EXECUTIVE DECISION MAKING - Key Persons


Aaron Salancy

Job Titles:
  • Director of Oncology Asset Strategy
  • Director, Oncology Asset Strategy, Bristol - Myers Squibb
Aaron Salancy is the Director of Oncology Asset Strategy in Bristol-Myers Squibb's Strategic & Operational Portfolio Management group. The team of analysts he leads is responsible for the evaluation of internal asset development strategies, helping matrix development teams identify the optimal path to initial registration and the sequencing and scope of life cycle management activities. Aaron partners with oncology leaders in discovery, R&D, medical, commercial, and regulatory roles to develop oncology asset and portfolio strategy. Aaron has previously held similar roles at BMS with responsibility for the cardiovascular, metabolics, neuroscience, virology, and immunoscience therapeutic areas. Prior to joining BMS, Aaron worked in decision analysis at Pfizer, heading the Portfolio Valuation and Prioritization group, with responsibility for valuing and prioritizing the development portfolio within budget constraints, after leading decision analysis support for several therapeutic areas. Aaron holds a BS in Naval Architecture from Webb Institute, a Master of Engineering in Naval Architecture from UC Berkeley, and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Alexandre Portet

Job Titles:
  • Deputy Director, Strategy, Planning & Management, Global Health R & D, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Atanas Dimitrov

Job Titles:
  • Head, Strategy & Portfolio Management, Merck ( EMD ) Biosimilars, Merck ( EMD ) Biosimilars Business, Ares Trading SA, an Affiliate of Merck Serono SA
Atanas Dimitrov has 15 years of strategy, finance & BD experience in leading consumer goods, consumer healthcare and pharma companies. He has joined the Swiss-based Merck (EMD) Biosimilars Business shortly after its creation in 2012. He has studied business administration and has an MBA from INSEAD in France/Singapore.

Brett Kleger

Job Titles:
  • Chief Commercial Officer, DrugDev
  • DrugDev 's Chief Commercial Officer
As DrugDev's Chief Commercial Officer, Brett Kleger is responsible for leading DrugDev's commercial strategy and development including bringing new capabilities to market and ensuring the success of DrugDev solutions and client experience. Brett enjoys the start-up environment and prior to DrugDev created global solutions for IMS Health, and was instrumental in growing Acurian from its infancy to a market leader in patient recruitment. Brett holds a business degree from the University of Maryland, and a juris doctorate from Villanova School of Law.

Brian McVeigh

Job Titles:
  • Vice President, WorldWide Business Development Transactions & Investment Management, GlaxoSmithKline

Bridget Kotelly

Job Titles:
  • Senior Conference Producer / Cambridge Healthtech Institute

Chami Karandana Evans

Job Titles:
  • Global Strategic Portfolio Manager, Strategy, Indivior
Early part of Chami's career was in corporate finance in fortune 500 companies where she focused on business planning, forecasting and financial modeling, working with global teams. She entered the life science industry when she joined Digene in Strategic Planning and Business Development. Upon acquisition of Digene by Qiagen, Chami joined Sucampo Pharmaceuticals where she led all business development, strategic planning and portfolio analysis initiatives. At present, she is responsible for leading R&D portfolio analysis & optimization at INDIVIOR.

Chandra Ramanathan

Job Titles:
  • Head
  • Global Program Head, External Innovation - Life Sciences, Bayer AG
Chandra Ramanathan is the Global Program Head for External Innovation - Life Sciences at Bayer AG. In his current role, Chandra is the global lead for External Innovation within Bayer AG Innovation Strategy with focus on new sourcing models (open innovation), venture capital strategy and engagement strategies at global innovation hotspots. In addition, Chandra is responsible to further drive development and integration of External Innovation activities throughout Bayer (HealthCare and Crop Science) to advance its Innovation capabilities. Earlier to this role, Chandra was the Head of Pipeline Marketing and Global Launch Team leader of Copanlisib. He was the co-chair of the Value Strategy Team to ensure customer insights (physicians, payer and patients) are incorporated as part of development strategies. He also developed the commercial foundation for companion diagnostics development. Before joining Bayer he has worked in different roles at Wyeth (Pfizer) and Bristol-Myers Squibb such as Global Brand Team Leader, Licensing/Business Development, Neuroscience Strategy, Drug discovery and Applied Genomics. Chandra has worked across the pharmaceutical product development and commercialization spectrum for more than 19 years. He has broad commercial and research backgrounds with an M.B.A from the Columbia Business School, Ph.D. in Genomics/Bioinformatics, M.S. in Medicinal Chemistry and B.S. in Pharmacy.

