Archives: Speakers

Ben Franks FRSA is a former wine journalist turned entrepreneur, best known for founding the award-winning wine merchant Novel Wines and co-founding Canned Wine Group, where today he is CCO and wine buyer. Ben was named ‘Leadership Champion’ and listed in Harper’s 30 Under 30 in 2024 and has been described as ‘a shining example of the entrepreneurial spirit’ by The Buyer and a ‘visionary entrepreneur’ by the IEWA. Alongside his own businesses, Ben is an investor and advisor to other wine and spirits brands, particularly those looking to launch in the UK market. Since 2020 he has been a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, recognising his work in start-ups and entrepreneurship.

Martin Jarvis is a buying manager passionate about driving sustainable innovation in the food industry. With a strong focus on ethical sourcing, Martin combines strategic thinking with creative problem-solving to deliver solutions that reduce environmental impact while enhancing product quality and brand value. He champions collaboration with suppliers to foster transparency, resilience, and long-term sustainability, ensuring that innovation aligns with both consumer expectations and global responsibility.

Nicole Honigman is a proactive clinical research leader with 13+ years of experience driving Phase IIa–IV trials from feasibility through close-out across global and local settings. She currently serves as Global Study Director at AstraZeneca, where she leads cross-functional teams, oversees outsourced delivery, and steers study planning, risk‑based quality management, and inspection readiness to meet timelines, budgets, and quality standards. Previously at Alexion (AZ RDU), she led country operations and global monitoring oversight, optimizing startup, recruitment, vendor management, and CRA resourcing across complex rare disease programs. Nicole’s therapeutic expertise spans hematology, nephrology, neurology, bone metabolism, rheumatology, gastrointestinal, metabolic diseases, oncology, and infectious disease, with recent emphasis on cardiovascular trials. She is trained in project management, and recognized for disciplined TMF governance, KPI-driven performance management, and effective stakeholder communication.

Joana Claverol , is the Clinical Research Director at Barcelona Children’s Hospital Sant Joan de Déu, Spain, where she leads the clinical trials office since 2012 and the Patients engagement in research area since 2015. The Clinical Research Unit is a reference unit for pediatric patients nationally and internationally, specializing in innovative treatments for highly complex patients with rare pediatric diseases. She has more than 13 years of experience in medical and clinical research in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry, with special knowledge and experience in drug development and clinical trial design, and all regulatory and methodological aspects related to clinical research. She holds a postgraduate in Senior Management Program of Health Institutions by IESE Business School, a Master in Pharmaceutical Marketing by Universitat Pompeu Fabra, a Master of clinical trials at Universitat de Barcelona and a BS Degree in Biological Sciences by Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona.

Richard has been a patient advocate for 30 years, surviving two cancers and a heart emergency, plus several co-morbidities and late effects. As a patient he has participated in four interventional studies and nine others. As an Advocate he has helped design over 30 more.

Richard Chairs the UK’s Cancer Research Advocates Forum, is Vice-Chair of the European CanSERV project, and has held several other leadership roles. He works with patient groups and advocates, academics and industry, and policy-makers, funders and regulators.  

Richard helped found the AllTrials campaign and useMYdata movement, and he is the founding co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Research Involvement and Engagement. His professional life included successful careers in education, journalism and local government.

Andreas  has worked for more than 20 years in the biopharma industry in the area of development of protein biopharmaceuticals and recently also viral vectors. He has an in-depth experience in the area of protein analytics & characterization, formulation & pharmaceutical development, quality control of biopharmaceuticals, general management, management of large local and global teams and site management. Having had the opportunity to contribute to the pioneering role of Sandoz/Novartis in the development and regulatory approval of biosimilars. When Andreas started in this area nobody knew how and if biosimilars will be reality in the EU and US. With the successful development and registration of the first biosimilars in the EU, US and many other countries he had the opportunity to shape the environment and to pioneer the whole biosimilar field. Due to his visionary and innovative mindset Andreas initiated many new technologies projects, recently especially in the area of formulation development, which could be implemented successfully in development platforms for biosimilars and innovative biologics.

Clinical Data Strategy Advisor @ the European Institute for Innovation through Health Data

Peter Casteleyn MSc, is a Technology Director whose mantra is enabling business to work smarter. With a career of over 24 years in the pharmaceutical industry, Peter has made significant contributions across various domains, including Commercial, Supply Chain, Development and Analytics. His work places him at the forefront of technological innovation in the field as he contributed to and triggered cross-industry collaborations in the area of bridging clinical care with clinical research.

His passion for being intellectually challenged in order to create solutions, combined with his eagerness to guide and work with teams with a positive can-do mentality in order to grow, have been key elements throughout his career.

End 2024, Peter retired from Johnson & Johnson after the successful introduction of a scalable Electronic Health Records integration capability.  He firmly believes in the importance of insights from data for the health care industry supported by the interoperability of health data. He’s also a big proponent of industry wide collaboration as the key to achieve this.

Experienced Clinical Operations Director with 17 years of experience in Clinical Operations.
Establishing and managing multi-center, multi-national clinical studies across diverse therapeutic areas (including: immunology, gastroenterology, oncology, hematology, dermatology).