Archives: Speakers

Johanna Morand is the Associate Director, Site Contracts, at Premier Research, responsible for EMEA, LATAM, and APAC, along with the Benelux Country Lead. She has 12 years of experience negotiating contracts for clinical trials (previously with Genzyme, a Sanofi Company, Parexel, and Cmed). Ms. Morand leads an international team of Contract Leads and Contract Specialists. Her aim remains to balance timely execution while managing legal, financial, and operational risks. Ms. Morand holds an LLM in European Law from Leiden University and an LLM in Law and Economics from Utrecht University where she wrote a thesis on European Orphan Medicinal Product Regulations.

Dr. Cary’s entire professional career has been in the pharmaceutical industry. He has extensive experience in injectable products research and development as well as Drug Development. An MBA degree has given him the background to be an effective leader in New Business Development. At Abbott he successfully championed the development of pre-mixed drugs, as well as the Add-Vantage Drug Delivery System. He also played a critical role in the identification and commercialization of PCA (patient controlled analgesia). He is a co-founder of a successful specialty pharmaceutical company, Cary Pharmaceuticals Inc. and is the sole inventor of US patent 6,197,827 titled, Nicotine Addiction Treatment.

Roger has 30 years of management and drug development expertise from his leading roles in preclinical and clinical drug development programs, regulatory strategy and interactions, funding, and outsourcing to specialist service providers. With his experience in basic research, large and small pharma, and CRO settings he provides valuable insight into business and R&D operations for pharma/biotech companies. His specific therapeutic areas of expertise are in diabetes, oncology, gene therapy, and cardiovascular indications. He is currently President and Co-Founder at BioKier and was previously CEO at Plakous Therapeutics and Senior Scientist in Clinical Development at Cato Research. Roger received a PhD in Pharmacology and Biochemistry from Melbourne University and completed Postdoctoral fellowships at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and at Burroughs Wellcome.

Currently leading Clinical Operations at Tenax Therapeutics, Kevin M. Crawford is a 23-year clinical research veteran, having held leadership posts under such leading brands as GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Johnson & Johnson, and United Therapeutics. A certified executive coach, contributing writer and vlogger as well, Kevin’s insights on a personal and professional mission, organizational leadership and life balance have garnered a growing cult following and demand as an executive consultant and speaker. With a Master’s degree in Biotechnology from the University of Maryland, he has published in the Journals of the American Thoracic Society and American College of Chest Physicians. Kevin lives in Raleigh, NC with his wife and three children, and when he is not “ON,” he enjoys playing soccer, kayaking, volunteering and having bad coffee with good friends

Co-Founder, Clinical Research Innovation Hub, Microsoft Corporation The Clinical Research Innovation Hub (CRIH) is the first industry focused internal startup in Microsoft. Innovation hubs are engines that allow Microsoft to focus on pressing industry problems by combining the speed, agility and autonomy of a startup with resources available to a large enterprise. CRIH analyzes problems deeply through interviews and experiments, then rapidly builds solutions alongside Microsoft customers and partners. Ryan is responsible for the operations of the innovation hub, for the management of the portfolio, and for creating the conditions for agile and open innovation. CRIH is enabling Microsoft and its partners to conceptualize, incubate, and ultimately deliver the technology innovations that will drive the adoption of new clinical research paradigms. Ryan has been with Microsoft for 12 years. Prior to his current role he served as a Chief Transformation Officer for the US subsidiary, responsible for designing and executing change management strategies for transforming sales, marketing, and services operations for the $33B business. Before joining Microsoft, Ryan was the CIO for the City of Chicago city council, responsible for implementing IT policies and data security protocols to protect the integrity of sensitive citizen and employee data. He partnered with Microsoft and implementation partners to modernize and transform dozens of legacy systems, enabling greater transparency in government and more citizen-centric applications. Ryan holds a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from North Carolina State University and a Master of Business Administration from Duke University (The Fuqua School of Business).

Kevin has over 24+ years of experience in the IRT/ RTSM industry, having worked across many technical and project management leadership roles. Experienced with developing and leading global teams delivering managed services spanning Operations, Project Management, Client Partnerships and Business Transformation. Kevin is passionate about improving healthcare and utilizing technology that makes a real difference to patients’ lives. Kevin holds a Bachelors’ Degree in Computer Science from Hertfordshire University in the UK.

In his role as VP, eCOA Science & Consulting, Bryan brings extensive experience and expertise to achieve smarter drug development, clinical trial design and execution (including decentralized and remote trials) to vastly expand the reach and access of trials to more patients, provide improved patient experience and data quality to deliver accelerated drug & device development programs. Bryan is a thought leader and recognized strategist & visionary and continues to influence, drive and deliver on the pharma wide industry necessity for smarter drug & device development and life cycle management.

Phil Lake is a respiratory specialist who supports clients all around the world and has held various roles in drug development for more than 22 years, predominantly focused on respiratory trials. Previously, he held positions at SmithKline Beecham and GlaxoSmithKline within respiratory drug development, working on respiratory drug development in a range of drug mechanisms and trial designs including landmark studies such as exacerbations, mortality, and mechanistic studies focusing on biopsy and sputum biomarkers. Phil has concentrated extensively on understanding drivers for variability to reduce the risk of study failure that included traditional respiratory indications as well as generic bioequivalence studies and the use of lung function as a biomarker within many rare diseases. He has focused on understanding potential safety signals within drugs which could have negative impacts on lung health. Phil has been pivotal in early centralized over read studies and is committed to driving improvements in lung function testing within decentralized trials.

Farooq Hussain is the Regional Director Europe for Avantor Clinical Services. Working with customers across the region to improve their clinical trial effectiveness and efficiencies, through providing scalable, end-to-end service capabilities, including biorepository and sample management, custom kitting, and clinical trial equipment & ancillary solutions. Farooq has over two decades of experience in the pharmaceutical sector, both for pharma companies in a variety of commercial roles as well as working for service providers to the industry. He earned his BSc in Biological Sciences from Nottingham Trent University.

Sinead is a Digital Healthcare and Clinical Research Executive with a career spanning clinical care, academic research and digital health across multiple therapeutic areas including oncology, internal medicine and vaccines development. She joins THREAD with over 18 years’ experience in clinical service delivery, sponsor research governance, CRO and eHealth. Sinead oversees the Delivery team in the EMEA as the executive sponsor for customer portfolios within THREAD. Sinead is a clinically trained radiotherapist with a bachelor’s degree from the School of Medicine, Trinity College Dublin and a Master of Science clinical research from the University of London.