The 2024 FPM Annual Symposium– Pharmaceutical medicine: tackling global challenges– will explore how health systems around the world must adapt as chronic physical and mental health issues become more prevalent, reflecting upon pharmaceutical medicine’s vital role in understanding impacts and developing mitigations.
Click on the following names to find out more about each speaker:
UK Special Envoy on Antimicrobial Resistance and Former Chief Medical Officer for England
Dame Sally Davies is the 40th Master of Trinity College, Cambridge University and the first woman to hold the post. She was appointed as the UK Government’s Special Envoy on AMR in 2019.
Dame Sally was the Chief Medical Officer for England and Senior Medical Advisor to the UK Government from 2011-2019. She is a leading figure in global health, having served as a member of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Executive Board 2014-2016, and as co-convener of the United Nations Inter-Agency Co-ordination Group (IACG) on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR), reporting in 2019. In November 2020, Dame Sally was announced as a member of the new UN Global Leaders Group on AMR, serving alongside Heads of State, Ministers, and prominent figures from around the world to advocate for action on AMR.
In the 2020 New Year Honours, Dame Sally became the second woman to be appointed Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (GCB) for services to public health and research, having received her DBE in 2009. She was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 2014 and a member of the National Academy of Medicine, USA in 2015.
Former Deputy Chief Medical Officer for England
Professor Jonathan Van-Tam Kt, MBE, FMedSci, is a doctor and public health specialist with a clinical background in emergency medicine, anaesthesia and infectious diseases. He is an expert on respiratory viruses and pandemics, and until recently, was the Senior Strategy Adviser to the University of Nottingham School of Medicine. His career has also taken him to Public Health England, the World Health Organization, and the pharmaceutical and vaccine industries. He has published over 200 peer-reviewed scientific papers. Jonathan was seconded to the Department of Health and Social Care in 2017-22 as Deputy Chief Medical Officer. He is well-known for his leadership role during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly his straight, no-nonsense, communication style from the podium at No.10 Downing Street, and for the acquisition and rollout of vaccines and antiviral drugs in the UK. He received a knighthood from Her late Majesty the Queen in her 2022 New Year’s Honours List, for services to public health. Alongside numerous other eponymous lectures, he was awarded the Royal Society’s Attenborough Award and Lecture 2022, for outstanding public engagement in science.
Executive Director, Medical Affairs and Strategic Partnerships at The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI).
Amit Aggarwal has over 14 years experience in the pharmaceutical industry, most recently at LEO Pharma as Medical Director for the UK and Ireland. Prior to that he spent over a decade at Bayer where he held various roles including pharmacovigilance, Global medical affairs, and latterly as Director of Medical Affairs UK for General Medicine.
His background is as a medic, spending 5 years working clinically in the NHS, mainly in secondary care. Amit has worked on both innovative and established product launches, spanning a range of therapy areas including oncology, women’s health, cardiovascular medicine, dermatology and thrombosis in the UK and globally.
Amit holds a MA in Neuroscience from the University of Cambridge, and a MBBS from Guy’s, King’s & St Thomas’ School of Medicine.
Professor of Infection and Inequities at Queen Mary University of London and Consultant Physician at Barts Health NHS Trust.
She specialises in therapeutics and has contributed to the licensing of medicines for HIV, viral hepatitis, and SARS-CoV-2. She is the global lead author for the first-ever long-acting injectable HIV therapy.
Chloe is an expert advisor to WHO Europe on mpox and COVID-19. During the multi-country mpox (monkeypox) outbreaks she established and led an international collaborative clinical network (SHARE-net) resulting in three global case series on mpox infection.
She is the Academic Lead for Equality Diversity and Inclusion in the Faculty of Medicine at QMUL. She directs the QMUL-based SHARE research collaborative for health equity.
Chloe is the 80th President of the Medical Women’s Federation, past Chair of the British HIV Association, on the governing council for the International AIDS Society and a scientific advisor to the Medicines Patent Pool.
Managing Director and Global Leader of the Research & Clinical Development Domains in the Life Sciences R&D practice.
Kailash is a Managing Director and the Global Leader of the Research & Clinical Development Domains in the Life Sciences R&D practice. He and his team are focused on developing and executing a scalable and inclusive digitalization and AI/Generative AI strategy to transform the discovery and development of therapeutic solutions to treat human disease and improve health.
Kailash has over 25 years of experience in Drug Discovery and Development and has held leadership positions at leading Life Sciences and Technology companies globally. At Accenture he works with clients across the Life Sciences and Healthcare industry, Academic and Research Institutions, and Local and National governments to improve R&D productivity to bring better medicines, devices, and digital solutions and services to the patients and consumers who need them – faster and cheaper.
