2019 Speakers

Biography available soon!

Alex is a European and Chartered UK patent attorney, and Partner in the Engineering, Physics and Mechanical devices patents department of AA Thornton. Alex joined AA Thornton after working in-house at Novartis Pharmaceuticals Ltd where he was responsible for IP support relating to medical delivery devices (particularly inhalation devices and auto injectors) and packaging projects across the Pharma division, as well as for a post-launch respiratory therapeutic product. During his time at Novartis he was responsible for developing and implementing an IP strategy for device IP, and was involved in the due diligence process and subsequent IP integration for a number of acquisitions, including the pulmonary division of Nektar Therapeutics and the UK diagnostics device company Vivacta Limited.

Since joining AA Thornton, Alex has been involved with assisting various clients in the identification of potentially patentable subject matter in their device developments, conducting freedom to operate searches, and the preparation and prosecution of patent applications directed to some of those developments.

Biography available soon!

Biography available soon!

Alp Akonur is a Director of Innovation who partners with cross-functional teams to discover, evaluate and propose new technology options in support of mid-to-long term growth objectives as potential business development or licensing opportunities. Prior to his current role, Alp led exploratory research activities to optimize and personalize kidney dialysis therapies using mathematical models. After spending nearly two decades in various aspects of medical device R&D and M&A, Alp values the critical role that startups play in innovating differentiated novel products that improve patients’ lives.

Alp holds MBA and PhD degrees from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and Northwestern University. Alp has co-authored over sixty peer-reviewed research articles, conference proceedings, and patents. He can be reached via Linkedin.

Aly is a thoroughbred clinical researcher with a distinct focus on medical devices. She started her research career as a Clinical Advisor at the Spectranetics Corporation (now Royal Philips, NYSE: PHG) in 1998. She founded the CRO ‘Talen Clinical Trial Management’ in 2001 which led to genae in 2005. The latter transformed to a recognized global services provider for the medical industries, with offices in the US, Europe, Middle East and Asia Pacific.

Anne has overall responsibility for the management and performance of Health Enterprise East (HEE). Her role includes setting the strategic vision for the company, providing leadership to the team, developing the business plan and agreeing budgets. Anne has been actively involved in knowledge transfer and intellectual property management in the life sciences for over 14 years.

“At HEE we are passionate about improving the quality and efficiency of healthcare services through the adoption of innovative new products and services. We are constantly scanning the market for leading-edge technologies that will benefit patients, and meet the needs of commissioners and providers within the new emerging health and social care markets. We work alongside the key opinion leaders and innovators within the NHS community, providing that vital link between the business community and the NHS to ensure new ideas are taken up and adopted.

I feel privileged to now lead the HEE team having worked for the company for over 10 years. The HEE team brings together a wide range of skills with a focus on building strong client relationships and delivering successful innovation projects to the market.”

Anne joined HEE in 2005 from Cambridge Enterprise, the technology transfer office of the University of Cambridge where she focused primarily on technologies from the biological and chemical sciences and was involved in all aspects of technology commercialisation. Anne holds a PhD in chemistry from Strathclyde University and is a non-exec director of a number of companies.

Linked In – https://www.linkedin.com/in/anne-blackwood-2bab325/

Arjun is the Founding CEO and Head of AI of Diabetes Digital Media (DDM). He has a wealth of experience in big data and artificial intelligence (AI) and is passionate about the ethics of AI, particularly within population healthcare. Prior to the development of the Low Carb Program in 2015, Arjun started the world’s first digital diabetes support community following his grandfather’s diagnosis of type 2 diabetes. DDM now provides services for over 1.2 million active members. Arjun is an author on the topic of data-driven AI in healthcare, holding a first class honours degree in Computing and Artificial Intelligence from Imperial College London. Arjun is also an Advisor to the Information School, University of Sheffield, NHS Innovation Accelerator Fellow and NHS Innovation Accelerator Programme Board Advisor.

After obtaining a PhD in Biomedical Sciences at Ghent University in Belgium, Barbara joined the university spin-off Biogazelle. In 2013, she joined the consulting company Leyton, advising large companies about fiscal incentives to finance innovations. In 2015, she was one of the founders of the patient management company Akcelis (www.akcelis.com). Akcelis offers patient centric solutions throughout Europe: digital patient recruitment, large-scale online surveys, digital direct-to-patient communication.
Barbara has proven to be strong communicator. She is fascinated about digital innovations in healthcare.

Dr Brigitte Lavoie is a neuroscientist and  an entrepreneur who loves to solve puzzles and find out how systems interact.   She worked for over 20 years in sensori-motor interactions, giving her a keen interest in multidisciplinary teams.  She combines her passion for science and technology and her desire to generate value from innovation to identify the best way to help innovators reach their goals.  She has spent years developing and supporting collaboration between academia and industry in order to progress biomedical research along the translational pathway.

Carole Robin had received a Pharmacy Doctor degree from the University of Lyon (France) and a master degree in Quality Management System.

She has prior experience working for Japan, US based and French companies for medical devices, drugs and cells therapy products, for more than 28 years.  In Regulatory Affairs she prepared and managed EC marking and international files. As RA International Director in previous experience, she has developed, implemented and maintained regulatory strategies and guidance based on International requirements. She has been involved in different groups at MedTech Europe, and the French one, snitem.

She has also experience in Quality in establishing and maintaining ISO13485 and In Clinical Research, she was responsible for preparing, managing more than 20 international clinical trials of medical devices, drugs, and biotechnology products.