Charles Alsdorf

Job Titles:
  • Director
  • Director and Capital Efficiency Leader, Deloitte Transactions and Business Analytics LLP
Charles Alsdorf is a director and Capital Efficiency Leader for Deloitte Transactions and Business Analytics LLP. Chuck has more than 20 years of experience in valuation, strategy, decision analysis, and corporate finance. He helps companies apply decision analysis and portfolio optimization to optimize capital projects and transactions, and provides portfolio valuation services for the alternative investment industry, including hedge funds, private equity funds, and their portfolio investments.

Charles Dormer

Job Titles:
  • Principal, APEX STP Former Vice President, Strategy and Operations, Innovative Medicines, AstraZeneca
Charles founded APEX STP, LLC, in 2014. This is an executive coaching and consulting business established to work with organizations to transform leadership and collaborations. He has been working for over 30 years in healthcare and pharmaceutical R&D and has worked for some of the top pharmaceutical companies including SmithKline Beecham, GlaxoSmithKline, Wyeth, Pfizer and AstraZeneca. During that time he held a number of roles in a wide range of activities including strategy definition and implementation, management, research, operations, reengineering, organization development, business redesign, portfolio management and chief of staff activities. He has been involved in major mergers and acquisitions within the pharmaceutical industry and major change efforts in R&D.

Chris Beck

Job Titles:
  • Vice President, Schedule and Resource Decision Analytics, Shire
Chris Beck and has spent the majority of his career leading Resource Management, Portfolio and Project Planning, and Decision Analysis capabilities at multiple companies including Shire, Merck, AstraZeneca, Bristol Myers-Squibb, General Electric, General Motors, and Ford. He created Shire's first global project management and resource capacity planning capability in order to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of Shire's matrix operating model, and support the company's growth from a small, single product dominated firm to a mid-size biopharmaceutical company with multiple Business Units.

Christopher Keenan

Job Titles:
  • Head, Worldwide Medical Contact, MCCI, Bristol - Myers Squibb
Christopher Keenan brings many years of worldwide management and marketing operations expertise to his role as Head of Worldwide Medical Contact at Bristol-Myers Squibb. He currently oversees medical customer center operations and business intelligence reporting worldwide. He has been widely referenced by trade and general publications such as Credit Card Management, Internet Retailer, USA Today, Delaware News Journal and the New York Times regarding his insight into the marketing and financial service industries. He is a sought-after presenter on topics such as striving for operational excellence, customer engagement and the power of unified data and analytics. Mr. Keenan has been honored by the Philadelphia Direct Marketing Association (PDMA) and the Canadian Direct Marketing Associations (CDMA) for his marketing and operational excellence along with numerous Bristol-Myers Squibb recognitions.

Cindy Murray

Job Titles:
  • Director, R & D Strategy and Portfolio, GlaxoSmithKline

Daniel Rosen

Job Titles:
  • Director of Project and Portfolio
  • Director, Project and Portfolio Management, EMD Millipore Corporation
Daniel Rosen is Director of Project and Portfolio Management at EMD Millipore Corporation and has worked in this function for more than a decade. His organization currently manages more than 50 active projects within the Process Solutions Business Area of EMD Millipore. In addition to the Life Science Business of EMD Millipore, Daniel has also worked in Project and Portfolio Management of Consumer Products.

Deborah Stoyko

Job Titles:
  • Applications Sales Manager for Oracle 's Primavera Global Business Unit
  • Applications Sales Manager, Primavera Global Business Unit, Oracle
Deborah Stoyko is an Applications Sales Manager for Oracle's Primavera Global Business Unit, which is focused on enterprise project portfolio management. Deb works with companies on building tailored solutions that support business outcomes that drive strategic metrics and results. Primavera's PPM software helps companies propose, prioritize and select strategic investments as well as control, manage and execute projects supporting those investment decisions. With 20+ years of experience in high technology across horizontal and vertical applications, Deb has built strong relationships at the executive level and delivered value for customers across a variety of industries.

