Dimitri Dimitriou

Dimitri has over 30 years’ experience in the pharmaceutical and biotech industry.
He is a co-founder and former CEO of ImmuPharma plc, a drug development biotech company listed on AIM of the London Stock Exchange and previously on Euronext in Brussels. His past roles include Senior Director, Worldwide Business Development at GlaxoSmithKline, where he was responsible for worldwide transactions with a focus on licensing of IP rights for development and commercialization.
He held a similar role at Bristol-Myers Squibb. Prior to that, he spent 8 years at Procter & Gamble in its pharmaceutical division, in senior marketing, R&D and business development positions and began his career in marketing at Novartis in 1987.
Over the last 20 years, he is also the founder and Managing Director of DyoDelta Biosciences, an advisory company specializing in providing support in putting together corporate collaborations in the Life Sciences.

Joe Boncore

In the role of CEO, Joe Boncore manages MassBio’s federal affairs, state and municipal government relations, and takes the lead on initiatives to sustain Massachusetts’ economic competitiveness focusing on issues around infrastructure, workforce, and digital health. Prior to joining MassBio in September 2021, Joe served as a Massachusetts State Senator for the First Suffolk and Middlesex districts, representing his hometown of Winthrop; the Boston communities of East Boston, North End, Chinatown, Beacon Hill, Bay Village, and South End; the Cambridge neighborhoods of Cambridgeport, Riverside and MIT; and the City of Revere. While in the State Senate, Joe was the Chair of the Joint Committee on Transportation, Chair of the Senate’s Committee on Personnel and Administration, Chair of the Joint Committee on Housing, and Vice Chair of Rules. Before being elected to the state legislature in 2016, Joe practiced law specializing in criminal law in his private practice and as a public defender with Suffolk Lawyers for Justice.

Sandra von Meier

Sandra von Meier as Head of Business Development and Licensing at Debiopharm, Sandra is responsible for all business development and licensing activities at Debiopharm, covering both in licensing and out licensing activities, including all transactions. Before joining Debiopharm, Sandra was working as Senior Director Business Development & Licensing at Bayer responsible for oncology asset search, evaluation and transaction including the recent M&A with Vividion Therapeutics. Before Bayer, as Director Business Development Oncology at Merck KGaA, Sandra led numerous transactions, including the strategic collaboration for Xevinapant, including deals with F-star/bispecific antibodies, Vertex/DDR portfolio and Pfizer for Bavencio/avelumab. Sandra started her career at Medigene, a publicly listed German biotechnology company, where she also closed several transactions including the commercialization agreement with Astellas for Eligard. Sandra studied Biochemistry at the FU Berlin and then moved to London for her Diploma at the Institute of Cancer Research. She holds a PhD from University College London.

Andrew Leger

Andrew Leger is a business development professional with a foundation in drug development of rare neuromuscular and metabolic diseases. He has a 15+ year track record of orchestrating high-impact results by leading cross-corporate collaborations both in science and corporate development. Both his science and business careers have allowed him to immerse in and accumulate understanding of unmet medical need experienced by patients with rare diseases. Throughout both, he has found that collaboration is a very effective way of achieving transformative advancements in medicine that make the lives of people with a rare disease better and more meaningful. Andrew received a BA from Cornell University in molecular biology and a PhD from Tufts University School of Medicine in biochemistry. Andrew was a scientist in rare diseases at former Genzyme, now Sanofi, and has worked in BD roles at Sanofi, Novartis, Acceleron, and now Ferrer, where he serves as Head of BD in the United States.

Dawn Bell

Dawn Bell, Pharm.D. is former start-up CEO, board director and current Top 10 Pharma Exec (NYSE: NVS). Her expertise spans value creation, business development, portfolio composition, indication selection/sequencing, go-to-market strategy, and reimbursement. She is currently Global Development Head of Strategic Partnerships at Novartis. Previously, Dr. Bell was VP Clinical Development and Medical Affairs and member of the Executive Committee for Novartis Pharma Canada, a $600M USD business, responsible for new product planning, clinical development, and medical affairs. She oversaw launch preparations for 8 new medicines across 5 therapeutic areas and built the gene therapy team that launched Zolgensma and Luxturna. Earlier, Dr. Bell led the global development, registration and launch of Entresto ($3.5B). Prior to Novartis, she was founding CEO of Cool-Bio, a pre-clinical stage biotech company. She served as General Manager of Canyon Pharmaceuticals, a clinical-stage rare-disease company. After several years in academia, she joined The Medicines Company, acquired by Novartis in 2020 for $9.7B.

Adna Halilovic

Responsible for managing strategic external global alliances and providing support for Innovation Center pre-deal activities through agreement execution for the Immunology TA at Janssen. Prior to joining Janssen R&D, worked as alliance, project, and portfolio manager in the Gastrointestinal (GI) Drug Discovery Unit, primarily launching and managing external academic and industry alliances within the Immunology portfolio at Takeda Pharmaceuticals. Adna was a scientist and preclinical research manager supporting IND enabling studies in inflammatory diseases before transitioning into business development and product planning at Aldeyra Therapeutics. She got her start in the pharmaceutical industry working as an analytical research associate at Roche LLC in Palo Alto, California.

Eirini Bournazou

Eirini is the Evaluations Lead at the Bristol Myers Squibb External Innovation Group (Oncology), responsible for the evaluation and the development of the clinical strategy of external opportunities (early & late stage) in order to maximize the potential of each asset and ensure registrational and commercial success. In addition, she directs the activities of a multi-functional team that manages a broad portfolio of BMS clinical collaborations of Ph1-3 combination trials. Prior to her time at BMS, Eirini held positions of increasing responsibility at Roche External Development and Oncology Clinical Development teams. She holds a PhD in tumor immunology from the University of Edinburgh, UK and completed her postdoctoral training at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Weill Cornell Medical College, New York.