Chief Medical Officer at Prilenia
Dr Jina Swartz is an accomplished physician and researcher who holds degrees in Internal Medicine and Neurology obtained in South Africa, as well as a PhD from the University of Cambridge. In 2020 she was elected to the Fellowship of the Academy of Medical Sciences for her global expertise in neurodegenerative disorders and neuropsychiatric drug development. With over thirty years in industry and academic Neurology, she specialises in both common and rare neurological diseases. Currently serving as Chief Medical Officer at Prilenia, she leads efforts in developing treatments for Huntington’s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders. Previously, she held leadership roles at Exciva and Merck and Co. She contributes extensively to charitable organisations and academic initiatives, focusing on health of internally displaced populations and refugees and neurology research.
Principal Machine Learning Engineer at Haleon.
Tao Cao is a Principal Machine Learning Engineer at Haleon, where he leads the global development and implementation of scalable AI solutions. With over a decade of experience in pharmaceutical and healthcare, he specializes in deploying AI and Machine Learning to address pressing health challenges.
Passionate about leveraging AI to combat the growing prevalence of multiple chronic conditions, Tao currently leads the creation of a Generative AI-powered personalized nutrition platform aimed at providing consumers with tailored health support, in line with Haleon’s mission to deliver better everyday health.
At the FPM Annual Symposium, Tao will discuss how enterprise-scale AI solutions can transform global health challenges, focusing on Large Language Models and Generative AI in healthcare.
Clinical development lead for the AI-enhanced early phase oncology programme at Owkin
Dr Luke Kuttschreuter is a pharmaceutical physician and FPM Fellow with a passion for innovative technologies and approaches in clinical research. Luke holds a medical degree from the University of Cape Town, South Africa, where he also began his early clinical career before moving to the UK where he was part of the University of Oxford Department of Oncology as a Clinical Research Fellow in Early Phase Clinical Trials while completing his MSc in Pharmacology.
Luke is the clinical development lead for the AI-enhanced early phase oncology programme at Owkin, a TechBio which uses AI engines to de-risk discovery, development, and diagnostic technologies and reduce their time to impact. Luke also has five years of experience working for Pfizer Oncology in Medical Affairs and Clinical Development, where he led multiple workstreams and pilots on patient and public involvement, novel methodologies, and the use of technologies in clinical trials, early access programmes, and pre-approval RWD studies.
Chief Customer Officer Virtual Science AI
Geraldine has over 20 years of global medical affairs pharmaceutical experience, launching over 20 transformative products during her career in HIV and Hepatitis. She lead patient engagement Globally for Gilead Sciences to ensure the patient’s voice is at the heart of drug development. Before joining the industry, her background was in healthcare as a nurse specialist in HIV and community nursing. She has served as a board member on Patient-Focused Medicine Development (PFMD). Has held honorary lecturer positions at Riverside Faculty of Education and served as a government advisor on HIV Prison services.
Currently serving as Chief Customer Officer at Virtual Science AI where their unique medically trained AI is transforming the pharmaceutical industry through analytics’ and speed of insights, to bring medicines to patients in a timely and appropriate manner.
SVP Global Medicines Development Indivior
Frank is an experienced pharmaceutical physician with a clinical background in emergency care, anaesthesia, and intensive care. His experience in pharmaceutical medicine encompasses global clinical development, across all phases of development, and medical affairs. He is an experienced medical leader, having line and matrix leadership experience in multinational environments.
Frank currently serves as the SVP of Global Medicines Development for Indivior, a company focused on developing treatments for substance use disorders and other serious mental illnesses.
He holds a medical degree from the University of Pretoria, South Africa and is a Fellow of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine.
Founding director of Three Little Pigs Consulting Ltd.
John is founding director of Three Little Pigs Consulting Ltd. John graduated from Newcastle University and has a PhD from Birmingham. After training as a paediatric endocrinologist, John joined the pharmaceutical industry in 2008 and worked in medical affairs across multiple therapy areas in Pfizer, Novartis and GSK. In 2015 John joined a startup, Diurnal. As chief medical officer he led teams to registration of products in Europe and the US. John led phase 1 to 4 international trials and has negotiated with EMA, FDA, TGA, PMDA and European reimbursement authorities. John started his own consultancy business in 2024.
Founder of Race in STEM (part of BioTalent)
A dynamic and open-minded thought leader, Steve is a passionate speaker, mentor, and advocate in the D&I space, where he cultivates ideas, challenges companies on how to diversify their workforce, and builds meaningful connections with a range of communities.
Steve is the Founder of Race in STEM (part of BioTalent) which seeks to encourage, question and inspire people of different cultural backgrounds and ethnicities in the world of STEM.