Dora Mitchell

Job Titles:
  • Company Portfolio Manager for the University of Pennsylvania
  • Director, Venture Capital & Private Equity, PCI Ventures, U Penn
Dr. Mitchell is a startup company portfolio manager for the University of Pennsylvania with a passion for launching companies based on university technologies. As Director of UPstart, Dr. Mitchell leads the launch, incubation and growth of small businesses based on University of Pennsylvania inventions. She functions as an essential and effective value-generating intersection of scientists, clinicians, lawyers, public funding sources and private investors to ensure that ideas turn into viable businesses that benefit patients, the University, economic growth and scientific knowledge. She has successfully recruited top management talent for portfolio companies and advises these managers to develop business strategies, fund raising plans, marketing materials, preclinical and clinical development strategies. Dr. Mitchell has developed creative partnering and marketing models across the portfolio, resulting in increasing the overall visibility of the portfolio, engagement with investors and successful deal closures. Prior to joining PCI Ventures, Dr. Mitchell was a member of the Health and Life Sciences team at Battelle Ventures, LP, where she led due diligence, made investment recommendations and was involved in various aspects of portfolio company management including preclinical development and operations with a focus on early stage companies. Dr. Mitchell has a broad background in the biological sciences having earned a Bachelor's degree in Biology from Reed College and a PhD in Molecular Biology from Princeton University. Dr. Mitchell holds a certificate in clinical research from the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Angelo Filosa

Job Titles:
  • Global Head of Scientific Services for OneSource
  • Global Head, Scientific Services, Life Sciences Solutions, PerkinElmer
Dr. Angelo Filosa is the Global Head of Scientific Services for OneSource, where he consults for a variety of organizations to develop strategic roadmaps for operational improvement initiatives that improve lab efficiencies while ensuring a compliant and qualified environment. Prior to PerkinElmer, he was an Associate Director in Chemistry at Boehringer Ingelheim leading analytical chemistry and compound management groups. He also worked in drug development with Eli Lilly and in drug discovery at AstraZeneca. He holds a PhD in Chemistry from Concordia University and is a Lean Six Sigma black belt.

Dr. Richard Bayney

Job Titles:
  • President & Founder of Project & Portfolio Value Creation
  • 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.

Ellen Farrar

Job Titles:
  • for Media and Association Partnerships, Please Contact
  • Senior Marketing Manger / Cambridge Healthtech Institute

Gill Eapen

Job Titles:
  • CEO, Decision Options, LLC
Gill Eapen has two decades of experience in strategy, finance, risk and general management. Mr. Eapen's past experience includes senior positions at fortune 100 companies, consulting and private equity firms. He has consulted for over five dozen companies worldwide in diverse industries, including life sciences, energy, aerospace, high technology and consumer goods. In 2000, he founded Decision Options, a pioneer in economic value based decision making, risk, and portfolio management. Decision Options has created a technology with broad applications in valuation, risk management, portfolio optimization and deal structuring. Prior to establishing Decision Options, he led financial planning and analysis at Pfizer for all of R&D. Previous employers include Charles River Associates, Deloitte Consulting, Hewlett-Packard Company and ABB. Mr. Eapen has authored multiple books including, Decision Options: The Art and Science of Making Decisions, provides the theory and practice of real options in economic valuation and investment decision-making in private assets and Flexibility: Flexible Companies for the Uncertain World is a comprehensive discussion of the structure, systems and strategies needed for companies to survive and succeed in an increasingly uncertain world.

Issi Rozen

Job Titles:
  • Director of Strategic Alliances at the Broad Institute of Harvard
  • Senior Director, Strategic Alliances, Broad Institute
Issi Rozen, director of strategic alliances at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, is responsible for partnering with the pharmaceutical industry and venture investors and developing new scientific and business collaborations. He is also responsible for initiating and establishing new ventures around innovative research projects and for licensing the institute's intellectual property portfolio. He joined the Broad in 2011 after a career in the pharmaceutical industry. Before joining the Broad Institute, Rozen was director of corporate development at Resolvyx Pharmaceuticals, a venture-backed biotech start-up, where he headed business development efforts. Before that, he led the business analysis group at EMD Serono where he was responsible for evaluations of in-licensing and M&A opportunities as well as commercial analytics and forecasting. In addition, Issi is also an accomplished jazz guitarist and has released three recordings. He earned his M.B.A. at MIT's Sloan School of Management.

