining Zambart, she worked in different capacities at CDC Zambia. She was an Expert Consultant on TB/HIV Research Priorities for the WHO in addition to serving as a member of multiple national and international boards relating to TB. She has been an Associate Editor of The Lancet Infectious Diseases and the International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases and a Senior Lecturer at the University of Zambia. In 2007, Dr Mwinga was awarded the Global Health Achievement by the Office of Global Health CDC as well as the PEPFAR Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011 in recognition of her contribution to HIV and TB. She studied Tropical Medicine (M.Sc.) at the University of London, and she has a M.Med and MB ChB from the University of Zambia. In 2013 she completed her PG Diploma in Bioethics at the University of Stellenbosch.

Dr Andre Daher

Job Titles:

Head of Clinical Research, Farmanguinhos / FIOCRUZ
Head of Clinical Research, Farmanguinhos / FIOCRUZ, Brazil
Head of the Clinical Research Division of Farmanguinhos / FIOCRUZ

Andre Daher is head of the clinical research division of Farmanguinhos/FIOCRUZ, a Federal governmental pharmaceutical industry in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He is a physician specialized in Infectious Diseases by the Fluminense Federal University and in Clinical Research by the Oswaldo Cruz German Hospital/Brazilian Ministry of Health. Over the course of his career, he has gained expertise on technological development in pharmaceuticals, including ongoing projects in HIV pediatrics, new malaria vivax approaches, and leishmaniasis. He served as consultant for international networks, and he is currently a consultant for clinical trials in Malaria for PAHO. Currently, he co-coordinates two collaborative initiatives for clinical research at FIOCRUZ: The Clinical Research Platform for Technological Development in Public Health, and the FIOCRUZ Clinical Research Network, involving more than 60 clinical research groups.

Dr Bernard Pécoul - Founder

Job Titles:

Founder
Member of the Joint Coordination Board of the Special Programme for Tropical Disease Research

Dr Bernard Pécoul led the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) from its foundation in 2003 until 2022. Under his guidance, DNDi - a not-for-profit research and development organization - with hundreds of public and private partners, has delivered twelve new treatments for six deadly diseases. It has developed a robust portfolio of projects spanning from discovery to implementation for sleeping sickness, leishmaniasis, Chagas disease, filaria, mycetoma, HIV, hepatitis C, and COVID-19. After stepping down from his position of Executive Director of the organization in September 2022, Dr Pécoul remains one of the major stakeholders of DNDi and lifelong advocate for better access to medicines. Prior to DNDi, Dr Pécoul was Director of the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines from 1998 to 2003, a position he took on after that of Executive Director of MSF-France. While working with MSF, Dr Pécoul carried out field missions in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. In 1988, he co-founded Epicentre, an MSF-affiliated NGO specialized in epidemiology. After obtaining his medical degree at the University of Clermont-Ferrand, France, Dr Pécoul earned a master's degree in public health at Tulane University, USA. In 2012, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws Degree by the University of Dundee, UK. In 2020, Dr Pécoul was awarded the Prince Mahidol Award in the field of public health by the Prince Mahidol Award Foundation, Thailand. Dr Pécoul is member of the Joint Coordination Board of the Special Programme for Tropical Disease Research (WHO/TDR) and a former board member of UNITAID's Medicines Patent Pool.

Dr Borna Nyaoke

Job Titles:

Head of Mycetoma Disease

Dr Borna Nyaoke joined DNDi in February 2018 and took over the Head of Mycetoma Disease role in January 2023. Dr Borna is a clinical researcher and public health specialist. She is a medical doctor by profession having graduated with a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBChB) degree from The University of Nairobi, Kenya. She has completed the Global Clinical Scholars Research Training (GCSRT) Programme at the Harvard Medical School, U.S.A and has a Master of Public Health degree with a concentration in Health Systems Management from the University of Liverpool, U.K. At DNDi, Dr Borna managed the first-ever randomized, double-blind clinical trial for a new treatment for mycetoma in Khartoum, Sudan. She also managed the ANTICOV trial in Kenya and Sudan, the largest clinical trial in Africa for people with mild to moderate COVID-19 to test new drug combinations in 13 African countries. She supported studies in anti-microbial resistance (neonatal sepsis and sexually transmitted infections) in Kenya and Uganda carried out by the Global Antibiotic Research & Development Partnership (GARDP), a joint initiative by the World Health Organization (WHO) and DNDi. Dr Borna has expansive experience in clinical research with previous work in epidemiological and simulated studies and Phase I and II clinical trials in HIV and Ebola vaccines.

