CONFERENCE SPEAKERS

Speakers
Seth Kuranz
Seth Kuranz
RWE Principal at Forian,
Forian Inc

Seth Kuranz joined Forian in 2022 to support the generation of RWE using CHRONOS, Forian’s hybrid RWD ecosystem. Before joining Forian, Seth worked in non-profit, academic, and private sectors and has over 10 years of experience applying qualitative and quantitative research methods to complex clinical and public health-related questions. Research interests include epidemiologic forecasting; health outcomes research in oncology, cardio-renal-metabolic disorders, rare and infectious diseases; and social determinants of health. Seth graduated from Boston University with a Ph.D. in epidemiology.


Charlotte Chen
Charlotte Chen
Director, Commercial Data Science,
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals

Charlotte, Director of Advanced Analytics & Data Strategy, is on a mission to accelerate patient-centric breakthroughs at Alnylam with the power of AI. She leverages over a decade of data science experience within the life cycle of drug development from her time both in consulting as well as in the life science industry. With experience spanning clinical trial data, genomics data, and real-world evidence, she leads a team of data scientists to propel the organization forward through the strategic application of AI.


Sricharan Bandhakavi
Sricharan Bandhakavi
Associate Director, Data Scientist,
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals

Sri is a molecular biologist turned Data Scientist supporting a variety of predictive modeling initiatives within the commercial group of Alnylam Pharmaceuticals. As a molecular biologist, he previously contributed to workstreams resulting in 3 FDA approved medical devices, 4 issued patents, and 20+ peer-reviewed publications across industry/academia. As a healthcare data scientist, he has focused on building & deploying machine learning solutions for population health management, patient finding, and HCP targeting across prevalent and rare disease conditions.


Danielle Bargo
Danielle Bargo
Director, Global Oncology Real World Data Strategy,
AstraZeneca

Danielle Bargo is a Health Economist with extensive experience in the pharmaceutical industry generating evidence to support drug price negotiations and reimbursement globally, with a particular focus on generating evidence to support Health Technology Assessments in Europe. Danielle is Director of Global Oncology Real World Data Strategy at AstraZeneca responsible for identifying high-quality data sources globally that can be used to generate evidence to support drug development, regulatory submissions and market access.  


Megan Sutton
Megan Sutton
Senior Medical Director, Clinical Development and Real-world Evidence,
Lexeo Therapeutics

Megan Sutton, DNP, ACNP-BC, is an experienced Clinician and accomplished Strategic Pharmaceutical Leader with an extensive career spanning over two decades. Beginning as a dedicated Nurse Practitioner, she gained valuable experience in patient care for over a decade before transitioning to the pharmaceutical industry. Throughout her career, Megan has been involved in the successful launch of three innovative therapies, including ENTRESTO® for Heart Failure, ANDEXXA® for Factor Xa Inhibitor reversal, and CAMZYOS® for Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy, significantly impacting patient care on a global scale. Her roles in the pharmaceutical landscape have been diverse, encompassing Medical Affairs, Real-World Evidence (RWE), and Clinical Development.  Presently, Megan holds the position of Senior Medical Director and Clinical Lead for a pioneering Gene Therapy trial focused on a rare genetic cardiomyopathy, contributing to innovative research aimed at improving patient outcomes.


Brett Wittmershaus
Brett Wittmershaus
Senior Representative,
Flatiron Health

Brett Wittmershaus has been at Flatiron Health for over six years and is currently the Senior Director of Data Capabilities & Operations at Flatiron Health, leading teams that work with the curation of real-world data from structured and unstructured sources. Prior to Flatiron, Brett worked on supply chain and manufacturing quality systems at Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX).


Todd Somsel
Todd Somsel
Vice President, Commercial Lead, Real-World Data Marketplace,
Prognos Health

Todd Somsel is the Commercial Lead for the Real-World Data (RWD) Marketplace at Prognos Health. Todd has a 15+ year history of supporting the life sciences industry through solutions combining strategy, insights, analytics, and data. Before joining Prognos, Todd was the Global RWE Strategy & Advisory Lead for ZS Associates, a management consultancy focused on the life sciences industry. There, he was helping clients develop and implement their RWD strategies, focused on finding better fit-for-purpose data sets and enhancing ROI of RWD investments. He was also helping clients develop and execute their evidence strategies for regulatory, payer, provider, and patient stakeholders. Todd has his MBA from New York University and BS from Penn State. He lives in New York with his amazing wife and three young daughters.


Ryan Rumantir
Ryan Rumantir
Principal, Data & Analytics,
Eversana

Ryan Rumantir is a Principal with EVERSANA’s Data and Analytics Team.

Ryan leads commercial- and patient-centric analytical partnerships between EVERSANA and their clients, across the Pharma and Medical Device industries.

Prior to joining EVERSANA, Ryan served as director of client engagement at Clarivate, leading Clarivate’s real world data and analytics engagement team. At IBM Watson Health, Ryan also led critical client partnerships leveraging IBM’s healthcare data and analytic assets to deliver stakeholder and patient insights.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in Medical Science from the University of Western Ontario and a master’s degree in Medical Science from the University of Toronto.