J. Todd Abrams

Job Titles:
  • Senior Director, New Ventures and Business Development, Office of Technology Commercialization, Temple University
Dr. Abrams is presently the Senior Director, New Ventures and Business Development in Temple University's Office of the Vice Provost for Research. His principal responsibilities are to help place new technologies on the critical path for commercial development and shape teams to establish new ventures to implement the commercial plan. Prior to joining Temple, Todd was Manager of JT ABRAMS CONSULTING where he supported institutions in our region to develop new approaches to support emerging technologies, as well as advise early stage technologies on how to access those new resources. Prior to consulting, Dr. Abrams Served as Director, Philanthropy and Business Development at the Lankenau Institute for Medical Research (LIMR), a position in which he expanded his interest in advancing early stage technologies. Among other responsibilities he oversaw LIMR's technology development initiative, including its biotechnology incubator, technology transfer office, and philanthropy efforts. He received a BA in biology from Lafayette College in Easton, PA, and a Ph.D. in immunology from the University of Pennsylvania. After receiving his Ph.D., Dr. Abrams spent over a decade performing cancer research, with positions at The Wistar Institute, The University of Miami School of Medicine, and Allegheny University of the Health Sciences now Drexel's School of Medicine.

Jean Lee

Job Titles:
  • Vice President, Portfolio & Project Management, Portfolio Operations & Project Management, Pfizer R & D
Jean Lee is currently VP for Portfolio and Project Management, within the Global Innovative Pharma Business at Pfizer. Jean is responsible for the Portfolio Operations, the team of Project Managers & Planners and the Operations Excellence Group. Jean has recently been part of the leadership of an enterprise-wide implementation of an integrated Project Management and Resource Forecasting tool to improve the capabilities for running the R&D engine. Jean joined Pfizer as a Project Manager in 1998 and has served in a number of Portfolio and Project leadership roles over the past fifteen years. She has been part of a number of continuous improvement initiatives, including the enterprise Planning and Forecasting Initiative, Robust Decision-Making, Stage Gates and the Understand and Deliver Framework.

Jesse Conard

Job Titles:
  • Director of Project Management for Biologics Clinical Pharmacology
  • Director, Project Management, Janssen R & D 's Biotechnology Center of Excellence, Janssen
Jesse Conard is the Director of Project Management for Biologics Clinical Pharmacology in Janssen R&D's Biotechnology Center of Excellence. Since joining Johnson & Johnson in 2006, Jesse has specialized in developing innovative, high-impact project management solutions that span the full drug development life cycle.

John Phillips

Job Titles:
  • Director in the Business Valuation Consulting Practice of Deloitte Transactions & Business Analytics
  • Director, Life Science Lead for Capital Efficiency Practice, Business Valuation, Deloitte Transactions and Business Analytics LLP
John Phillips is a Director in the Business Valuation Consulting practice of Deloitte Transactions & Business Analytics. John's expertise is in assisting Life Science and Healthcare clients in strategic decision making pertaining to portfolio optimization, M&A/L&A, risk assessment and business valuation. John has worked nationally and internationally with clients in the pharmaceuticals, medical device, diagnostics, health care delivery, and health care insurance industries. Prior to joining Deloitte, John spent 28 years in the Life Sciences industry in management roles in R&D, Sales, New Product Development, and Strategic Marketing.

Jonathan Freeman

Job Titles:
  • Senior Vice President, Head, Portfolio Management, Merck Serono
Jonathan is since 2012 SVP Head of Global Portfolio Management, Global Business Development & Strategy; previously he was Head of Licensing, Global Business Development. Before Rejoining Merck Serono in 2008 Jonathan was Director, Licensing and M&A (Europe/ECEMEA)at Baxter Healthcare from 2006. In 2000 he started at Serono as Director, Licensing & Strategy. He is a graduate from the University of Cambridge (UK) and has a Ph.D from the University of Edinburgh (UK).

Kevin Doyle

Job Titles:
  • Resource Estimation and Planning Business Partner, Decision Analytics and Resource Planning, Shire
For the past 18 years, Kevin has been working with some of the largest Pharmaceutical, Automotive, and Industrial companies in the world to build and enhance their capacity planning, portfolio optimization, and resource management processes. His current responsibilities at Shire cross the spectrum of resource planning and analysis from individual new product assessment to portfolio wide R&D staff planning. Prior to joining Shire in 2011, Kevin was the head of Resource and Decision Management at Merck and Co. and led consulting engagements with Bristol-Myers Squibb, Johnson and Johnson, General Motors, and Ford. He has a Chemical Engineering degree from Lafayette College and currently resides in Allentown, PA with his wife and two children.