Today, Carole is responsible for assuring compliance for Medical Device Regulation, export, Post Market Surveillance including Clinical evaluation at Thuasne, a French company. Lastly with snitem, she participates actively in the Medical Device Regulation groups.

Christophe Amiel primarily works on projects involving the design and the implementation of regulatory strategy for medical devices (including e-health products and in vitro diagnostics), combination products (drug-device association) and activities related to Clinical Trials Application and vigilance including for medicinal products.
With over 20 years of medtech practice, Christophe has a broad technical expertise in clinical trial regulations and associated country-specific requirements, and has extensive experience in various trial phases, product types, indications and geographical areas. As a Project Manager, he supervises clinical programs design and implementation including the preparation of the core documents (protocol, Investigator’s Brochure, etc.), and study regulatory set-up and management from the clinical trial application (CTA) to the submission to both Competent Authorities and Ethics Committees. The management of large complex projects gives him the opportunity to actively interact with the different departments within the study sponsors, as well as with the regulatory teams of the Clinical Research Organizations involved. He also participates in strategic clinical decision meetings.
Christophe oversees the preparation of regulatory strategy – from early development phases to market access –, the submission of regulatory applications in Europe and the US, the interaction with regulatory bodies (Notified Bodies and national health Competent Authorities), the preparation of risk management plan and the support of Pre- and Post-market medical device vigilance activities and reporting. His expertise with regulatory market clearances primarily encompasses CE marking, 510(k) and Pre-market approval dossiers. Christophe focuses on the anticipation of regulatory and practical challenges associated with innovative systems such as e-health technologies.
Prior to joining VCLS, Christophe served since 2001 as Manager for clinical operations at Boston Scientific in its emerging indications department where he gained significant experience in the active medical device industry, and more specifically on next-generation implantable stimulators for neurological diseases. He developed a particular expertise in pelvic nerve stimulation for incontinence and spinal nerve stimulation for chronic headache. Christophe was responsible for the management of international proof of concept clinical trials across Europe for a wide range of innovative therapeutic indications and advanced neuroprosthetic devices in the areas of pain management and pelvic health.
Christophe began his career in 1998 at Advanced Bionics as a field clinical specialist in its auditory division for Southern Europe and Middle East regions and thus acquired an in-depth knowledge about auditory nerve stimulation for profound deafness. He was specifically in charge of assisting operating theatre department staffs during surgical procedures and providing products expertise to practitioners on post-operative programming visits with the patients.
Christophe earned his Master of Science in biomedical engineering at the University of Technology of Compiègne (UTC), France. He previously received his Bachelor degree in biomedical science from the University of Toulouse, France.

Corinne Delorme is the Global Head of Regulatory Affairs within GMED Group.
She has been particularly involved in the implementation of medical device regulations in various regions (Europe, US, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Japan, Taiwan).
The various operational positions (management of certified companies, auditing) and management positions that she has exercised within the French Ministry of Health and a certification body specialized in medical devices forges her regulatory convictions and her knowledge of the sector. She is involved in determining a regulatory compliance strategy tailored to GMED certification body role.
By virtue of her role within the GMED and considering her personal conviction that it is necessary to be a player in the evolution of the regulatory framework, she is involved in several working groups at European and international level. Over the past 2 years, she has focused her involvement on the development of post-market evaluation procedures and MDSAP.
She chairs the AFNOR S95B Commission “Quality Management and Related General Aspects of Medical Devices” and is a member of the associated ISO standards groups.
She also develops training sessions.

Dr Danyal Akarca is a Research Fellow at Medicalchain. By training, he is a Neuroscientist and Medical Doctor, graduating from Cambridge University and Southampton University in 2017 and 2019 respectively. With his academic background in both neurosurgery and the application of advanced machine learning methods to characterise neuropsychiatric diseases, Dr Akarca has been drawn to the potential of distributed computing approaches to remove barriers for patients accessing their health information. At Medicalchain, Dr Akarca’s focus is on bridging the gap between high-level technological innovations within healthcare blockchain applications and clinical environments – to improve data subject rights and the overall use of health data in practice. This year, Dr Akarca is pursuing a PhD in Computational Neuroscience & Artificial Intelligence at Pembroke College, Cambridge University.

With over 20 years industrial experience in world class companies, including FDA regulated industries, David has gained a wide range of technical expertise in Automated Processes, Bespoke Machinery Design, Process Improvement and Project Management. Problem solving, from basic engineering principles, theories and concepts  to a wide range of complex and advanced problems requiring novel innovative approaches or major breakthroughs in technology are David’s areas of expertise . He is also involved in process transfers, optimisation and start-ups along with new product and process introductions. David currently works in the New Ventures group at Cook Medical. This cross-functional team is embedded in the global medtech ecosystem to identify and bring new opportunities into Cook that will ultimately help patients live better lives.

Duko Drijfhout is Investment Manager within the UNIIQ investment fund, focusing on early stage opportunities in the field of Life Sciences & Health. The UNIIQ fund focusses specifically on companies in the proof-of-concept phase of development and offers a combination of funding, coaching and a broad partner-network to its portfolio companies. The fund invests across many technological fields including Agriculture, Cleantech and Life Sciences & Health. UNIIQ has invested in 30+ companies since its inception mid-2016. Founding partners of the fund include three major Dutch universities as well as the regional development agency of South-Holland.

Besides his position with UNIIQ, Duko also works in the Technology Transfer Office of Erasmus University Medical Center, focusing on early stage ventures creation and management. Prior to his current role, Duko was Manager of the Erasmus MC Incubator and co-founder of an early stage Life Sciences investment fund.

