World Cancer Series: Europe Virtual Week

Stella Kyriakides is the European commissioner for food and health safety. Her responsibilities include launching Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan to help improve cancer prevention and care; exploring ways to ensure Europe has enough affordable medicines to meet its needs; supporting the European pharmaceutical industry as an innovator and world leader; and ensuring effective implementation of EU legislation on medical devices. Ms Kyriakides’s previous roles include being president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, president of the National Committee on Cancer Strategy, and president of the European Breast Cancer Coalition Europa Donna.

John F. Ryan is Director of the Commission Public Health, country
knowledge, crisis management directorate since September 2016.
Previously, in the same department, he was the Head of Unit responsible for a number of public health policy areas (cancer, drugs, promotion, monitoring, infectious diseases). He was a Commission representative on the Board of the EU Lisbon Drugs Agency, and is currently the Commission representative on the Board of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. He also had the charge of dealing with tobacco control issues.
Current priorities include the development of an EU cancer plan, antimicrobial resistance, vaccination policies, and the negotiation of
financial instruments to support health, including research. He has previously worked on the completion of the internal market, and on
international trade negotiations. He is also an official of the Irish civil
service (on leave). He is a fellow of the UK faculty of public health.

Dolors Montserrat leads Spain’s delegation to the European People’s Party in the European Parliament. She was Spain’s minister of health, social services and equality from 2016 to 2018; third vice-president of the Bureau of the Congress of Deputies in 2011-16; Congressional deputy representing Barcelona in 2008-19; and councillor and spokesperson of the Popular Party in the City Hall of Sant Sadurní d’Anoia (Barcelona province) from 2003 to 2015. Ms Montserrat was a practising lawyer from 1997 to 2011, specialising in civil, property and family law. She studied law in Spain, Italy and the United States.

Tomislav Sokol was born in Zagreb and studied law in Zagreb and in Belgium, specialising in European Union Law. In the European Parliament he sits on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection and Regional Development Committees. Before this he worked in a legal practice, and he is a senior lecturer at Zagreb School of Economics and Management, and an assistant professor at Catholic University of Croatia. His areas of professional interest include the law of the European common market, EU health law, competition law, international and European social law and international and European trade law. Mr Sokol is currently participating in a European Commission Jean Monnet project related to EU health law and policy.

Dr Ricardo Baptista Leite is a member of the Portuguese National Parliament, vice-president of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) Parliamentary Board, national spokesperson for health of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and head of public health at Católica University of Portugal. He is also the Founding President of UNITE – Global Parliamentarians Network to End HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis and Other Infectious Diseases, and vice-president of the Parliamentary Network on The World Bank & International Monetary Fund. Prior to being elected to parliament, Dr Baptista Leite worked as an infectious-diseases physician at Western Lisbon Hospital Centre, and completed an internship with the World Health Organisation in Copenhagen.

Dr. Atun is Professor of Global Health Systems at Harvard University and the Faculty Chair of the Harvard Ministerial Leadership Program. In 2008-12 he served as a member of the Executive Management Team of the Global Fund as Director of Strategy, Performance and Evaluation where he chaired the panel that oversaw annual investments of ~US$4 billion each year.
In 2006-2013 he was a Professor of International Health Management at Imperial College London, where he led the Centre for Health Management and was involved as founder, adviser and investor in several biotech and health technology companies. He is a visiting professor at University of Kyoto, Japan. Professor Atun’s research focuses on health system transformation, and innovation. He has published over 350 papers in leading journals. Prof Atun has advised more than 30 governments on health policy and health system reform, and has consulted for the World Bank, WHO and leading organisations such as Medtronic, Novartis, Hoffman-La Roche, and Merck & Co. Professor Atun studied medicine at University of London as a Commonwealth Scholar. He completed postgraduate training in family medicine and public health, and obtained a Masters in Business Administration at University of London and Imperial College London. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, the Faculty of Public Health, and the Royal College of General Practitioners.

Ali Azough is Therapy Area Market Access Lead for Oncology for Europe, Middle East and Africa at the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson.

In this role, Ali and his team are responsible for the market access and pricing strategy of the Janssen Oncology portfolio, enabling timely and sustainable patient access to medicines and their associated indications across the region.

Ali has worked in the pharmaceutical industry in different market access and health economics roles over the last >15 years, having spent the majority of this time working in the UK/Ireland. He has a Master’s of Pharmacy from the University of Nottingham, and started his professional career as a clinical pharmacist in the NHS, before moving to the pharmaceutical industry after further studies in Health Policy, Planning and Financing at the London School of Economics.

Dr Anne-Marie Baird is a molecular biologist who has worked extensively on mesothelioma and lung cancer. Her research interests include inflammation, the metastatic cascade, drug resistance and disease biomarkers. Dr Baird has been active in the lung cancer advocacy space since 2012 and is president of Lung Cancer Europe (LuCE), a non-profit umbrella organisation with members from over 20 countries that advocates for improvements in lung cancer diagnostics, treatment and care. Dr Baird also serves on the European Cancer Organisation’s Patient Advisory Committee and chairs the communications committee of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC).

Serge Bernasconi leads MedTech Europe, which supports the medical-technology sector to improve patient access to safe, life-improving technologies. Mr Bernasconi has more than 30 years’ experience in the world of pharmaceuticals and medical devices, working in companies such as Johnson & Johnson, Schering Plough in US and Europe, and more recently Medtronic.In his capacity as president and international regional vice-president of Medtronic France he was elected President of APIDIM (the French Association for the Promotion of Innovation in Medical Devices), and vice-president and treasurer of SNITEM (the French Medical Technology Industry Association).

