Archives: Speakers

Richard Stephens has been a patient advocate for 25 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 Cancer Research Advocates Forum (formerly the NCRI Consumer Forum) and is the former Chair of BBMRI-ERIC’s Stakeholder Forum. 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 has included careers in education, journalism and local government.

Jadwiga Janicka is holding a role of Director of Study Operations at AstraZeneca, overseeing a team responsible for the execution of global clinical trials. With an extensive background spanning more than 17 years in the field of clinical trials, Jadwiga has consistently played a pivotal role in collaborative efforts with numerous CROs. Her involvement has ranged from project management to governance-level activities, contributing to the successful execution of trials. Jadwiga’s expertise is particularly focused on staying abreast of current trends in outsourcing practices and evolving oversight requirements within the industry.

Senior executive Leader in Life Science (Biochemist) and Lean/Six Sigma Green-belt certified, with more than 20 year of experience in clinical operations, Operational Excellence (i.e., operational strategy, performance management, process optimization, risk management, Quality-by-Design and team performance), clinical quality, and Service Providers / Outsourcing management.

I developed, reengineered, automated, and optimized business processes with a risk-based and approach to produce high quality outputs and to ensure regulatory compliance. I led the development, implementation and monitoring of different operational and quality strategies and models including Outsourcing as well as new/ innovative clinical capabilities to fulfill consumers/ patients needs .

Mar Gomis-Pastor

PharmD, PhD. Clinical pharmacist with specialization in hospital pharmacy. International Doctor of Medicine (UAB – Autonomous University of Barcelona). Mar is currently responsible for the Digital Impulse at St. Pau’s Hospital (within the Strategic Impulse and Transformation Area). She is also the Director of the Digital Health Clinical Validation Center (a joint project with the Barcelona Health Hub). She has worked as a coordinator of interdisciplinary and comprehensive eHealth projects for the last 10 years (2013-2023). Her current activity in ambulatory healthcare is focused on heart transplant care. Experience in other areas would be Research; Health Consultancy and eHealth Consultancy; Public Administrations as vocal in the National Commission of Specialties in Hospital Pharmacy, Spanish Ministry of Health Social Services; Education and Doctoral Thesis Director; among others.

Amelia joined the Parkinson’s Europe  team in Jan 2022 as Research Manager. Since then she has developed Parkinson’s Europe’s Research Strategy, embedding a Research Steering Group into the organisation and helping to increase the presence of Parkinson’s Europe in the clinical research world. She is also focused on bringing new initiatives to the table, such as the Parkinson’s Europe’s Engagement Network, which better connects the Parkinson’s

community with research across Europe. Parkinson’s Europe is now a partner member of EUPATI and the Critical Path for Parkinson’s as part of this action.

She has been working in the field of Neurodegenerative research since 2009 and is a Patient Organisations board member with EUPATI since Sept 2023.

She previously worked for the UK NIHR’s DeNDRoN delivering clinical trials and then at Parkinson’s UK from July 2015 as Research Participation Lead.  She was responsible for initiatives to increase research participation for people affected by Parkinson’s, health care professionals and researchers, and created the innovative Parkinson’s UK Take Part Hub and co-produced the Staying Connected toolkit in collaboration with the HRA UK.