Area Medical Director Middle East and Africa AstraZeneca
Currently working as Area Medical Director Middle East and Africa AstraZeneca driving medical strategy across all therapy areas in the area as well as develop medical talents. Previously was the International (Emerging markets) Oncology Medical Director preceded by Medical Director- Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei across all therapy areas. Before that, lead the Diabetes portfolio in AstraZeneca for Asia area. Experience as a pharmaceutical physician for 20 years across Emerging countries in primary and leadership positions. Diverse therapeutic area experience in oncology, infectious diseases, cardiology, ophthalmology, allergy, diabetes and pediatrics. Has had experience of Clinical Research managing Phase 2 and 3 clinical trials. Before joining industry, has had experience of working on clinical studies in cardiology.
Viraj is also the recipient of the Gufic prize for best original paper on Herbal research, Indian Pharmacological society annual conference, 2000.
Senior Director, Early Oncology Precision Medicine Lead, Precision Medicine and Biosamples (PMB), AstraZeneca
Nadia has extensive experience in the field of oncology precision medicine across both academia and industry. She has worked in identifying novel biomarkers and delivering diagnostics to select patients who are more likely to respond to drugs, ensuring the right patients are given the right treatments. She has a particular focus on innovative diagnostics, such as liquid biopsies, AI computational pathology and in vivo imaging.
Prior to moving into industry, Nadia studied at Cambridge University (BA, MSc) and Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, Imperial College (PhD), followed by postdocs at Massachusetts General Hospital / Harvard Medical School and Cancer Research UK. Nadia has a track record of publication in peer reviewed journals.
Chief Strategy Officer at Medicines Discovery Catapult
Nicola has over 25 years of life science experience, holding senior positions across the public and private sectors in organisations including AstraZeneca and the NHS.
With a broad range of experience from research to commercialisation in pharmaceuticals, medical devices and diagnostics, Nicola brings a breadth of experience to her role as Chief Strategy Officer at Medicines Discovery Catapult (MDC).
She gained her PhD in Chemistry in Boston, USA and an MBA from the University of Sheffield. Nicola joined AstraZeneca in 1998 as a medicinal chemist. She moved to Sheffield Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in 2009, where she was Programme Director of the NIHR Healthcare Technology Cooperative, D4D. She is an accomplished scientist with over 45 publications and board-level experience in multiple life sciences organisations.
She is currently Chair of the Industry Board for the Manchester NIHR Clinical Research Facility, Trustee at Tinnitus UK and member of Asthma and Lung UK’s research review panel.
Nicola joined MDC in 2018 as Head of Collaborative R&D, joining the Executive team in January 2021. In her role as Chief Strategy Officer, Nicola builds and maintains MDC’s strategic national R&D programmes and our impact evaluation to ensure MDC continues to deliver upon our vision of reshaping drug discovery for patient benefit.
Founding Head of Oxford University’s Nuffield Department of Population Health
Rory Collins is a medically-qualified epidemiologist who studies how to prevent and treat cardiovascular disease in large international population-based studies. He is the founding Head of Oxford University’s Nuffield Department of Population Health.
During the past 40 years, he has conducted large randomised trials which have shown unequivocally that clot-dissolving and clot-preventing treatments during a heart attack can more than halve mortality, and that lowering LDL-cholesterol with statin therapy safely reduces the risk of cardiovascular death and disability among a wide range of people. As a consequence, these treatments are being widely used.
In 2005, the Wellcome Trust and Medical Research Council appointed him as Principal Investigator and Chief Executive of UK Biobank. Involving 500,000 participants, it is the largest deeply-characterized prospective study globally, available for any type of health research that is in the public interest. More than 30,000 researchers worldwide use it currently, generating more than 3000 papers in 2023 alone.
Head of Observational Research, Clinical Practice Research Datalink, MHRA
Susan joined CPRD as a Senior Researcher in 2018, and is currently Head of Observational Research. The Observational Research team is responsible for the Research Data Governance process which underpins access to the CPRD data, provision of CPRD primary care and linked data for approved protocols, and the CPRD Commissioned Research service.
Susan holds a PhD in epidemiology, and was a lecturer in Epidemiology and Public Health at Imperial College London before joining CPRD. She has over 20 years epidemiology research experience, with a focus on use of routinely collected health data in epidemiology and public health.
Senior Global Medical Director at GSK
Dr Bu Siakpere is a Senior Global Medical Director at GSK, a Fellow of FPM with a Pharmaceutical Medicine specialisation (CST). Bu has been with GSK for 18 years in UK and global medical affairs roles of increasing seniority across multiple therapeutic areas including general medicines, dermatology and oncology with medicines ranging from pipeline to mature. Bu currently has a global leadership role in the grants and donations process, ABPI oversight and governance promoting best practice.
Bu started her pharmaceutical career at BMS as a Medical Advisor in 2001 having practised in the UK NHS mainly in obstetrics & gynaecology. Bu also practised as a medical officer in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa and undertook a special assignment at Save the Children as the global pneumonia advisor. She has also played a significant role in equity, diversity and inclusion activities at GSK and the FPM and as a STEM Ambassador.