Henny Braund joined Anthony Nolan as chief executive in 2009, with a vision to transform the ability of the charity’s stem-cell register to meet patient need. Previously the resources director at the housing charity Shelter, Ms Braund draws on 20 years’ experience in the voluntary sector. She is a former trustee for the Small Charities Coalition, and was the chair for Aids and Housing (Health and Housing). She has also been a trustee for Thames Reach and Shelter Trading, and she is a board member of the World Marrow Donor Association and The Mix.

Antonella Cardone leads the European Cancer Patient Coalition (ECPC), the largest cancer patient umbrella organisation in Europe, with more than 450 members from 49 countries. She has over 20 years’ experience in the health, social and employment sectors. Before joining the ECPC, Ms Cardone was executive director of the Fit for Work Global Alliance, a multi-stakeholder coalition championing change in health and work policy. She was also director of the Global Smokefree Partnership of the American Cancer Society, leading a movement of over 100 members to coordinate the development of smokefree laws in 40 countries.

Dr Fatima Cardoso is board certified in medical oncology and internal medicine and directs the Breast Unit at Champalimaud Clinical Centre (CCC) in Lisbon. She is founder and president of the Advanced Breast Cancer (ABC) Global Alliance and of the ABC International Consensus Guidelines Conference. Dr Cardoso is editor-in-chief of The Breast journal, associate editor of the European Journal of Cancer, and an editorial board member of several other journals.

Jerome Coffey was director of Ireland’s National Cancer Control Programme (NCCP) from 2014 to 2019. He completed internal medicine and radiation oncology training in Ireland, and in 2006, following higher training in Canada and the UK, he was appointed as a consultant radiation oncologist at the St Luke’s Radiation Oncology Network and Mater Misericordiae University Hospital in Dublin. Prior to running the NCCP he held the roles of clinical director of the St Luke’s Radiation Oncology Network and national radiation oncology advisor. In 2017 he was appointed to chair the board of the National Cancer Registry.

Charlie Davie has worked in the National Health Service for more than 30 years and is a consultant neurologist at the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust. He was managing director of UCLPartners from 2014 until 2019, having previously served as stroke lead and programme director for neurosciences. In 2019 Dr Davie became hub director for DATA-CAN, a UK-wide partnership hosted by UCLPartners that aims to transform the use of national cancer data to improve patient care. He has held a number of national advisory roles, most recently as a member of the Accelerated Access Review Implementation Group working with the Office of Life Sciences and NHS England.

Francesco Florindi has been working in the EU since 2011 for regional representatives, NGOs, and the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre. In 2014 he joined the European Cancer Patient Coalition as public-affairs coordinator, and became head of EU affairs in 2016. In 2017 Mr Florindi moved to BBMRI-ERIC, the largest biobanking research infrastructure, where he connects BBMRI to decision-makers, patients and citizens, industry and other key stakeholders across Europe. He has worked on key European issues such as data protection, health-technology assessment, access to quality health care, eHealth/mHealth and patient advocacy.

Afshin GANGI graduated from the Medical School of the University Hospital of Reims (France). After his residency in the University of Strasbourg in radiology, he specialized in the interventional radiology and obtained his Master of Science in medical biology and PhD in laser physics. He is Professor of radiology since 2000 in the University Hospital of Strasbourg. He is invited Professor in Kings College of London.

Since 2007, Afshin Gangi is Chairman of Radiology and nuclear Medicine in the University Hospital of Strasbourg and President of CIRSE (Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiological Society of Europe). He is an interventional radiologist, specialized in oncology, MSK and spine. He is currently responsible for the department of Interventional Radiology of the University Hospital of Strasbourg. He has published over 300 scientific papers, contributed to 40 books, and presented more than 500 lectures and scientific papers presentations.

Linda Gibbs leads Pfizer Oncology in Central and Eastern Europe. A seasoned leader in the healthcare industry, her work is focused on raising the standards for all countries to elevate cancer care to a high-quality level, where prevention, detection, innovative treatments and care pathways are implemented equally and effectively. Linda began her career in marketing before joining Pfizer nearly 20 years ago. She holds a Bachelor of Science in  Business Administration from Montclair State University as well as an MBA from the University of Oncology Cluster Lead, Central/Eastern EuropePhoenix. She is based in Berlin, Germany.

Stefan Gijssels is chief executive of Digestive Cancers Europe, the umbrella organisation representing 30 national digestive-cancer patient associations in Europe (oesophageal, gastric, pancreatic, colon, rectal, liver and rare digestive cancers). In this capacity, he is also a member of the European Commission’s Innovative Partnership for Action Against Cancer (iPAAC). A metastatic colon cancer survivor, Mr Gijssels is a founder and board member of the Patient Expert Centre in Belgium. He co-chairs the Patient Advisory Committee of the European Cancer Organisation and the scientific committee of Sharing Progress in Cancer Care (SPCC).