Julia Zhu
Julia Zhu
Data Sciences Lead,
Takeda

Julia Zhu is the Data Sciences Lead for Takeda’s Real-World Data Center of Excellence. She conducts analyses pertaining to the application of Real-World Data for diverse stakeholders across the organization and provides a better understanding of disease natural history, incidence/prevalence, co-morbidities, treatment patterns, safety outcomes, etc. in ‘real-world’ patient populations, across therapeutic areas. Julia has over 12 years in leading cross-functional teams internally and HCPs, CROs, and other researchers externally to design and execute RWE/Epidemiology/HEOR studies across the product life cycle. Julia holds an M.P.H. from Yale School of Public Health and an M.S. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

 


Charles Makin
Charles Makin
Head of RWE,
Boehringer-Ingelheim

With nearly 25 years in HEOR, RWE and market access across biopharma, consulting and CROs, Mr. Makin brings unique expertise in integrating rigorous scientific methodology with business rationale to develop, demonstrate & disseminate product value and effectiveness. Mr. Makin currently leads the RWE & Epidemiology team at Boehringer Ingelheim US, planning and executing holistic evidence generation for the entirety of its portfolio. Previously, he served in a dual role at Biogen, serving as both the Global Head of the HEOR, RWE & HTA team across the entirety of Biogen’s portfolio of pipeline and marketed products; and the Global Head of Value & Access for Biogen’s pipeline franchise. Mr. Makin pioneered the Integrated Evidence Generation Process for Biogen, turning multiple siloed workstreams into a unified, efficient, enterprise-wide process for the planning, execution and quality control of evidence generation across the organization. Before joining Biogen, Mr. Makin served as the General Manager/Vice President for ICON plc’s RWE & Late Phase Research unit, the world’s second-largest research group dedicated to prospective data collection; and led the team – comprised of several hundred medical affairs professionals, RWE scientists, biostatisticians, program managers and data management professionals based in >40 countries – to the 2018 Late-Phase CRO Leadership Award. Previously, he held leadership positions in major drug commercialization companies such as IQVIA and Optum; and earlier in his career worked at the large US payers Elevance Health and Humana, where he led RWE initiatives, economic evaluations and health outcomes research studies.
Mr. Makin has served as Principal Investigator on hundreds of retrospective database analyses, large global registries, economic models, PRO studies, patient/physician surveys, ITC/NMAs, SLRs and GVDs across every major therapeutic area; in addition to leading >25 value development plans and has published on health policy – resulting in >75 peer-reviewed manuscripts & scientific presentations, in addition to several invited speeches at HEOR and RWE conferences each year.
Mr. Makin holds a BS in Pharmacy from the University of Pune, an MS in Pharmacy Administration (major in outcomes research) from Purdue University, as well as an MBA (Marketing), summa cum laude, and a Master of Management, summa cum laude, both from Goldey-Beacom College. He also completed a Pharmacoeconomics & Outcomes research Fellowship from Humana.


Janel Titus
Janel Titus
Real-World Data Engagement Lead,
Takeda

Janel Titus is the Real-World Data Engagement Lead for Takeda’s Real-World Data Center of Excellence. She is responsible for driving employee engagement, understanding, and excitement around the RWD CoE and RWD-related assets and capabilities, leading training & informational events, and other cross-functional collaborations. Prior to Takeda, she spent 7 years curating content for a clinical decisions website, where she developed skills in critical appraisal, synthesis, and summarization of medical literature, managed content operations, processes, and the content management system, and helped develop the website user interface in collaboration with product development, editorial, and technical development teams. She has a Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Biology and B.S. in Microbiology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.


Conor Wyand
Conor Wyand
Senior Director, Life Science Solutions,
Truveta

Conor Wyand currently is the Senior Director of Life Science Solutions at Truveta where he leads a team responsible for engaging with potential new Life Science customers. Prior to joining Truveta in 2021, Conor spent six years in various leadership positions at Optum Life Sciences, working with Pharmaceutical and Medical Device manufacturers across the value chain to generate Real World Evidence for therapeutics and devices. Conor graduated from Brown University with a Bachelor's Degree in Applied Mathematics and Economics. 


Richard Gliklich
Richard Gliklich
Chief Executive Officer,
OM1 Inc

Dr. Richard Gliklich, MD is the CEO of OM1, Inc. Previously, he was founder and CEO of Outcome, which he led from inception through its acquisition. Dr. Gliklich is well known in the areas of registries, outcomes and analytics. He is senior editor of the landmark publication by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) handbook "Registries for Evaluating Patient Outcomes: A User's Guide” and the PI for the Outcomes Measures Framework. Dr. Gliklich also holds several patents for both health outcomes systems and medical devices. He is a graduate of Yale University and Harvard Medical School and a former Charles A. Dana Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Gliklich is also a surgeon and the Leffenfeld Professor at Harvard Medical School.