Duko holds an MSc. in Finance & Investments from the Rotterdam School of Management.

Elena Kyriacou is a talent acquisiton specialist, focussed in the EU QA/RA medical device and IVD market. Having worked with startups through to global corporations, Elena is well versed in the challenges associated with attracting and retaining talent in the RA/QA world. Elena began her career at the recruiting firm Huntress, where she was responsible for starting the medical device recruitment division. Today, she is the founder of a boutique talent attraction company uniquely positioned to help the European Medical Device/IVD industry reach candidates in wake of the new regulations. Alongside Elemed, Elena also manages the LinkedIn group “MDR/IVDR updates” forum, comprising over 3000 members and is part of the management team for the RAPS Swiss chapter.

 https://www.linkedin.com/groups/8579092 . 

Elie Lobel is directing Orange Healthcare, the business unit of Orange Business Services dedicated to the healthcare sector. Orange Healthcare’s mission is to develop e-health activities in France and internationally by leveraging the Orange group’s vast expertise in Information and Communication Technologies.

Prior to joining Orange, Elie spent most of his career in the digital health sector. He contributed to the success of several innovative start-ups specialized in healthcare information systems and software-based medical diagnostics tools. From 2009 to 2015, he directed the national and European e-Health Projects division at ASIP Santé, the French governmental agency responsible for deploying e-health. During this period, Elie gained significant insight and solid knowledge of the various public policy issues relating to e-health.

Elie holds degrees in engineering from the Ecole Centrale Paris and Cornell University (USA) and a PhD in Neuroimaging.  Throughout his career, he consistently focused on the healthcare sector, with a particular emphasis on medical IT, e-health and medical imaging.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/elielobel/

Biography available soon!

Summary

Most recently with Philips as a senior director in global marketing, Frank has over twenty years experience in the international Healthcare IT and Medtech industry.

He has a successful track record of growing existing and building new businesses, and of leading cross functional international teams in sales, marketing, business development and engineering.

With HealthCareCoCreation today Frank forms and leads international collaborations in health ecosystem value co-creation with actors from all contexts and backgrounds.

He does setup, prepare, run, inspire and synthesize co-creation team workshops.

Business experience

• 28 years in management, marketing, sales, engineering, strategy, new business development in the Health and Care sector for Philips Medical Systems.

 Innovation experience

• 3 years Innovation Management with Co-Creation and Value Design Services in storming, forming and coordinating consortia for jointly co-creating innovative solutions that scale in complex health and care ecosystems.

 Key Achievements & Activities 2016-2019

• co-creating “Care Coordination innovations” together with customers and Philips research, design, R&D and Marketing
• Forming, storming and coordinating international supplier consortia for H2020 Pre-Commercial-Procurement projects
  • Relief (chronic pain management),
  • Nightingale (patient deterioration in hospitals and at home)
  • LIVE INCITE (behavior change for surgical patients)
  • STARS (STARS (stress avoidance for surgical patients)
• Inspiring an international consortium to address the H2020 SC1-HCC-04-2018 CSA call on “Digital health and care services – support for innovation strategy and (early) adoption”
• inspiring the Berlin Training- and Simulation Center at Charite (BeST) with focus on “collaboration between industry and clinic”
• Joining the consortium and co-creating a concept for H2020 SC1-BHC-22-2019 RIA – Mental Health in the workplace
• Strategy consulting and co-creation services for the
  • startup Sonovum “Enabling a better life for people with acute and chronic brain diseases through Acoustocerebrography”
  • startup AIMO “independently analyze, improve and secure health through mobile movement scan”
• Forming, storming and coordinating supplier consortia within the German innovation fund
  • for “KMU Innovativ – Mensch Technik Interaktion” designing a Health-Companion

Franz obtained a M.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Stuttgart and a Ph.D. from Ecole polytechnique in Biomedical Engineering on the optimization of stents. He is a graduate of the Stanford Ignite/Polytechnique business program. In 2014, he co-founded Sensome and has since brought together a team of renowned scientists, engineers and doctors to realize his vision of connected medical devices. He was named Innovator Under 35 by the MIT Technology Review in 2016.

Frederic is Vice Executive Director of the International Society for Telemedicine & eHealth (ISfTeH), a global network of telemedicine and eHealth stakeholders, that supports the sharing of experience and knowledge among its members, to drive the practical implementation of digital health services and solutions forward. He is also Co-Director of the Telehealth Quality Group (TQG), a network of telehealth service providers and technology companies, promoting and implementing the “International Code of Practice for Telehealth Services” which is a quality guideline/standard and benchmark for telehealth service provision.

Biography available soon!

Gérard Hascoët is Executive Chairman of MD Start II (France), CEO of MD Start I( Germany) Chairman of the Board of EOS Imaging (France), Chairman of the Board  of CorWave (France),Chairman of the Board of SafeHeal, Director of the Board of LimFlow (France),Director of the Board of Precardia (U.S.), Director of the Board of Altamir (France) and  Venture Partner at Sofinnova Partners

Gérard is a serial entrepreneur in the Medtech field. In the eighties he founded Technomed International, a company developing non invasive therapeutic technologies dedicated to Urology. He grew the company to its IPO with € 50 Million sales and a significant profitability. In the nineties he founded 2 companies: IMMI developing Neurosurgery Image guided Robotic systems and SOMETEC developing non invasive Hemodynamic monitoring dedicated to Anesthesiology and Intensive Care. Both companies were acquired by US based companies, respectively ISS and ARROW International. From 2008 to 2011, as Chairman & CEO, he turned around SpineVision, a developer and manufacturer of Spinal Implants. In 2009 Gerard Cofounded MD Start a European incubator of MedTech ideas which created 7 companies.