Mark Ralph

Mark has over 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry and is currently a member of Boehringer Ingelheim’s Venture Fund focused on digital health investments. Prior to joining the Fund, Mark was the Global Head of Contracts and Alliance Management, a team within Business Development and licensing that was responsible for leading transactions and the alliance management of collaborations with academic and biotechnology partners. Mark’s career has afforded diverse roles in drug discovery, operations, CRO management, financial management, and business development.

Uma Makhija Verma

Uma Makhija Verma is Senior Director, Business Development at Biogen. While Uma is responsible for digital health and data related partnerships and investments, she also supports Biogen’s diligence and transactions efforts in pharma therapeutics. Prior to Biogen, Uma held roles of increasing responsibility in business development at Otsuka Pharmaceuticals across digital health and pharma therapeutics, and held stints across consulting including IMS Health and Ernst and Young. Uma enjoys conceptualizing and executing win-win collaborations at the intersection of science and technology that ultimately bring innovative solutions in areas of high patient and clinical unmet need. Notable transactions include Biogen’s co-development and commercial collaboration with digital therapeutic leader MedRhythms in MS, and Otsuka’s co-development and commercial collaboration with Click Therapeutics in depression. Uma holds a Bachelor of Arts in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry from Hampshire College, Amherst, MA and earned a post-graduate degree in business from the Indian School of Business, India.

Rachel Bright

Rachel Bright is Head of Alliance Management, Virology, at Gilead Sciences, where she leads a team responsible for Gilead’s Virology Strategic Alliances. She has broad scientific and business leadership experience in drug discovery and development, and over 20 years of experience in alliance management, business development, program management and research. Prior to this role Rachel held roles in Alliance Management and Business Development at GRAIL, Corporate Development and Program Management at Geron Inc., and Research at Abbott Vascular. Rachel holds a BSc from Haverford College, PA, and a PhD and Postdoc from Stanford University School of Medicine in Molecular Pharmacology, and received the Certified Licensing Professional accreditation.

Steve Pessagno

Steve Pessagno is an employee of GSK, where he has worked in a variety of commercial, operations, and business development roles in his 25 years at the company. Currently an Alliance Director in GSK’s Worldwide Business Development group, Steve manages a portfolio of strategic alliances (primarily in Oncology), oversees the team’s priority projects for Alliance Management operations, and has held leadership roles on several transformative acquisition and divestment deals (examples include GSK’s acquisitions of Reliant Pharmaceuticals, Stiefel Laboratories, and Tesaro; ViiV Healthcare’s acquisition of the HIV business from Bristol Myers Squibb; and the divestment of GSK’s portfolio of marketed Oncology products to Novartis in 2015). Steve holds degrees from the University of Pennsylvania (BA, Communications) and University of Michigan (MBA), and serves on the Board of Directors (Treasurer, Ex-Officio) of the Coalition Against Childhood Cancer (CAC2.org).

Christian Thomsen

Christian Thomsen, Global Head of CNS BD&L at Boehringer-Ingelheim is responsible for bringing in new opportunities and establishing collaborations supporting and expanding the BI pipeline within neuropsychiatry. Christian earned his PhD in neuropharmacology and has >25 years experience in neuroscience drug discovery from Novo Nordisk and Lundbeck before joining Boehringer-Ingelheim in Jan. 2019 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-thomsen-21a5008/

Deborah Garrard

Deborah Garrard is committed to advancing therapies to improve the lives of cancer patients by leveraging the expertise and breaking down barriers across organizations. She has over 20 years of experience in the biopharma industry working in Alliance Management, Product Leadership, and Clinical Supply Operations. She has a BS in Molecular and Cellular Biology and an Executive MBA, both from the University of Washington.

Jukka Muhonen

Jukka Muhonen has over twenty (20) years of experience in deal-making in the Pharma and Biotech industries. During his tenure at Orion Corporation (Espoo, Finland) he has led organizations ranging from Legal Affairs and IPR to Alliance Management and Global Business Development. Through his varied global practice he has developed deep knowledge in creating value via different deal structures and in the management of strategic alliances. He has been responsible for numerous successful licensing and partnering deals, including a number of high-interest licensing deals with Big Pharma companies as counter-parts. His core expertise lies in transactions and M&A, commercial contracts, complex commercial negotiations and in building, managing and restructuring contractual relationships. Since 2012 he is also a CEDR accredited mediator.

Monique Yoakim-Turk

Monique joined Moderna in 2019 and is currently Senior Director of Program & Alliance Management overseeing strategic alliances with corporate and academic collaborators in cardiovascular and rare diseases. Prior to Moderna, Monique spent 19 years at Boston Children’s Hospital in the Technology Innovation and Development Office (TIDO) supporting the translation of research and clinical innovations into new products to benefit children and the greater public. At BCH, she developed expertise in intellectual property evaluation and management, contract negotiation, business development and alliance management. Working with researchers and clinicians, she launched the BCH Technology Development Fund, an academic catalyst fund dedicated to de-risking high-impact academic technologies to create a pipeline of investable technologies. To date, The Technology Development Fund has led to the launch of several startups including Affinivax, Rebion and Miach Orthopaedics. Monique holds a PhD in Biochemistry from the Tufts Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and trained as post-doctoral fellow in cancer biology at Harvard University /BIDMC.

Somjeet Dey

Adam Kundzewicz

Neel Desai

Rachael Felberbaum

Natalia Ulyanova

Robert Neusner

Kristi Sarno

Melissa Paoloni

Laura E Collins

Eric Olson

Michael Bayewitch

Manish Tandon

Mark Stencik

Pat Albert Fetaya

Anna Maroney