Mary Gospodarowicz is university professor at the University of Toronto, former medical director of Princess Margaret Cancer Centre/University Health Network, and regional vice-president of Cancer Care Ontario. Her research has focused on clinical trials evaluating radiation therapy, image-guided precision radiotherapy, and cancer survivorship. Her current interests include global cancer control, global access to radiotherapy and quality cancer care. Dr Gospodarowicz is a former president of the Union for International Cancer Control. She participated in the Global Task Force on Cancer Care and Control of the Harvard Global Health Initiative (HGEI) and the HGEI-Lancet Commission on Global Access to Pain Control and Palliative Care.

Lars Holmgren is professor of tumor biology/oncology. He defended his PhD at the Karolinska Institutet and did his post-doc in the lab of Judah Folkman, Harvard Medical School. He has been active in the fields of vascular biology and molecular oncology. He is presently the chair of the Department of Oncology and Pathology, Karolinska Institutet Stockholm.  The Department activities focusses on basic, translational and clinical research. Approximately 300 people from over 40 nations are currently working in the department. He has also designed the research facilities of the novel research building Bioclinicum which is now a hub for clinical translational research. He has been the chairman of the Karolinska consultative assembly which is responsible for recruitment and appointment of all higher leading positions at the Karolinska Institutet. He is member of the board of Strategic Cancer Research and also a co-founder of a biotech company.  

Dr. Masum Hossain is responsible for Pfizer’s industry-leading portfolio of cancer medicines and biosimilars in the International Developed Markets region, which comprises more than 50 countries in Europe as well as Korea, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. Masum has 24 years of combined clinical, regulatory and healthcare industry experience. A medical graduate from the University of New South Wales, Australia and completing postgraduate studies in clinical epidemiology, he began his career in neurosurgery and worked as medical officer with the Therapeutic Goods Administration in Australia before moving into the pharmaceutical industry. He is based near London, UK.

Patrick Jeurissen, Ph.D., is full professor in fiscal sustainable health care systems at Radboud University Medical School and Science Officer of the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sports in the Netherlands. Jeurissen is an expert on the design and implementation of policies that specifically address issues of sustainability and affordability of health care systems. He has (co)-authored some one-hundred publications, and was a co-editor of two books on the subject; and he is also a sought for speaker on (inter)national forums. Patrick represents the Dutch government at OECD and he is the chair of their working party on the patient reported indicator surveys (PaRiS). He also has been an advisor for EU, WHO, OECD, and the governments of Switzerland, Austria and Finland on issues of healthcare reform and fiscal sustainability. His major interests are: strategic policymaking, health care finance and cost-containment policies, for-profit providers and payers, solidarity in health care systems, hospitals, and comparative health care system research. Currently his focus within these
areas is on tertiary care, multimorbidity and administrative costs. He holds a Ph.D. in health economics, his dissertation covers for-profit hospital ownership in the US, the UK, Germany and the Netherlands, and holds an M.P.A., both from Erasmus University in Rotterdam.

Pamela Kearns is Professor of Clinical Paediatric Oncology at the Institute of Cancer and Genomic Sciences, University of Birmingham and Honorary Consultant in Paediatric Oncology at Birmingham Children’s Hospital and Director of the University of Birmingham’s UKCRC registered, Cancer Research UK Clinical Trials Unit, delivering a wide-ranging programme of
clinical trials across all types of cancer in all age groups, notably leading the National Children’s Cancer Trials Team responsible the vast majority of UK’s clinical trial portfolio for children and young people with cancer. In 2015, she was appointed as a Senior Clinical Advisor to Cancer Research UK (CRUK).

In 1982, Professor Kearns was awarded a BSc (Hons) in Physiology from the University of Aberdeen where she subsequently studied Medicine qualifying in 1988. She was awarded a PhD in leukaemia biology from Newcastle University in 2000, where she also completed her postgraduate training in paediatric oncology. After 5 years as a Senior Lecturer/Honorary Consultant in Paediatric Oncology at the University of Bristol, she moved to Birmingham in 2007 to further develop her research in childhood acute leukaemias and lymphomas.

Pamela is President of the European Society for Paediatric Oncology (SIOP Europe) since January 2019. She is also Board Member of the European consortium for Innovative Therapeutics for Children with Cancer (ITCC), developing new treatments for childhood cancers.

Pamela is also an active member of the multi-stakeholder forum ACCELERATE, actively supporting the call for revision of the Paediatric Medicines Regulation to enable children and young people with cancer to rapidly access therapeutic innovation.

Dr Astero Klampatsa graduated with a PhD in Research Oncology (focused in mesothelioma apoptotic and hypoxia pathways) from Queen Mary’s University of London, UK, in 2011. She then worked as a Research Associate at King’s College London, where she got trained in the development and preclinical use of CAR T cell therapies for mesothelioma. From 2015-2019 she worked as a Senior Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania (Penn), USA. Her research focused on developing CAR T cell therapies for mesothelioma and lung cancer, as well as the immunobiology of these malignancies with a focus on the function of tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs). She joined the Institute of Cancer Research in London, UK as a Team Leader in Cancer Immunotherapy in October 2019. Her Thoracic Oncology Immunotherapy Group focuses on developing new CAR T cell therapies for mesothelioma and lung cancer, as well as investigating phenotypic and functional aspects of the immunobiology of mesothelioma for identification of markers of response to immunotherapy. She has been a visiting senior lecturer at King’s College London since 2015.