Prior to becoming an entrepreneur, Gérard began his career in the French Thomson Group, where he held during 15 years various Management positions in the MedTech Branch. Gérard is an engineer from E.C.E Paris.

Gregory Katz is Chaired Professor of Innovation Management & Value in Health at the University of Paris Medical School.

He is Director General of the Consortium VBHC France, a non profit initiative dedicated to accelerate the emergence of standardized patient-reported outcome registries.

His research activities focus on innovation management in life sciences and value based health care.

In 2009, he received the San Benedetto International Prize for his achievements in bioethics and humanism.

In 2015, he was invited as eminent scholar at the Grand Rounds Lecture at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Biography available soon!

Jan founded Valiance in 2008. He brings over 20 years’ experience in growth investing.  He leads the Investment Committee for the Valiance funds and is responsible for all aspects of the funds’ investment process. Jan is a Director of several Valiance entities and funds, as well as a Director of Myoscience, MDxHealth, JenaValve, 4Tech and MyCartis.

From 2003 to 2007 Jan was CEO of La Fayette Investment Management, a leading fund of hedge funds. During his tenure, the AUM of the La Fayette Funds increased from $750 million to $5.5 billion. Prior to La Fayette, from 2001 to 2003,  Jan was responsible for the Permal Group’s European-based investment management and research activities. From 1995 to 2001 he was active at Lazard in Corporate Finance M&A, where he advised on transactions with a total value in excess of $40 billion.

Jan holds a BA in Business Economics from the Economics University in Gent, Belgium, and a Masters in Banking & Finance from the University of Aix-Marseille.

Jean is the co-founder and CEO of Digital Surgery. Jean co-founded Digital Surgery whilst training in Plastic Surgery in London with Dr Andre Chow. Dr Nehme has multiple awards for his research in innovation and application of surgical technology and simulation. He was named by Debrett’s as one of the most influential 500 people in the UK. Digital Surgery is a health tech company shaping the future of surgery through the convergence of surgical expertise and technology.

Jean-Luc SANNE received the PhD degree in neurosciences at the University Claude Bernard of Lyon (France). He has been a research fellow in the United States at the University of Georges Town, Washington DC, and then at the National Institutes of Health. After an experience in the private sector, he joined the European Commission in 2000 as a Scientific Officer. He is there devoted to the definition and to the implementation of health research programmes and policies of the European Union. He has been in charge of the in vitro diagnostics area at the Health directorate of Directorate-General for Research & Innovation for many years. He is now strongly involved in the orientations and in the development of policy European initiatives in the field of personalised medicine.

John is CEO of Quanta Dialysis Technologies, where he was both a founding board member and an original investor through NBGI Ventures. He had the belief and vision that the initial technology concept of a novel fluid management system could be transformed into a disruptive medical product addressing the unmet needs of the $82 billion global dialysis market by using innovation to empower patients and deliver better outcomes.

John’s career spans more than twenty years, with extensive international experience in building and growing successful healthcare companies as an executive manager, board member, private equity investor and corporate financier.  He is currently an Advisory Board member of Digital Health Forum and is a regular speaker and panellist at global medtech and investment conferences. Prior to his role as CEO of Quanta, John was Investment Director at NBGI Ventures, where he was closely involved with a range of innovative medical technology companies in Europe and the US, both as a board member and an investor. John has also held senior positions at Nitec Pharma AG (now Horizon Pharma plc), Atlas Venture and Nomura international and previously served as a member of the i4i selection panel at the NHS National Institute for Health Research.  John has also served on the Board of Directors at Cellnovo Ltd, Symetis SA, BoneSupport AB and Advanced Cardiac Therapeutics Inc. He holds a BA in Political Science from The University of Chicago.

Joop Tanis is Director of MedTech Consulting at Health Tech Enterprise (HTE), delivering technology advisory services and innovation management to industry and the NHS.

HTE’s MedTech Consulting team provide tailored advice and support for medtech companies, healthcare organisations, universities and government programmes. They understand markets, provide insights, investigate health economics, facilitate connections, manage IP and advise on funding and regulation and conduct impact evaluations.

Trained as a Chartered Physiotherapist, Joop’s clinical and managerial career in the NHS have given him a deep understanding of the clinical, organisational and financial levers that drive innovation in this complex healthcare environment. His experience connects clinical practice, organisational demands, medical technology and industry, to enable successful commercialisation of innovative solutions.

Previous roles include Head of Innovation at Health Enterprise East and Director of The Young Foundation’s Health Launchpad innovation fund. Joop has founded several businesses in healthcare and outside. He is a business mentor at the Wayra/Telefónica digital incubator.

Josep Ll. Sanfeliu is managing partner and co-founder at the venture capital firm ASABYS Partners (Barcelona). Formerly, he co-founded as Partner Ysios Capital (2008-2018) where he was the partner in charge of Health Technology investments investing in a total of 9 companies in the areas of medtech and digital health globally in Europe and in the US. Previously Josep has worked in the pharmaceutical industry as Corporate Development Director at Almirall where he was involved with Business Development and in charge of M&A and corporate investments and also worked as General Manager leading operations in the segment of home-healthcare services at DomusVi . Josep started his career as a lawyer in Cuatrecasas and also worked in the financial sector in KPMG and Eurohold. His involvement in the entrepreneurial ecosystem has offered him the experience to support starting entrepreneurs in other sectors such as a the digital segment including Glovo, Vlex or 21buttons being one of the first early angel investors. Besides his professional investment activity Josep is an occasionally lecturer at IESE and ESADE, member of several boards such as the Universitat Pompeu Fabra Innovation Board, the Business Advisory Board of ICFO (Institute for Photonic Sciences) and member of the Board of Barcelona Global. Josep has a Degree in Law by the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, a Master of Laws (LL.M.) from the University of Michigan Law School and also and MBA from IESE Business School. Josep likes sports, plays the piano and is member of several NGOs in the context of social community activities for city of Barcelona.