Kristin Skahan

Job Titles:
  • Business Development Manager / Cambridge Healthtech Institute

Mark Lane

Job Titles:
  • Consultant at TayganPoint
A Consultant at TayganPoint, Mark Lane has an extensive background with 24 years as an experienced leader at some of the world's leading research and life science organizations including the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Merck, Wyeth, GE Healthcare, MedImmune (AstraZeneca) and Sanofi. Areas of expertise include strategy development and execution, program and project leadership/management, new product development (including R&D and clinical) and business development. Prior to joining the industry, Mark had a successful career as a scientist and internationally recognized speaker at the NIH Institute on Aging where his team published over 100 papers, articles and book chapters. His industry career includes roles in Project Management at Merck and Program Leadership and Management positions in product development, including preclinical-launch at Wyeth and MedImmune (AstraZeneca). Prior to joining TayganPoint, Mark implemented and led Program, Project and Portfolio Management offices at GE HealthCare, LifeCell and Sanofi Medical Affairs.

Michael N. Liebman

Job Titles:
  • Managing Director of IPQ Analytics
  • Managing Director, Administration, IPQ Analytics, LLC
Michael N. Liebman, Ph.D. is the Managing Director of IPQ Analytics, LLC and of Strategic Medicine, Inc, and Strategic Medicine, BV (the Hague, NL) after serving as the Executive Director of the Windber Research Institute from 2003-2007. He is also an Adjunct Professor of Pharmacology and Physiology at Drexel College of Medicine and First Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University. Previously, he was Director, Computational Biology and Biomedical Informatics at the University of Pennsylvania Cancer Center 2000-2003. He served as Global Head of Computational Genomics at Roche Pharmaceuticals and Director, Bioinformatics and Pharmacogenomics at Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, Director of Genomics for Vysis, Inc. He is a co-founder of Prosanos, Inc (2000). He was on the faculty of Mount Sinai School of Medicine in Pharmacology and Physiology/Biophysics. He serves on 14 scientific advisory boards and is on the Board of Directors and chairs the Science Committee of the Nathaniel Adamczyk Foundation for Pediatric ARDS and is an Advisor to the American Heart Association Science and Technology Accelerator. Michael is Chair of the Informatics Program of the PhRMA Foundation and also Chair of its new program in Translational Medicine and Therapeutics and is a member of the PhRMA Scientific Advisory Board. He is on the Advisory Board of the International Society for Translational Medicine and on the Editorial Board for the Journal of Translational Medicine, for Clinical and Translational Medicine and for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics and the International Park for Translational Biomedicine (Shanghai). He is an Invited Professor at the Shanghai Center for Bioinformatics Technology. His research focuses on computational models of disease progression stressing risk detection, disease process and pathway modeling and analysis of lifestyle interactions and causal biomarker discovery and focuses on moving bedside problems into the research laboratory to improve patient care and quality of life. Recent activities also include computational approaches to disease modeling, patient and disease stratification, drug safety, reduction of animal testing and both qualitative and quantitative risk assessment in health care and the life sciences.

Mike Hess

Job Titles:
  • Vice President of R & D for the Bradycardia
  • Vice President, Bradycardia R & D, Medtronic
Mike Hess is the Vice President of R&D for the Bradycardia business within the Cardiac Rhythm and Heart Failure division of Medtronic plc. Mike has been with Medtronic for 24 years in a variety of R&D,marketing, program management and clinical roles. He has a BS in Biomedical Engineering and a MS in Software Engineering. Mike has over 35 issued patents in the cardiac device field, is a Medtronic Bakken Fellow and a Fellow of the American Institue of Medical and Biomedical Engineering (AIMBE). He resides in Minneapolis with his family.