Teodora Kolarova serves as executive director of the International Neuroendocrine Cancer Alliance (INCA). She has been a member of INCA’s board of directors, has chaired its communications committee and served as INCA’s president in 2014-15. A priority of Ms Kolarova’s advocacy work is developing and enforcing a sustainable collaborative model for cancer care that focuses on patients. She has helped INCA gain recognition as a key partner in many international initiatives, and became the first patient representative to hold a seat on the advisory board of the European Neuroendocrine Tumour Society (ENETS).

Denis Lacombe was appointed EORTC director-general in 2015, having previously been director of the organisation’s headquarters. In his current role he promotes the EORTC as a major European organisation in cancer clinical and translational research, and is responsible for organising scientific activities, public relations and internal and external communications. Dr Lacombe studied medicine in France and pharmacology and pharmacokinetics in the United States. Following two years in the pharmaceutical industry developing an oncology drug, he joined the EORTC in 1993, working in clinical research from protocol development through publication from phase I to phase III. He has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed publications.

Professor Yolanda is current chair of the radiation oncology department of the Ghent University Hospital in Ghent, Belgium, and associate professor at the Ghent University. She graduated from the Catholic University in Leuven, where she acquired her degrees in Medicine, Radiation Oncology and Hospital and Health Care Management, and completed her PhD in cost-accounting and economic evaluation of radiotherapy. 

Her clinical focus lies on radiation therapy for thoracic malignancies, with an additional interest for the role of radiotherapy in hematology, breast cancer and oligometastatic disease. 

Apart from the clinics, she has always been closely involved in the organizational aspects of radiotherapy, in the position of radiotherapy within multidisciplinary oncology and in the financial and health economic aspects of cancer care. As a natural consequence, global oncology has also become one of her focuses. 

Finally, she is interested in quality issues in radiation oncology, not only in terms of quality assurance but also regarding the impact of radiation treatments on quality of life and patient-reported outcomes. 

She has a broad collaboration with national and international organizations, such as the Belgian Knowledge Centre and the Belgian Cancer Registry, the Belgian College for Physicians in Radiation Oncology (for which she serves as deputy president), the European Society for Radiotherapy and Oncology (ESTRO, of which she is former president), the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC), the European Cancer Organisation (ECO) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Amongst others, she is co-chairing the ESTRO Health Economics in Radiation Oncology (HERO) and the EORTC/ESTRO E2-RADIATE projects, and is chair of the ESTRO-GIRO (Global Impact of Radiotherapy in Oncology) project. 

She is convinced that an optimal combination of clinical, translational and health services research is key to the future of radiation oncology and to advance the outcome of cancer patients, by sustaining innovation in and access to radiotherapy in a multidisciplinary oncology environment.

Daniel Mahony is co-head of the Healthcare team at Polar Capital. He studied biochemistry at the University of Oxford and received his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge. Daniel moved to California to work as a research scientist at Schering Plough Corporation (now Merck & Co.) in 1995 and made the transition into financial services in 1998, working for ING Barings in New York and Morgan Stanley in London as head of the European healthcare research team. In 2007, he set up Polar Capital’s healthcare team. He has over 29 years of experience within global healthcare covering sectors including biotechnology, medical technology and healthcare services.

Dr Lydia Makaroff is chief executive of Fight Bladder Cancer and vice-president of the World Bladder Cancer Patient Coalition. She is an expert in leading patient organisations to achieve meaningful change in research, policy and care. Passionate about equal rights and patient empowerment, she has a background in medical research, public health and international collaboration

Dr Núria Malats leads the genetic and molecular epidemiology group at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre in Madrid. Her research focuses on pancreatic and bladder cancers, and she coordinates several large national and international studies which have contributed to disentangling the complex aetiology of these cancers towards “personalised prevention”. Dr Malats has been a board member of the European Society of Urogenital Radiology (ESUR) and of the EAU Research Foundation. She chaired the EUPancreas COST Action, is a board member of the International Pancreatic Cancer Case Control Consortium (PanC4), and chairs the research workstream of Pancreatic Cancer Europe (PCE).

Iain McLean’s background is as a geologist, dramatist and screenwriter. His writing career began 35 years ago when he won a national drama award for his play “Wind”, about germ warfare. He has worked on film projects in London, Hollywood and Madrid. He is also author of a book on forest sculpture, and the narrative non-fiction “April to April: Beating prostate cancer by conventional therapy, alternative treatments, mind games, emotions, diet, exercise and love”. Mr McLean is 33% disabled, lives in the Guadarrama mountains north of Madrid with his family and reads his poetry in clubs and slams in Granada.

Françoise Meunier served as director-general of the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) from 1991 to 2015, overseeing its growth into a world-class cancer clinical research infrastructure. She was EORTC’s director of special projects until the end of 2018. Ms Meunier has been vice-president of the Federation of European Academies of Medicine since 2015, and was a board member of the Alliance for Biomedical Research in Europe from 2015 to 2018. She serves on the European Commission’s Scientific Panel for Health, is a Fellow of the European Academy of Cancer Sciences and a board member of the Centre Scientifique de Monaco.

Johan De Munter graduated as a nurse in 2001 and worked for several years on an oncology and haematology ward. In 2010 he transferred to the University Hospital Ghent, where he continues to work as a nurse consultant in the haematology/stem cell transplant unit. His professional interests include patient education, supportive care needs, survivorship, and adolescent and young adults care. He has been president of the chemotherapy working group of the Flemish Society for Radiology and Oncology Nurses, and vice-president of the Belgian Haematology Society’s nurses committee. He is a board member of the Majin home in Ghent, which supports people with cancer and their loved ones.