Laurence Matheron has over 15 years’ experience in European medical device and in vitro diagnostic device regulation. Her expertise includes economic operator strategies, EUDAMED planning, transition strategy development, classification decisions, BREXIT impact assessments, technical documentation and quality management system procedures gap assessments, and training.

Dr. Matheron previously worked at the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) leading a European project on medical device market surveillance. She also served as the Head of the Department of Consumer Medical Devices and Cosmetics at the French Agency for Medicines and Health Products Safety (ANSM). Earlier, at the French Health Products Safety Agency (AFSSAPS), she headed a team in charge of vigilance for in vitro diagnostic medical devices. She also worked in health technology assessment as a project leader in the Department of Medical Device Assessment in the French National Authority for Health (HAS).

Lili Brillstein is a nationally recognized thought leader in the advancement of Episodes of Care as a value-based approach for specialty care.  She is the Director of Specialty Care Value Based Models for Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, and, under her leadership, has built the largest, most progressive and most collaborative program for commercially insured patients in the country.

Lili is responsible for the overall direction, strategy, design and oversight of the Horizon Episodes of Care/Bundled Payment Program.  When Lili joined Horizon in January of 2013, the Episodes program was still in pilot and included only total hip and total knee replacement episodes.  The program has grown to include additional orthopaedic episodes (including low back/laminectomy, shoulder replacement, knee arthroscopy), obstetrics and gynecology, GI (including an IBD episode with a fully integrated behavioral health component), cardiology, oncology, and substance use disorder.

Lili is a passionate advocate of Episodes of Care/Bundled Payments as a strategy to successfully migrate from fee for service to quality- & value-based models that rewards providers for excellent outcomes and patient experience, while reducing the overall cost of healthcare.  One of the hallmarks of her perspective is the criticality of beginning with models that do not include a risk transfer to providers until all of the stakeholders have worked together in a retrospective, no risk model and achieved success. The goal is cultivate true partnerships aligned around the patient and improve their experiences and outcomes, and ultimately reduce unnecessary care and waste.

Lili is a guest lecturer on episodes of care/bundled payments at the Harvard Business School working with Michael Porter and team, and has co-authored several peer-reviewed articles on the subject of Episodes.  In addition, Lili has served as an Advisor to CMS on bundled payments, and is on the Advisory Boards of the US Women’s Health Alliance and the Quality Cancer Care Alliance; both national coalitions focused on advancing value based care to improve quality and cost of care delivery.  She is also an Adjunct Associate Professor at The Rutgers School of Pharmacy, and a member of the Board of Directors for the NJ Coalition to End Domestic Violence.

Lili’s expertise at cultivating functionally collaborative relationships between payers and providers across the full continuum of health care has allowed not only the pillars of the triple aim to be achieved, but the spirit of the relationships to shift from one of adversaries to one of collaborators.

Martin is CEO and one of the founders of CMR Surgical, the British medical devices company that recently received a European CE Mark and completed a clinical trial with the new surgical robotic platform, Versius, which it aims to bring to the market shortly. Versius has been designed to extend the benefits of minimal access surgery to millions of people worldwide and to transform the way we think about surgery. CMR is now over 300 people in three continents and its new 45,000 sq ft HQ in Cambridge, UK, was opened by Lord Prior, Chairman of NHS England, last month.

Prior to CMR, Martin was with Sagentia (formerly Generics) initially as CFO and subsequently as Group CEO. Over the last 20 years and prior to CMR Martin has been involved in numerous start-ups, both spun out of Sagentia and on his own account.

Martin graduated from Cambridge, qualified as a Chartered Management Accountant and is a trustee of the Peek Vision Foundation.

Since joining Roche Diabetes Care in 2017, Meriem prime focus is the development of business models in the area of Digital Health, coordination of Start-up activities related to Digital Health and Strategic Commercial Partnerships management. Before moving to Barcelona, Meriem led the Industrial Partnerships activities for the Paris-Based PremUp Foundation. She was responsible for the identification of opportunities for new high-value partnerships and bringing them to fruition. From 2010 and during 5 years, she was successful in giving direction and leadership toward the achievement of CTS Healthcare annual goals. CTS Healthcare, an Accelerator for medical devices companies, based in Montreal, provides mentoring and strategic support for business plan execution.

Prior to that she held different positions in commercialization and program management at the Ontario Centers Of Excellence.

Meriem received her Ph.D. degree in Chemistry in 2006 from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology of Lausanne. In 2008, she complemented her scientific degrees with an executive MBA in Management of Technology (MoT) from HEC university of Lausanne, and McCombs School of Business at University of Austin.

Biography available soon!