Paul Davies

Job Titles:
  • Director, R & D Strategy and Portfolio Analytics, Corporate Strategy, CSL Behring
Director of R&D Strategy & Portfolio Analytics at global biopharmaceutical company CSL Limited responsible for financially and strategically evaluating drug development decisions on a multi-billion dollar global portfolio with annual spend in excess of $500m. A background in chemical engineering at Shell followed by ten years as a Chartered Accountant at Ernst & Young and Deloitte across London, Singapore, Myanmar and Melbourne combine to bring financial literacy, discipline and communication together with a robust mathematical modelling mindset. Current decision-making interests include Nassim Taleb's Antifragile (and Black Swan) and Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow.

Peter Ray

Job Titles:
  • Vice President, Strategic & Operational Portfolio Management, Bristol - Myers Squibb
Peter Ray is Vice President, Strategic & Operational Portfolio Management, at Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. The unit he leads is responsible for the evaluation of internal asset development strategies, helping matrix development teams identify the optimal path to initial registration and the sequencing and scope of life cycle management activities. He also has responsibility for maintaining development project schedules and operational resource forecasts to inform functional planning. Peter advises senior leadership on long term strategy, portfolio prioritization, and R&D budget trade-off decisions, including impact assessments of potential business development opportunities on the existing pipeline. Prior to joining BMS, Peter worked for Strategic Decisions Group, a boutique strategy consulting firm specializing in applied decision analysis, supporting clients in several high risk/high return industries faced with large scale investments amid great uncertainty, and for Mitsubishi Corporation, a leading sogo sosha. Over the years he has built considerable expertise in business planning, asset development strategy, R&D portfolio strategy, transactions analysis, and corporate strategy. Peter received his MBA from Stanford University and BA in Government/East Asian Studies from Harvard University. He is a Fellow of the Society of Decision Professionals.

Phil Wolf

Job Titles:
  • Senior Vice President, Enterprise and on Demand Products, PDWare
Phil Wolf is a 22-year veteran of the application software market. As Director of Product Management at ABT Corporation, Phil managed a successful multi-year initiative that transitioned ABT's Project Management tools from the desktop to a scaling client-server architecture. Phil also managed a team that defined the sales and product marketing strategies that allowed ABT's new products to dominate the project management space over the following years. More recently, Phil has held various sales and sales management positions with ABT, Portal Software and Princeton Softech, where he excelled at opening markets and developing new customers for these high-growth companies. With his long track record of accepting challenges and exceeding target objectives, Phil brings firepower to PDWare's world-class management team. Phil has a BA in organizational psychology from the University of Michigan and a Master's in business administration from Boston University.

Reb Tayyabkhan

Job Titles:
  • Executive Director, Head, Central Clinical Services, Bristol - Myers Squibb
  • Head of Central Clinical Services
Reb Tayyabkhan is the Head of Central Clinical Services within R&D Operations at Bristol Myers Squibb. He supports all phases of development from exploratory through full development and late phase. He is responsible for the integration and oversight of outsourcing, vendor management, clinical contracting/payments, and transparency efforts for all clinical operations groups. He joined BMS in 2003 and has held positions in Pharmaceutical Development Informatics and Global Development Operations. Prior to joining BMS, Reb was Management Consultant at PwC and an Engineer at Merck. Reb holds an MBA from New York University and a Masters in Chemical Engineering from Cornell University.

Richard Sonnenblick

Job Titles:
  • CEO, Enrich Consulting
Richard Sonnenblick founded Enrich Consulting in 1998. His vision has been realized in the Enrich Analytics Platform (EAP), which he created in 2000. Prior to founding Enrich, he built a decision analysis consulting practice at Lumina Decision Systems. Rich holds a PhD and an MS in engineering and public policy from Carnegie Mellon University and a BA in physics from the University of California, Santa Cruz. When Rich isn't running the show at Enrich, he can be found kayaking in Monterey Bay or cruising the singletrack at Wilder Ranch.

Sam Mathew

Job Titles:
  • Portfolio Capacity Management Leader, Finance / PMO, Janssen Pharmaceuticals
Sam Mathew (MBA, LSS BB, CEM, PMP), is a Portfolio Capacity Management Leader at Janssen Pharmaceuticals. He has over 18 years' experience in pharmaceutical, R&D and management consulting, with particular focus on executive decision support, insightful information and analysis, forecasting, visualization, analytics and modeling. He has led internal and management consulting initiatives and teams at Merck, Accenture, Pfizer, BMS, Amgen, PepsiCo and Apple Computers.