Biljana Naumovic is Vice President of Commercial Strategy for Oncology for Europe, Middle East & Africa at the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson.

In this capacity, Biljana leads the team responsible for the regional strategy of Janssen’s solid tumour oncology portfolio, ensuring the commercial growth of current indications, future launches, and portfolio development.

Biljana has a wealth of experience spanning more than 18 years. She studied a degree in medicine and began her career in the Medical Military Hospital in Serbia, before starting her specialisation in Neurology at the Clinical Centre of Serbia. Moving to the pharmaceutical industry, Biljana spent six years at Roche working in sales, marketing, and medical roles. She then went on to complete an 11-year period at AstraZeneca, where she climbed the ranks from Medical Manager to Vice President of Commercial for Europe.

Sean O’Neill is the chief reporter of The Times. He joined The Times from The Daily Telegraph in 2004. He was the paper’s crime and security editor - covering policing and terrorism - before taking up his current role. In the past year he broke the story of Oxfam’s cover-up of sexual exploitation by aid workers of young women in earthquake-stricken Haiti. His reporting has been praised in parliament and the scandal has set in chain reforms that will bring about major change in the aid sector. Sean has also written about his own experience dealing with leukaemia in an effort to highlight how the NHS has denied patients access to new cancer drugs.

Nicolas Philippou has led the Cyprus Association of Cancer Patients and Friends (PASYKAF) since 2010. The organisation provides support and free healthcare services to more than 6,000 cancer patients and their relatives annually. He serves on the board of the Association of European Cancer Leagues and is a member of the European Patients Forum’s Universal Access to Healthcare Working Group. Mr Philippou is also a board member of the Cyprus Patients Federation, which works to ensure that patients in Cyprus have access to holistic, patient-centered, equitable and social health care, and of the Cyprus Health Insurance Organisation, whose mission is to implement a national health system.

Ricky Sharma is a physician scientist leader of medical research at Varian Medical Systems. In addition to his role as Vice President of Clinical Affairs at Varian, he is an Honorary Clinical Professor at University College London and an Honorary Consultant in Clinical Oncology at University College London Hospitals, where he is a clinical oncologist. Over the past decade, Prof Sharma has led practice-changing international clinical trials and global initiatives to bring stakeholders together to improve combination treatments for patients with cancer.

A passionate public-health policy advocate and a corporate executive, with a legal background and three decades of experience in global healthcare companies and trade associations, Eduardo Pisani joined All.Can International in 2020 as CEO, establishing it as a non-profit organisation based in Brussels. Mr Pisani has contributed to advancing public-policy discussions at national, EU and global levels. As director-general of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations in 2010-16, he led dialogue with the United Nations and its specialised agencies and with other international organisations. He has fostered policy alignment on global issues and developed productive collaborations with stakeholders and leaders in the health community.

Pat Price was a clinical academic oncologist in London before establishing the first Ralston Paterson Chair in Radiation Oncology at the Christie Hospital in Manchester in 2000, and setting up the Wolfson Molecular Imaging Centre at the University of Manchester. She heads the radiation oncology executive board for HCA Healthcare UK, founded the charity Action Radiotherapy and is chief advisor to the UK All Party Parliamentary Group on Radiotherapy. Ms Price is a past president of the British Oncological Association, served on the board of the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) and in 2020 helped set up the Global Coalition for Radiotherapy.

Jem Rashbass has worked on large-scale healthcare data systems for the last 25 years, first as an academic, then through national policy and within the National Health Service. Over the last 15 years he has championed and led the development and expansion of the National Cancer Registration and Analysis Service in England to become the world’s largest and most sophisticated cancer data collection service. He created a single National Rare Disease and Congenital Anomalies Registration Service for England and modernised data collection at the National Drug and Treatment Monitoring Service. He is also national director for disease registration and cancer analysis at Public Health England.

Herb Riband founded InnAxx Consulting in 2020 to work with startup companies, NGOs and academics that are bringing innovative approaches to global health and healthcare delivery. In 2019 he completed a 16-month fellowship at Stanford University’s Distinguished Careers Institute, focusing on global health and healthcare innovation. Prior to this, Mr Riband hadleadership roles in multinational enterprises in biotechnology (Amgen), medical technology (Medtronic), consumer goods (Diageo), consulting (Ernst & Young) and law (Baker & McKenzie). He launched value-based healthcare delivery programs and promoted policies and partnerships to measure and improve patient health outcomes and accelerate patient access to biopharmaceutical and medical-technology therapies.

Jennifer Tursi began her career with eight years in academic research before moving into oncology clinical development in the pharmaceutical industry more than 25 years ago. She has held roles in oncology clinical development and medical affairs in both early and late development. During a four-year break from the industry, she headed the clinical team at the Southern European New Drug Organization (SENDO), an oncology cooperative group exclusively focused on early development compounds. Jennifer holds a Bachelor of Science in biochemistry and a Master of Science, both from the University of Melbourne. She is based in Milan, Italy.

Zack Pemberton-Whiteley is Chief Executive Officer at Leukaemia Care, a UK based blood cancer charity.

Zack is also Chair of the global Acute Leukemia Advocates Network (ALAN) and Chair of the Blood Cancer Alliance (BCA) in the UK.

Zack is a qualified lawyer (BPTC & LLM) whose work primarily focuses on evidence-basedadvocacy, access and HTA, campaigns, patient involvement, early diagnosis and cancer policy.