Nicolas Durand is Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Abionic SA, a Swiss company and spin-off from European leading technology school EPFL (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne, Switzerland). Abionic has developed world’s fastest diagnostic platform, the abioSCOPE, a CE-marked versatile in-vitro solution that provides hospitals and health practitioners with instant quantitative diagnosis for various types of applications such as sepsis, allergy and iron deficiency.
Since April 2018, Nicolas is a member of the Strategic Board of the Vaud Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CVCI), and is an Intelligence Officer at the Swiss Army, working directly with three-stars General Daniel Baumgartner for promoting military management skills in the industry.
Nicolas holds a Master of Science in micro-engineering from EPFL with a specialization in production techniques. He was involved in the development of resonating biosensors at Carnegie Mellon University (USA), and is the winner of the 2006 Omega Award (Best Master
thesis in micro-engineering). He is the founder of EPFL aeronautics association, and was the president of EPFL robotic association between 2002 and 2005.
Between 2006 and 2010, Nicolas’s PhD research on biomolecular diffusion in nanofluidics led to several scientific publications and patents, which is the core of Abionic’s technology.
With Abionic, Nicolas is the recipient of more than 20 entrepreneurial awards including the Young Entrepreneur Award. Notably, Nicolas was elected Captain of the Swiss Venture Leaders in 2010 who represented Swiss innovation in the USA.
On the private side, Nicolas owns a pilot license with aerobatic, was astronaut candidate for the European Space Agency in 2006 and participated to the 8th Student Parabolic Flight Campaign as group leader.

As a senior policy consultant and value based procurement project manager at Danish Regions, Ole Ravnholt Sorensen work to enhance the adoption and scaling of new innovative healthcare technologies in the Danish healthcare sector. This task also involves the acceleration of value based procurement enabling hospitals in Denmark’s five health regions to deliver better and efficient healthcare for patients in the future. Ole Ravnholt Sorensen has been with Danish Regions for several years covering areas as public-private cooperation, outsourcing, healthcare innovation, procurement, clinical trials in pharma and medtech, hospital construction etc. Danish Regions is the interest organisation for the five regions in Denmark. Prior to joining Danish Regions, Ole has worked for The Danish Ministry of Industry and Economic Affairs, Aalborg University and VisitDenmark. Educational background: M.Sc. Political Science and administration, Aalborg University complemented by courses in law (University of Copenhagen) and journalism ( Danish School of Media and Journalism).

As the Senior Research Director for Europe, Perry is responsible for growing sustainable collaborative research relationships in the region.  He leads several Regional Research Managers canvassing Europe, in addition to a team of Clinical Scientists supporting investigator-sponsored studies.  Perry and his team play an essential role in answering GE Healthcare’s strategic research needs while supporting timely company and regional initiatives.

Perry began his career with GE Healthcare in 1988 as part of the company’s Edison Engineering Program.  He then held several engineering leadership positions in Europe and the US for X-ray and MR modalities.   In 2002, he became the Strategic Account Director for Stanford University where he managed the “Destination Digital” program overseeing diagnostic imaging and IT product deployment.  In his latest assignment as Regional Academic Research Manager for the US West Coast, he cultivated legacy research relationships with Stanford, UC San Francisco, UC San Diego, and University of Washington – and forged new partnerships with luminaries including Oregon Health & Sciences University and University of Arizona.

Perry earned Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Electrical Engineering from University of Illinois and Marquette University, respectively.  He also holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration from Golden Gate University.

Finally, Perry has presented at numerous medical imaging society meetings and holds several patents in both MR and Healthcare IT related domains.

Philippe Grandjean has over 30 years of experience in In-Vitro Diagnostic Global Commercial Operations, working in different sectors and continents (Europe, USA, Japan).
Dr Grandjean expertise covers the complete product life-cycle including, but not-exhaustive, product strategic definition to multiple & successful global system introductions in different companies as a Tier one (Siemens), an Infectious Specialist (bioMerieux), a Biotech (Innogenetics), a Startup (Cellenis). He also founded BioNautilus Consulting to support and boost business opportunities for IVD companies.
Dr Grandjean enjoys challenges and especially aims to balance the European creativity, American customer centricity and Japanese collective team spirit in his daily life.
Lastly, Philippe jointed B.I.T. (Build Innovation Together) as Executive Vice-President, a family owned company part of Messer world, to develop, manufacture and service cost-effective solutions for our partners, and drive value-based innovation.
Philippe’s strong scientific background (PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences) balanced with a Business Administration MA degree and years of experience in top management positions, allows him for understanding big pictures and driving his partners to success.

Rajan Patel is a medical device executive who partners with healthcare brands to transform their design & development practices. After 30+ years of medical device development across drug delivery, diagnostic systems, surgical devices and digital medicine, Rajan knows what truly drives innovation of smart, connected and patient-centric devices. It’s about finding partners who are dedicated to creating breakthrough therapeutic solutions to unmet patient needs.

Rajan has held senior positions across such companies as Minimed, Heartport, Aerogen, M2 Medical and Cirtec Medical, leading programs to develop & commercialize medical products. Rajan’s commitment over the past 15+ years has been to organizations dedicated to transforming lives through revolutionary drug delivery and medical device technology. Rajan has led numerous research & development and manufacturing team to successful execution and launch of live impacting devices.

Rajan holds a B.S. in engineering from MS University of Baroda and M.S. in biomedical engineering from UC Davis.

Biography available soon!

Robbie is the Founder and CEO of Lumeon. An engineer by training, he started the company after first-hand experience of the impact that fragmented process and data silos has on the overall patient experience. Taking a step back to develop a fresh approach, he built the award-winning Care Pathway Management (CPM) platform to connect care teams, patients and technology across the care continuum.

Acting as ‘care traffic controller’ the platform automates and orchestrates patient and care team tasks across best practice care pathways. By using Lumeon pathways or creating their own, leading healthcare providers are lowering costs and improving care quality in areas such as patient access, chronic disease management, pre-surgical readiness and post-acute care.  The platform integrates with leading EHRs and medical devices.