Bu has an MBA from Imperial College Business School, University of London, membership of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and qualified as a physician with an MB ChB from the University of Birmingham, Medical School UK.
Senior Involvement Manager at the Cystic Fibrosis Trust
Lorna Allen is the Senior Involvement Manager at the Cystic Fibrosis Trust, the only UK charity representing people living with CF and their families. Lorna leads the Community Involvement workstream ensuring the work of the Trust, scientific researchers, industry partners and external stakeholders are informed and influenced by the experience and expertise of people and families living with the condition. Community insights accurately reflect the rapid evolution of change in CF of recent years, providing clarity to strategic priority setting, objectives and investment decisions. Lorna is also mother to her 26 year old daughter with CF.
Scientific Director at LifeArc
Dr Rebecca Holmes is a Scientific Director at LifeArc, a self-funded medical research charity based in the UK. She oversees the diagnostic programme within LifeArc’s Chronic Respiratory Infection Translational Challenge. This is a portfolio of projects focused on improving the lives of people living with cystic fibrosis and bronchiectasis. Rebecca led the project to develop patient-centric Target Product Profiles (TPPs) for new tests to manage lung infections in cystic fibrosis. Her role encompasses diagnostic strategy, managing external partnerships and diagnostic design and development.
R&D Chief Patient Officer at Servier
Marta Garcia is a pharmacist and dietitian holding a Master of Public Health from Liverpool University.
Marta’s expertise spans various areas within the industry, ranging from Clinical Research to Medical Affairs and she has thrived in multinational environments.
Over the last five years, her area of interest has moved to Patient Engagement in Research and Development of new medicines and has been leading a transformation process as R&D Chief Patient Officer within Servier. In this position, Marta has been particularly focused on the creation and implementation of new R&D emphasizing the incorporation of the patient perspective and experience into these processes. This reflects her commitment to ensuring that the development of new medicines is closely aligned with the needs and experiences of the patients.
Marta is mother of three, and she enjoys engaging in various interest such as sports, reading, singing and arts.
Partnership manager at Medicines Discovery Catapult
Connie Takawira has been working at Medicines Discovery Catapult as a partnership manager for the CF AMR Syndicate since early 2022. She plays a key role in overseeing programme-level management, governance, communications, and external engagement activities for the CF AMR Syndicate. Her current focus is on delivering across multiple areas of the programme including the diagnostic TPPs as well as sector challenge projects like the UK CF Infection Biorepository to further cross-collaborative medicines and diagnostics discovery efforts. Connie has a background in clinical pharmacy, working both in the UK and New Zealand where she specialised in respiratory medicine. She holds an MSc in Global Health from Gothenburg University
Founding and Senior Partner of tranScrip
Dr Flic Gabbay is a physician who has led innovative programmes and set standards in pharmaceutical medicine. She is best known for developing antibiotics, antivirals and antifungals and working on AMR projects. She founded a CRO in 1990, sold it to PPD, became CEO of two small biotechs and cofounded the consultancy, TranScrip, which since 2008 has supported R&D and regulatory work for over 300 companies.
Her contributions also have included a role in establishing pharmaceutical medicine as a specialty. She chaired the working party that set up the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine, spent nine years as its Academic Registrar and was the President from 2021 – 2024. She has participated in many global drug development guidance working parties and remains involved in numerous life sciences initiatives.
Chief Medical Officer for Precisia C2-Ai and Director of Actaros Consultancy.
Sheuli is currently the President of FPM and is also the Chief Medical Officer for Precisia C2-Ai and Director of Actaros Consultancy.
Sheuli is an experienced pharmaceutical physician in medicine development, medical affairs and life sciences policy within the UK and internationally, across multiple therapy areas. Sheuli has held medical leadership roles in companies at a national, regional and international level whilst living in different countries and is the former Director of Research, Medical and Innovation at the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry.
Sheuli is a Fellow of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine, a Global Fellow in Medicine Development with IFAPP and a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of London and holds a number of other advisory roles.
Chief Medical Officer and co-founder of health-equity.ai.
Dr Rav Seeruthun is Chief Medical Officer and co-founder of health-equity.ai. A company that uses AI to help solve health inequalities. Previous to this he was an Officer and Vice-President at Genentech based in San Francisco. He moved to this role after four years as Country Medical Director of Roche UK. Previous to this he has held both commercial and medical roles at a European and affiliate level.
Rav studied medicine at St Mary’s Hospital Medical School at Imperial College, London, he is a Fellow of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine, a William Pitt Fellow at Pembroke College, Cambridge and holds an Executive MBA from Judge Business School, Cambridge.