Zack is active in various committees and advisory boards at a UK, European and global level - including as a member of the CML Advocates Network Community Advisory Board (CAB), the Workgroup of European Cancer patient Advocacy Networks (WECAN) and the European Cancer Organisation Patient Advisory Committee (ECO PAC).

Martin leads the team responsible for supporting Janssen operating companies in achieving and maintaining patient access to the company‘s portfolio of innovative products across Europe, Middle East and Africa, a role which he has held for the past six years. Prior to this, he was Director of External Affairs at Janssen UK, where we led a number of functions, including Health Technology Assessment, Market Access, Health Policy, Government Affairs and Communications. During this time, Martin also spent six years as an industry representative of NICE’s Appraisal Committee, which makes recommendations on the availability of medicines in England and Wales.

Martin joined Janssen from GlaxoSmithKline, where he worked in the Global Health Outcomes team on products in respiratory and infectious diseases. During his twenty-four years in the Pharmaceutical Industry, Martin has gained extensive experience of working with Healthcare Decision-Makers and HTA agencies and was responsible for introducing the first NICE approved patient access scheme into the UK. This innovative risk-sharing arrangement secured a positive NICE decision and national funding for a new oncology medicine.

Martin originally qualified as a Clinical Pharmacist working in a busy general hospital, before returning to Academia where he completed a PhD in Health Outcomes Research, whilst continuing to work as a Community Pharmacist.

Dr Qasim Rafiq joined University College London in 2017 as an Associate Professor in Cell and Gene Therapy Bioprocess Engineering in the Department of Biochemical Engineering. He is a multidisciplinary engineer working at the life science, engineering and commercial interfaces with a research focus on the bioprocessing, automation and biomanufacture of cell and gene-based therapies. He currently leads a research portfolio of > £5M as Principal Investigator and leads a dynamic interdisciplinary research group that collaborate internationally with high-calibre academic institutions, industry partners, and leading clinicians. He is also Programme Director of the new Manufacture and Commercialisation of Stem Cell and Gene Therapies MSc programme.

Qasim gained his PhD in Regenerative Medicine Bioprocessing from Loughborough University, UK, whilst collaborating with Lonza, a leading biotechnology contract manufacturing organisation. Qasim is both a Chartered Engineer (CEng) and Chartered Scientist (CSci) and sits on multiple scientific and engineering committees including the IChemE Biochemical Engineering Subject Interest Group, British Standards Institute Biotechnology Committee and the BIA’s Cell and Gene Therapy Advisory Committee.

Katie Rizvi is one of the founders of Youth Cancer Europe, a network of youth cancer organisations that aims to help shape European policy and fix the disparities for young people fighting cancer. Her special interest is youth empowerment and enabling survivorship communities, as well as endeavouring to make sure that eastern Europe contributes actively to European health policy. In 2016 Ms Rizvi became a member of the Children’s Medicines Working Party of the European Forum for Good Clinical Practice. In 2002 she co-founded the Little People Children’s Cancer Charity in Romania and the Republic of Moldova, which provides daily psychosocial support services in ten hospitals.

Dr Bettina Ryll founded the Melanoma Patient Network Europe after losing her husband to the disease, and developed a special interest in patient-centric clinical research, innovative trial designs and novel drug-development concepts, as well as pragmatic solutions to ensure access to innovative treatments in situations of both high unmet need and high uncertainty. Between 2015 and 2018 Dr Ryll chaired the European Society for Medical Oncology’s Patient Advocates Working Group. She is fascinated by the enormous potential and capacity of patient networks to educate and support patients as well as to capture data from patients themselves to generate granular evidence that is not accessible to outsiders.

Brigitte Nolet is General Manager for Roche Belgium and Luxembourg. She has held a number of global and affiliate leadership roles within the pharmaceutical company since joining almost 14 years ago. These include Director of Government Affairs and Health Policy for Specialty Care at Roche Canada; Integrated Franchise Leader for the rare diseases franchise at Roche UK; and Head of the Global Health Policy team.

In her various leadership roles, Brigitte has worked with patient groups; established a global policy function; supported the evolution of Roche’s work with Global Health Institutions like the World Bank and the World Health Organization; represented the company on numerous global and local trade association committees; led the early Roche participation on the industry NCD Access Initiative to bring oncology medicines to low and lower middle income countries; and supported multiple product launches.

Before joining Roche, she served as Vice President of Federal Government Affairs and Federal/Provincial/Territorial Issues for Canada’s Research-Based Pharmaceutical Companies (Rx&D). Prior to that, Brigitte was Director of Communications for the Honourable Jane Stewart, Minister of Human Resources Development Canada (HRDC), and press secretary to the Minister of the Environment, Christine Stewart. She also served on two federal election campaigns, including supporting the Canadian Prime Minister, Jean Chrétien, during the 2000 federal election.

A native of Welland, Ontario, Canada, Brigitte holds a degree in English Rhetoric and Professional Writing from the University of Waterloo; a degree in Social Development Studies from the School of Social Work; and a minor in Women’s Studies.

Lisa Stevens joined the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 2019 to lead its Programme of Action for Cancer Therapy (PACT). Before this, she spent 24 years in various roles at the US National Cancer Institute. She joined the Centre for Global Health in 2012 as the deputy director for planning and operations. As senior lead of the International Global Cancer Control Programme, Ms Stevens worked with ministries of health and other multi-sectorial groups in all World Health Organisation regions to include evidence-based policies in cancer-control and non-communicable-disease plans. She also co-founded the International Cancer Control Partnerships to organise global partners working with stakeholders in cancer control.