Under Robbie’s leadership, Lumeon has grown into an enterprise-level solution, recognized as a ‘Cool Vendor’ by Gartner and currently in use by 69 major healthcare providers across the US and Europe managing over eleven million patient lives.

Biography available soon!

My university education includes BSc. In computer science and biology, M.Sc. in Physiology and PhD in Neurophysiology, all from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Following which I went for post-doctorate in the University of Minnesota dept. of Physiology, studying the physiology of the retina. Since then I have been involved in six (6) different start-up medical device companies taking roles in R&D, system integrator and application manager, clinical research, quality and regulatory management including EU CE-marking, FDA and Canada. These small companies of 5 -20 employees were in the field of diabetes (continuous blood glucose monitoring), radiology – impedance imaging, Interventional cardiology – closure device and cerebral embolic protection, gastroenterology – imaging of the entire digestive system and ophthalmology – accommodating intra-ocular lens.

Sandrine is an experienced executive passionate about healthcare innovation.

She has joined the AXA Group in 2012, where she has held several positions at international level. She led in particular the health innovative offers development at AXA Assistance Group, where she implemented a connected monitoring program for chronic patients in partnership with European Governments.

Since 2017, she is is leading the Strategic Health Programs at AXA Next, the AXA Group Innovation team, in charge of new business models at scale through Buy/Partner Strategies.

Prior to AXA, Sandrine worked for 5 years as a Strategy and Management consultant in financial services.

Sandrine owns a MSc in Physics from the engineering school SupOptique, as well as an MBA from the Ecole Supérieure de Commerce Paris (ESCP-EAP).

Santiago Ini received his PhD in Organic Chemistry from the Faculty of Chemistry at the Technion. From 2000-03 he made a post-doctoral work in Organometallic Chemistry and Imprinting Polymers at UC Berkeley followed by a MBA.
Prior to join to the Technion technology transfer office as a Director of Business Development in Life Science, he played a role as a top manager at the Chemistry Division of Teva Pharmaceutical industry, Enzymotec and Algatechnologies providing innovation and leadership in the life science sector.
Dr. Ini is an author of several scientific articles and more than forty patents. During the last years he dealt with implementations of strategic alliances in the area of Chemicals and Food Additives. He is the founder of Mental Heal, a company that develops a drug for the treatment of schizophrenia and Glaucopharm, a company dealing with the treatment for Glaucoma.

Dr Seamus Browne is Head of Industry Partnerships at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. Since taking up this position in January 2015, Seamus has played a key role in delivering a step-change in RCSI’s industry engagement activities. His current focus is on building large scale strategic partnerships with industry aligned to RCSI’s research strengths.

Between 2007-2014, Seamus worked as a technology transfer officer at the University of Limerick (UL) where he led a significant number of high-value industry engagement and research commercialisation agreements. Prior to UL, Seamus completed a PhD at Trinity College Dublin before undertaking a postdoctoral fellowship. During this time, he founded and managed two start-up companies and has completed an MBA from the UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate School of Business.

Senan Doyle is CEO of Pixyl, where he drives the development of medical imaging AI for improved patient care.

After obtaining his Ph.D. from Trinity College Dublin, Senan pursued neuroimaging research at the French labs of Inria and Inserm.

In 2015, he launched Pixyl, raising a 600k€ seed round in 2016, and leading Pixyl to distinction as recipient of the Bpifrance Emergence, Netva, “Most Promising Startup” Smart Health award and FTTI 2019 MedTech laureat.

With more than 20 years’ experience in clinical research, Silvia Casellas has robust experience in planning, coordinating and managing clinical trials, from operational, financial and therapeutic perspectives. Silvia got extensive experience as Project Director and Project Manager, in international CROs, coordinating full scope international trials across all functional areas within more than 25 countries. Silvia leads Anagram’s Team to deliver best-in-class clinical research services, both in drug and medical device environment, putting the focus on high quality standards and client-oriented approach. The strategy is customized for each sponsor, ensuring a risk based approach to deliver high quality and cost-efficient results.

Silvia got the PharmaTimes International Clinical Researcher of the Year, 2015 PM Gold Award and since 2016 collaborates with the CESIF Master on Clinical Trials and Medical Liason as external teacher.

Stefan Suter is an expert in Value Based Healthcare and Founder & CEO of Curo-Health, a Swiss based company to drive efficiency increase across health care systems. With close to two decades of experience in health care industry both in Europe and Asia, he has a profound understanding of market dynamics and stakeholder interactions across nations.

Stefan Suter is passionate to center care around Patient Relevant Outcomes and use of personalized medicine for more efficient delivery of care. During his career, he introduced a number of innovative solutions, such as digital health platforms, decision support systems, centers of excellence, diabetes clinics, real world evidence studies or risk sharing agreements for efficient use of therapies. Bringing together different expertise and working in diverse cultures and environments to solve real-world problems has always been his zest and asset.

Stefan Suter is an organizer of international health care forums and is a speaker at congresses and events. He holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and an MBA from University of Wales. He lives with his family in Switzerland and Singapore.

Biography available soon!

Terry joined Cambridge Enterprise as Commercialisation Director in 2018. He was previously the Head of Intellectual Property and Commercial Research at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital for over 10 years, having founded and grown a technology transfer department that commercialised NHS inventions from ‘bedside to business’.