Dr Byron Arana

Job Titles:

Head of Cutaneous Leishmaniasis Disease

Dr Byron Arana joined DNDi in November 2012. He has over twenty years' experience working on clinical trials and epidemiological studies, mainly in cutaneous leishmaniasis, onchocerciasis, diarrheal, and respiratory diseases. Since 2008, Dr Arana has been managing the clinical trials on visceral leishmaniasis that TDR-WHO is being supporting in the Indian Subcontinent and participating in the development and implementation of strategies in support of the Indian subcontinent's visceral leishamaniasis elimination programme. From 2000 to 2008, Dr Arana served as Co-Director of the Center for Health Studies, at Universidad del Valle de Guatemala, Guatemala and managing the first cooperative agreement between the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala and the Centers for Diseases Control, Atlanta, to support the conduction of multidisciplinary field and laboratory research on tropical disease in the Central America region. He received his medical training at the Universidad San Carlos of Guatemala (1983) and his doctoral degree on Tropical Medicine from the University of Liverpool, UK (1998).

Dr Carolina Batista

Job Titles:

Head of Global Health Affairs, Baraka Impact Finance

Carolina Batista, MD is the Head of Global Health Affairs at Baraka Impact Finance. She holds expertise in global health, access, R&D, infectious and neglected diseases and international development. During the span of her career, she has been able to design frameworks and guidelines that have ultimately impacted public policies in countries and vulnerable communities around the globe. Clinically trained in Brazil, Carolina started her career working in her country, including with indigenous communities in the Amazon. In 2007, she joined Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), working in a project in Somalia and has remained connected with the humanitarian organization ever since. In 2011 she became the director of the Brazilian Medical Unit (BRAMU) of MSF in Brazil. Her primary focus in this role was to support field operations treating neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) and emerging infectious diseases. She was also involved in multiple assignments with the organization in Africa and Latin America and conducted evaluations of various programs and activities focused on NTDs. As the Head of the BRAMU, she also coordinated MSF's international campaign for Chagas disease. After three successful years with MSF-Brazil, Carolina joined the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) Latin America as the Head of Access and Medical Affairs. Under her leadership, DNDi developed and implemented successful access frameworks to diagnosis and treatment for NTDs throughout Latin America, with special focus on Chagas disease. Such access frameworks are currently used by a range of stakeholders, including local governments and clinical and academic centres of excellence. At DNDi Carolina was also able to foster partnerships in the region and played a key role in the creation of the Brazilian Forum of Patients with Neglected Diseases. Carolina is currently an elected International Board Member for MSF and she also serves as a Latin America Strategic Advisor for ISGlobal. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Carolina has worked closely to support grass roots groups in various countries, led the MSF medical response to COVID-19 in the Navajo Nation, in the United States. Carolina has authored several peer reviewed articles on global health, access to health tools, policy and humanitarian medicine. She is currently a member of The Lancet COVID-19 Commission and a board member of The Lancet Migration, Latin American hub. Carolina holds a combined master's degree in International Public Health, from the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, the Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp and The Royal Tropical Institute, Amsterdam.

Dr François Bompart

Job Titles:

Access Committee Chair

Dr Luis Pizarro

Job Titles:

Executive Director
Investigador Y Premio Princesa De Asturias
Medical Doctor and Global Health Leader

Dr Luis Pizarro has led the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) since September 2022. Dr Pizarro is a medical doctor and global health leader. He also serves as founder and member of the Global Health 2030 think tank, as scientific advisor for Global Health at Sciences Po Paris, and as board member of Sidaction. Having led medical projects for several years in West Africa, he became the first CEO of Solthis, from 2007 to 2019, successfully developing the international health and solidarity organization to become one of the leaders in health in West and Central Africa. In 2020, Dr Pizarro joined Unitaid's leadership team during the COVID crisis to lead the international organization's HIV portfolio and related access programmes. Born in Chile, and trained as a medical doctor at the University of Paris, he also holds a masters' degree in Political Sciences from Sciences Po and an executive health MBA from a joint programme of EHESP School of Public Health, the London School of Economics, and the ESCP European Management School. Luis Pizarro, investigador y premio Princesa de Asturias: ‘Las personas pobres no son objetivo de la investigación farmacéutica'