In 2007, having accepted a place from Imperial College, London to pursue a PhD in stable isotope cosmochemistry, (which included the study of meteorites), Ali was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

Unlike 90% of the patients diagnosed with pancreatic cancer Ali was lucky: her illness was detected early enough to allow a life-saving operation. In fact, Ali was just one of the 10% of people who are ever able to have life-saving surgery. After undergoing a ‘distal pancreatectomy’ and ‘splenectomy’ where 80% of the pancreas and all of the spleen is removed, Ali received 6 months of combination chemotherapy and then 6 weeks of chemo-radiotherapy treatment.

Since her surgery, scans have shown ‘no evidence of disease,’ and in 2013, six years after her diagnosis, Ali was ‘signed-off’ by her oncologist.

Having taken the bull by the horns and completed a year of the PhD course at Imperial College, Ali decided academic demands, plus a long daily commute to London, were taking a toll on family life and put it on hold.

But she put this new available time to good use. Having been astounded by the dismal survival rates of pancreatic cancer patients and by the little or no improvement in these rates over the last 40 years, Ali joined forces with others to set up the UK’s very first Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Week in November 2009.

Richard Sullivan is professor of cancer and global health at King’s College London, director of the King’s Institute of Cancer Policy and co-director of the Conflict and Health Research Group. His research focuses on global cancer policy and planning, and health-systems strengthening, particularly in fragile and conflict settings. Dr Sullivan is a noncommunicable-diseases advisor to the World Health Organisation, civil-military advisor to Save the Children, and a member of the National Cancer Grid of India. He has worked with numerous Lancet and Lancet Oncology commissions and was clinical director of Cancer Research UK between 1999 and 2008.

Judith Taylor worked as a publisher with the scientific and medical publishing company Elsevier and is now a freelance “science to public” writer alongside her voluntary commitments as co-director and secretary of the international Thyroid Cancer Alliance and chair of The Thyroid Trust (UK). She is also a European Patient Advocacy Group (ePAG) representative on rare thyroid cancers in the European Reference Network EURACAN. A thyroid-cancer survivor, Ms Taylor is a former chair of the British Thyroid Association’s and co-authored its clinical guidelines on the treatment of thyroid cancer. She is a patient reviewer for several journals including the British Medical Journal.

Roger Taylor has worked as an entrepreneur, a regulator and a writer. He has argued for a rebalancing of control over data and information towards citizens and civil society. As well as chairing the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation, he is chair of Ofqual, the qualifications regulator, and a member of the advisory panel to Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation. Mr Taylor has written two books: “God Bless the NHS” (2014) and “Transparency and the Open Society” (2016). He co-founded Dr Foster, which pioneered the use of public data to provide independent ratings of health care.

Lynda Thomas has been chief executive of Macmillan Cancer Support since 2015, focusing the charity’s resources on supporting its beneficiaries at diagnosis, if their cancer is incurable but treatable, and at end of life. She joined Macmillan in 2001 as joint head of media and in 2011 became director of fundraising. In 2018 Ms Thomas co-chaired the Breast Screening Review and co-led the Cancer Clinical Priority Workstream. She chairs the NHS Cancer Programme Charity Forum, and is vice-chair of the Richmond Group and a member of the Cicely Saunders Institute Advisory Board, National Cancer Board and NHS Assembly.

Clare Turnbull trained as a doctor in Oxford and London before completing a PhD in genetic epidemiology and molecular genetics at the Institute of Cancer Research. Besides her scientific work at the ICR, she is a consultant in clinical cancer genetics at the Royal Marsden Hospital. In her clinical role, Professor Turnbull evaluates, investigates and manages individuals and families where the pattern of disease suggests that there may be inherited predisposition to cancer. She is also involved in developing evidence-based clinical guidance for management of genetic predisposition to cancer.

Dr Krishnan Viswanadhan joined BMS in 2019 and leads the multidisciplinary team responsible for developing and executing the integrated cell therapy franchise strategy. Before this he worked at Celgene, where he was vice-president of BD & global alliances, responsible for the company’s distributed research and development model. He was also disease strategy lead for multiple myeloma and led a team in partnership with Agios Pharmaceuticals that led to the approval of IDHIFA (enasidenib) for relapsed/refractory AML with an IDH2 mutation. Prior to Celgene, Dr Viswanadhan worked at Roche Pharmaceuticals in regulatory affairs and oncology programmes.

Suzanne Wait is co-founder and managing director of the Health Policy Partnership (HPP), a London-based health-policy research organisation. Over the past 20 years she has led policy research and analysis on cancer and chronic diseases, as well as patient-focused healthcare systems. Ms Wait’s work in oncology has spanned screening, early detection, rare cancers, system preparedness for new treatment approaches, and the efficiency and patient-centricity of cancer care. Most recently she led the secretariat for All.Can, a multisectoral initiative focused on improving efficiency in cancer care, and HPP currently leads All.Can’s research into the role of data in improving efficiency in cancer care.