Terry has commercialised a variety of technologies including medical devices, software, imaging technologies, laboratory products, novel formulations, in vitro diagnostics and service based IP. He has also been involved in the creation of novel partnerships for the National Health Service such as Viapath (a £500M pathology joint venture with Serco) and Essentia Trading Ltd (a facilities spin-out company). Terry also supported the formation of technology-based spin-out companies including Cydar and SpOtOn Clinical Diagnostics amongst others and has served as a Director for several of the Hospital’s spin-out companies. Terry was also responsible for founding a Proof of Concept investment fund and setting up a commercial research and consultancy service within the NHS to interface with industry. Prior to this Terry was part of a team responsible for the merger of the London NHS Innovation hubs and has a background in immunology, gene silencing and stem cell research.

Thomas was raised and studied in Basel / Switzerland, one of the world’s most important centres of gravity of Life Sciences. He’s an open personality and an economist focused on internationalisation and foreign trade. Different assignments took him through various
industries such as financial, automotive, fine food, life science and medical technology.
Fluency in five languages. He also lived and worked in Moscow/Russia and Montréal. Collaborators and customers benefit from his trustworthy partnerships and a finetuned network going across all disciplines and international borders alike.
Based on his previous global responsibilities with multinational companies and family businesses Thomas created you-can.biz back in 2007. Ever since this pretty unique network grew up to 60+ independent specialists across different disciplines. They fit with the capacities existing with our customers and together we are one team. Sharing knowledge, capacity and creativity with innovative companies of all sizes. Most accounts of you-can.biz are doing business in medtech and rehab but also with sports equipment, nutrition plus sometimes in another industry. Thomas himself is an advisor and executive coach with different health technology hubs in Europe and USA. He was resident in Canada as an expat on behalf of Roche Diagnostics 12 years ago. When he’s off he practices rowing, mountain biking and climbing.

Tina Tan is the Executive Editor of FirstWord MedTech, a provider of news, insights and analysis to global medical device, diagnostics and healthcare companies. She has covered the medtech industry for nearly 20 years; prior to FirstWord MedTech, Tina was co-editor in chief at Informa’s Medtech Insight, where she oversaw the commercial-focused editorial content, including news and analysis on disruptive technologies, investments and M&A trends.

Tom Braekeleirs is a corporate guy turned entrepreneur. After working for 17 years in companies like EDS, Navision and Microsoft, he switched careers to run the Microsoft Innovation Center in Flanders with a specific focus on Healthcare innovation. Under his leadership this converted into BlueHealth Innovation Center which is a not-for-profit in a public-private partnership that sets out to support the healthcare ecosystem make the digital transformation. Besides coaching startups, he and his team are activating students to consider an entrepreneurial career as well as helping healthcare players to make the leap forward. Besides this role he’s also a sought after speaker on topics such as communication, employee engagement and entrepreneurship.
He holds a master in Trade Sciences and in Industrial Corporate Management. He’s married and has 2 children.
His personal motto: “Change the world, or go home!”

Tsafrir Kolatt is the CEO of Fertigo Medical, a company devoted to increase the success rate in In-vitro Fertilization procedures. Prior to that Kolatt has led a few medical device and AI private and public companies (CEO, EVP, VP R&D) that developed new, successful devices for both therapy and diagnosis. Dr. Kolatt got his Ph.D. in theoretical astrophysics from the Hebrew University and was a post-doc researcher in Harvard University and UCSC. Kolatt published a few books, dozens of scientific papers and many popular articles. He won numerous scholarships and prizes for research, innovative product development, poetry and play-writing. He also serves as the chairperson of IYAR – the Israeli Institute for Advanced Research.

Addicted to Digital Transformation with 30 years of experience in Biology, Genomics, Market Intelligence, IT-Portfolio-, Product-, Program-, Project- and  Line-Management.

Ulf got his PhD in microbiology and genomics at the Max-Planck-Institute for terrestrial Microbiology Marburg. After postdoc awardee his business stations were the Georg Thieme Verlag, Stuttgart and the Bertelsmann AG (Lycos Europe GmbH) before he joined Bayer in 2002. From 2015 he has been Digital Innovation Manager, supporting Bayer’s path in Digital Transformation, since 2019 he is Business Partner for Medical Affairs and Pharmacovigilance. Current projects are Proof of Concept in quantum computing and the implementation of a non-interventional study for the mobile detection of atrial fibrillation. He enjoys mountain- and racing-biking, soccer and guitar playing.……..Innovation is just a thought away………

A practicing lawyer since 1995, Yolanda is an expert in health and pharmaceuticals law. She has extensive experience in providing legal advice to hospitals and pharmaceutical companies, while advising Spanish and international clients on matters relating to health systems and health management. Her work focuses primarily on public and private purchase agreements for medicines and medical devices, and she has spent most of her career providing advice in this area. Yolanda also specializes in the management of public services and in advising public entities, for-non-profit institutions and private companies on corporate and contractual matters, in addition to administrative law and regulatory. She is secretary to the Boards of Trustees and Directors of various foundations and companies. Prior to joining Roca Junyent, she was the General Counsel of the Consorci de Salut i Social de Catalunya and the director of its Administrative Procurement Service and Group Purchasing Organization for medicines and medical devices (GPO: 420 Million Euros Budget/year).

Yolanda is lecturer in 3 official masters: Master’s Degree in Hospital and Healthcare Centres Management, Department of Medicine, Barcelona University; Master’s Degree in Legal Practice, Pompeu Fabra University; Master’s Degree in Healthcare and Pharmaceuticals Law, High Studies Center of the Pharmaceutical Industry (CESIF).

She’s member of the Barcelona Bar Association, the Academy of Medical and Health Sciences of Catalonia, and the Catalan Society for Healthcare Management.