Anju Parthan
Anju Parthan
Independent Consultant,

Dr. Parthan is an accomplished RWE leader focused on generating impactful evidence grounded in patient experience to ensure access to innovative medicines. She has 15+ years of experience developing and executing integrated evidence generation plans and communicating evidence to optimize regulatory success and sustained reimbursement throughout the product lifecycle in oncology, neurology, musculoskeletal, and rare diseases. She has held multiple roles with a wide range of responsibilities in mid-size biotech (FibroGen, Alexion, Alkermes) and HEOR consulting ( Mapi Values, Innovus, Optum). Dr. Parthan received her PhD in Pharmacy Administration from University of Texas at Austin.


William Blumentals
William Blumentals
Sr. Director, Head of Pharmacoepidemiology in Specialty Care,
Sanofi

William Blumentals is Head of Pharmacoepidemiology for Specialty Care at Sanofi.  He is based in Cambridge, MA and has spent the past 20 years leading and managing pharmacoepidemiology teams that have supported drug safety, medical affairs, and commercial organizations.  He has authored or co-authored over 30 manuscripts on topics ranging from disease natural history, product safety, research methods, and use of real-world data sources.


Sarah Willis
Sarah Willis
Director, Vaccines RWE Scientist,
Pfizer

Sarah Willis is currently a Director within Pfizer’s Evidence Generation Platform team where she focuses on real world evidence studies for vaccines, including pneumococcal, meningococcal, and tickborne disease vaccines. Prior to joining Pfizer in 2022, Sarah spent over 10 years enhancing public health surveillance in conjunction with state and local health departments. Mostly recently, she worked with Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health to implement a surveillance platform that identifies and reports notifiable diseases from electronic health record systems to the state’s surveillance system. She also received a PhD in Epidemiology from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and a Masters of Public Health from the State University of New York at Albany.


Jane Huang
Jane Huang
Director, Research Consulting,
Komodo Health

Jane Huang, PhD, is the Director of Research Consulting at Komodo Health. She has 10+ years of experience in pharmaceutical health services research. Prior to Komodo Health, she was a Principal Associate with Harvard Medical School. Jane is an epidemiologist specializing in observational studies on drug utilization and comparative safety/effectiveness. She also served as an investigator of the U.S. FDA Sentinel Initiative at the Sentinel Operations Center. Jane graduated with a BS respectively in Pharmacy and Psychology from National Taiwan University and a Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Health Services Research from the University of Maryland Baltimore.


Kristen Ricchetti-Masterson
Kristen Ricchetti-Masterson
Senior Director of Real World Evidence,
Sarepta Therapeutics

Dr. Kristen Ricchetti-Masterson (she/her) is the Senior Director of Real World Evidence (RWE) at Sarepta Therapeutics where she leads real-world scientific initiatives supporting gene therapies for patients with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. This role includes leading observational studies (both primary and secondary data) as well as the integration of RWE across the drug development lifecycle through contributions to clinical development and regulatory engagement, post-marketing activities, and global market access. She has a decade of pharmaceutical industry experience in pharmacoepidemiology and RWE roles in dermatology, immunoinflammatory, and neurology therapy areas. Dr. Ricchetti-Masterson earned her Ph.D. and M.S.P.H. in Epidemiology from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.


Pamela Landsman-Blumberg
Pamela Landsman-Blumberg
Senior Vice President - Real-World Evidence and HEOR Insights,
Magnolia Market Access

Pamela Landsman-Blumberg is an industry recognized subject matter expert in RWD evaluation and RWE generation. Her work product has improved the evidence- and value-based decision making of payers, providers, and policymakers.  Pam currently advises industry and trade associations on all aspects of fit-for-purpose RWD, RWE and HEOR strategy.  Pam holds a Master of Public Health in biostatistics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a Doctor of Public Health in health policy and management from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.


Genevieve Lyons
Genevieve Lyons
Associate Director, Global HEOR Analytics Alexion,
AstraZeneca RDU

Genevieve is a Associate Director of HEOR Analytics at Alexion, AstraZeneca Rare Disease Unit. Genevieve has extensive experience in using RWE to generate clinical evidence in support of clinical programs. She advances the use of interpretable and practical Machine Learning / AI solutions in biomedical contexts. Prior to her time at Alexion, Genevieve worked in startups as a lead in developing machine learning methods for clinical research. Genevieve holds an MS in Health Data Science from Harvard University, at the T.H. Chan School of Public Health.


Pamela Vo
Pamela Vo
Global HEOR & Access Evidence Lead, Executive Director, Neuroscience,
Novartis

Pamela is a passionate HEOR & Access Evidence leader with over 18 years of Pharma experience. She has worked across the full product lifecycle in multiple therapeutic areas, in the US, International and Global settings. As a strategic, results-driven, action-orientated thinker and leader, Pamela has a proven track record of turning ideas into impactful results with a demonstrated history of peer-reviewed publications, successful regulatory approvals, access & reimbursement, and clinical adoption. Pamela holds a Doctor of Pharmacy and a Masters in Pharmacoenomics & Policy from the University of Southern California.