Michael initially pursued a career in General, Cardiovascular and Surgical Oncology in Germany and the UK, gaining an MD and an FRCS. He joined pharmaceutical industry 25 years ago and has since been in clinical development, project leadership, and commercial and medical affairs roles at country, regional and global level. To date, Michael leads the Medical Affairs Team of Novartis Oncology, Region Europe. Throughout his industry career, Michael mainly covered specialty care areas, e.g. Oncology and Immunology. He qualified as a Pharmaceutical Physician and as an MBA. Research interests and publications are in Oncology and Immunology, advanced analytics/AI as well as in general aspects of Medical Affairs and Medicine Development in the Industry.

Before joining Cancer Research UK Therapeutic Discovery laboratories as director of biology in 2015, Stuart spent more than 20 years in drug discovery and leadership roles in the pharmaceutical industry. Most recently he was based at the University of Manchester, where he directed the establishment of the Manchester Centre for Collaborative Research in Inflammation (MCCIR), a £15M initiative funded by GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca and the University of Manchester. He is a past member of the MRC Infection and Immunity Board and currently sits on UK R&I’s oversight committee for the UK COVID-19 immunology consortium. Stuart has worked in several therapeutic areas and has directed major translational research initiatives in apoptosis, immunology and circadian biology. He has led discovery teams that have generated several clinical candidate molecules and has overseen biology programmes for drugs that have achieved regulatory approval and launch. In his current role he has been closely involved in the establishment of major drug discovery alliances in cancer immunology between CR-UK and various industry partners.

Barbara Wilson founded Working With Cancer in 2014 to provide coaching, training and consultancy services to anyone affected by cancer to manage work, return to work or find work during or after diagnosis and treatment. Before this Ms Wilson was a senior HR director at a number of international companies. In 2005, after being diagnosed with breast cancer, she set up a group to help those people affected by cancer to return successfully to work. Ms Wilson has chaired the Work and Finance workstream of the UK National Cancer Survivorship Initiative, and helped Macmillan Cancer Support establish its Work and Cancer department.

Vivek Muthu worked as a doctor in the UK National Health Service, including London’s Queen Square, the Hammersmith and Oxford University hospitals, before joining the British Medical Journal, where he helped to develop and lead a team examining the clinical value of drugs and devices. Mr Muthu then went on to found Bazian, a company dedicated to developing and servicing the needs of the emerging paradigm of value-based health internationally. Following its acquisition by The Economist Group, Bazian lies at the heart of The Economist Intelligence Unit’s value-based healthcare business, for which Mr Muthu took overall leadership and strategic responsibility. After launching EIU Healthcare, he has now taken up a non-executive advisory role as chair of the business. He also sits on the steering panels for a number of UK-based initiatives in value-based health. In the past, he has additionally served as a health-care consultant to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

Alan is a Senior Associate and Information Services Manager at EIU Healthcare. He is a member of the Health Policy and Clinical Research team, and oversees the horizon-scanning, searching, collating and appraisal work for evidence reviews and health technology appraisals. Alan has advised and worked on a range of projects for governments, health ministries, academic journals, healthcare providers, insurers, research funders, pharmaceutical companies and sporting associations. Key clients that he has worked with include the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, the National Institute of Health Research Dissemination Centre and the Map of Medicine. Alan studied biology at Royal Holloway, University of London, and gained his doctorate from the University of Warwick. He worked at the University of Montreal, before receiving his MA in Information Studies from Brighton University. Alan has an interest in evolution and is a Fellow of the Linnaean Society of London.

Miranda Johnson is The Economist’s deputy executive editor. Previously she was the publication’s South-east Asia correspondent, based in Singapore. Her former roles include environment correspondent, Southern United States correspondent and science correspondent. Her work has also appeared in the Daily Telegraph, the Sunday Times and the Evening Standard. In 2016 Ms Johnson was shortlisted to be the New Journalist of the Year at the British Journalism Awards. In 2017 she received the Desmond Wettern Media Award from the Maritime Foundation for her reporting on the ocean. Ms Johnson was educated in Britain and the United States.

1. Consultant Clinical Oncologist, Brighton & Sussex University Hospital NHS Trust

I work 3 days a week in the NHS as a consultant clinical oncologist treating Lung cancers. I can prescribe both systemic therapies as well as radiotherapy. Yearly, I see around 150 new patients, and around 700 follow up patients. The systemic therapy side is ever increasing, with a range of chemotherapy, targeted therapy and immunotherapy options, in addition to the concurrent regimes. The radiotherapy covers all techniques, such as IGRT, IMRT, VMAT, and SABR. As part of clinical governance, I attend regular Multidisciplinary (MDT), radiotherapy peer review, research and audit meetings. Teaching is an important activity, and ranges from Brighton Medical School students to oncology trainees. The patient numbers and treatment complexities are significant, and the clinical needs of each patient quite high, which means that this s a challenging, intellectually stimulating and hugely rewarding job.

2. Elekta: Director, Global Medical Managers and Global Clinical Research Consortia

I work 2 days a week for Elekta. In order to further increase my knowledge of technical radiotherapy, I approached Elekta in December 2012 and was appointed to a full time Director position within Elekta R&D, managing several Clinical Research Consortia. This position has allowed me to work closely with radiation oncologists and physicists of international repute, prolific in radiotherapy research, and working with cutting edge radiotherapy technology. My other responsibilities include overseeing the clinical input into regulatory submissions for CE marking, Health Economics, Clinical Validation strategizing, editorial and marketing support, as well as education & training for both Elekta personnel and clinical users of Elekta equipment.