Sam Mukherjee

Job Titles:
  • Associate Director, Portfolio Management, Dr. Reddy 's Laboratories
Sam Mukherjee has an extensive Wall Street background including years in corporate investment banking at Bear, Stearns & Co. and Houlihan Lokey. At both firms he covered specialty biopharmaceutical companies and executed several M&A and equity deals. Subsequently, Sam worked at Thomas Weisel / Stifel Nicholas covering biotechnology companies. After Wall Street, he then worked at Forest Labs / Actavis in M&A analysis and diligence. In his current role at Dr. Reddy's Laboratories, Sam is an Associate Director in the Portfolio Management and Commercialization Strategy groups.

Simon Hornby

Job Titles:
  • Director, Capacity, Planning & Analytics, Clinical Biologics, MedImmune
Simon Hornby has worked in the Resource Management area for over 10 years, developing and implementing resource management solutions across the pharmaceutical development continuum. Currently head of the Clinical Capacity Management group for MedImmune (an AstraZeneca company), Simon previously held a number of global resource management roles in Pfizer.

Thomas Riesenberg

Job Titles:
  • Associate CIO, Office of the CIO, Penn Medicine
Tom is the Associate CIO of Operations at Penn Medicine. He has 38 years of healthcare IT experience with healthcare providers and healthcare IT vendors. Tom holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business and a Business Management degree from Plymouth State University.

Tim LaCroix

Job Titles:
  • Head, Strategic and Business Development, PharPoint Research
Tim LaCroix headed up strategic development for Pharmaceutical and Biotech Companies throughout the United States. His role requires an intimate knowledge of Drug Development to include regulatory pathways, proof of concept evaluations with biostatisticians, and post-approval strategies. Prior to joining Premier Research, Tim worked for renowned firms such as Duke Clinical Research Institute, the largest Not for Profit Academic CRO in the United States that has specific role in impacting Development, Clinical Trial Design and providing services for the Healthcare Industry. Tim's Experience with leading big-box CROs includes Senior Level Experience in Strategic Development, Contract Negotiation; further he has represented Phase I - IV , peri-IND Services and Bioanalytical Services for over 15 years. The Therapeutic Areas that Tim has been active in are across the entire spectrum however he has had particular experience with CNS, Cardiovascular, Dermatology, Metabolic and Oncology Clients. Tim LaCroix holds a MBA from the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University and a BA from the State University of New York (Plattsburgh). Tim has been active in the Pharmaceutical and CRO Industry as a Charter Member for the Center for Information & Study on Research Participation (CISCRP), and an active Drug Information Association Member. He has been recognized in the industry for his work in Patient Recruitment and has published on this subject. He is a Staff Officer for Materials Acquisition with the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary based in Cary, NC.

Tom Defay

Job Titles:
  • Global Project Leader, Head of Informatics, Neuroscience IMed, AstraZeneca
Tom Defay currently leads a Parkinson's Project at AstraZeneca, is Head of Informatics for the Neuroscience iMed, and co-lead of the "Digital iMed" initiative tasked with proposing new investments to exploit emerging capabilities in Electronic Health Records, Digital Health solutions, Exome sequencing, and ‘omics capabilities. Prior to this role, Tom led the Drug Discovery Portfolio (up to Proof of Concept) for Psychiatry (US), and then for Neuroscience as a whole (Sweden). He led and managed multiple Drug Discovery projects (two of which are still active in the clinic) and was chief of Staff for Neuroscience in both the US and Sweden. Tom has founded four different informatics groups and managed and prioritized (in various capacities), Bioinformatics and IT portfolios in AstraZeneca. Tom has also led Sections in Bioinformatics, Genomics and Molecular Sciences. Tom received his Ph.D. in Biophysics from the University of California, San Franscisco (UCSF), and did Post Docs at UCSF and Stanford in Bioinformatics and Protein Structure Prediction.

Tony Dybicz

Job Titles:
  • Associate Director, Business Consulting, Merck
Tony has 20 years of experience in project and portfolio management, most of which has been in the pharmaceutical industry. He is currently leading the deployment of portfolio management tools and processes to Merck's global vaccines and biologics businesses. He has a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Drexel University, an MBA with a concentration in Marketing from Villanova University, and is a certified Project Management Professional. In his personal life, Tony enjoys spending time with his wife and two children, running, photography, and cooking.