List of Speakers (alphabetical order)
- Ségolène Aymé
- Laura Bermejo
- Gianni d'Errico
- Thierry Damerval
- Erik de Vrieze
- Laurent Essioux
- Francesca Ferrua
- Monika Frenzel
- Paula Garcia
- Jillian Hastings-Ward
- Jutta Heix
- Markus Kalliola
- Sang-Heon Lee
- Deborah Marshall
- Henrique Martins
- Ejner Moltzen
- Maria Teresa Moreno-Casbas
- Balázs Nagy
- Laura Navne
- Irene Norstedt
- Mike Paulden
- Katherine Payne
- Paula Pohlmann
- Nikolaus Rajewsky
- Trishna Rathod Mistry
- Liisa-Maria Voipio-Pulkki
- Eyal Zimlichman
Ségolène Aymé
Health Data Hub
Ségolène Aymé is currently President of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Health Data Hub. She is a medical geneticist and epidemiologist, Director of Research Emeritus at INSERM. She is the founder of ORPHANET (www.orphanet.fr). She has held numerous national and international positions in the field of genetic diseases and rare diseases and is now putting this experience at the service of the Institut du Cerveau in Paris, as part of her emeritus position. In the field of genetics, she has chaired the French Society of Human Genetics, the European Society of Human Genetics and the International Federation of Human Genetic Societies. In the field of epidemiology, she chaired the Registry Evaluation Committee, and was the coordinator of the European network of malformation registries EUROCAT. In the field of rare diseases, she chaired the European Union Rare Diseases Committee and the WHO Rare Diseases Advisory Committee, and was the Scientific Secretary of the International Rare Diseases Research Consortium IRDiRC. In the field of ethics, she created and chaired for ten years the European Society of Human Genetics' ethical reflection body. She was a member of the INSERM ethics committee and now chairs the ethics committee of the Paris Brain Institute.
Laura Bermejo
IRYCS
Laura got her PhD in Genetics and Cellular Biology from Alcala University in Madrid (1997). After stances in New York Medical College (NY, USA) and University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, USA), she returned to Spain. First, to University Hospital Puerto de Hierro (Madrid) and finally to University Hospital Ramon y Cajal (2002), where she has established and leads the Biomarkers and Therapeutic targets Group that belongs to the Ramon y Cajal Health Research Institute (IRYCIS) and to EATRIS. Her group is studying pathophysiological mechanisms of diseases, particularly, nephropathies, cardiovascular diseases and cancer, identifying new biomarkers and therapeutic targets useful in clinical practice. She is currently the Scientific Director of IRYCIS, since 2019. She is the Co-Chair of EATRIS Biomarker Platform (2015) and EATRIS Spain National Director (2022) and leading our working group on the Multiomic Toolbox development.
Gianni d'Errico
Fondazione Toscana Life Sciences, Italy
Gianni D’Errico (m) MPol, EMBA Laureate: he is head of Project Management Office at Toscana Life Sciences, the main regional player in the biomedical field and policy support in Tuscany Region.
He is also vice chair of the International Consortium for Personalised Medicine. He obtained his degree cum laude in International Relations at Federico II University in Napoli, with a major in international economics.
He obtained his Post Graduate master’s degree in Project Management in Rome and a certification in Intellectual Property Management at University of Bonn (DE). He is also an EMBA laureate at Bologna Business School (University of Bologna).
He started his professional experience in Brussels managing R&D projects within FP7 Programme in the Energy and Environment Sector. In 2013, he moved in Slovenia where he gained an extensive experience on the R&D project in Health and Biotech sectors for the main international players (Novartis, Sandoz, Lek, Merck, Millipore, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, etc.). In 2015, he moved to Milan where he held the position of the European Funding Officer at Regional Foundation for Biomedical research (15 Million €/year to fund biomedical research).
In July 2018 he Moved in Florence where he works as Head of Project Management Office at Toscana Life Sciences, within the Office for the valorisation of health research (UVaR) at the DG health of Tuscany Region.
Thierry Damerval
French National Research Agency (ANR), France
Thierry Damerval was appointed President and Chief Executive Officer of the French National Research Agency (ANR) by Decree of the President of the French Republic dated 8 December 2017. Thierry Damerval has been Inserm's Vice-CEO since 2011 after holding the position of Deputy Director-General for Strategy from 2007 to 2011. PhD in microbiology from the University Paris Diderot, he began his career at the Pasteur Institute in Paris and joined the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) in 1993 where he held several leading positions including that of manager of biology research programmes, director of strategy and evaluation and director of a CEA biomedical research centre. He also has been adviser on biological and medical research to the French Minister in charge of Research (1996-1997), adviser on research and innovation to the Prime Minister (2005-2006) and Director of the Office of the Minister for Higher Education and Research (2006-2007).
Erik de Vrieze
Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Radboud University Medical Center, Netherlands
Erik de Vrieze performed his doctoral studies at the department of Animal Physiology at the Radboud University (Nijmegen, the Netherlands). In this research, he developed a model for medium-throughput screening of anti-osteoporosis drug based on the scales of transgenic zebrafish. His love for zebrafish models, and desire to work in closer contact with patients, inspired his move to the department of Otorhinolaryngology at the Radboud University Medical Center (Nijmegen, the Netherlands). Here, Erik de Vrieze is a core member part of the NFU-accredited “Hearing & Genes” National Centre of Expertise. Together with his colleagues, he invested in unique and close collaborations between patients and academia.
His current research is aimed at elucidating the pathophysiology of Usher syndrome (deafblindness) and inherited hearing loss, and to develop needed novel (genetic) treatments for these disorders. He contributed to the proof-of-concept studies of antisense oligonucleotide (ASO)-based exon-skipping therapy for USH2A-associated retinal degeneration (PMID: 33895329), which form the scientific basis of the successful clinical trial “STELLAR” (NCT03780257, ProQR Therapeutics). Based on this success, initiated the development of ASO-based treatments for dominantly-inherited hearing loss.
Laurent Essioux
Data Science and Statistics at Roche, Switzerland
Laurent Essioux is an executive director in Data Science and Statistics at Roche.
Laurent holds an agronomy engineering degree from the French Grande école “Institut Agronomique de Paris-Grignon (Agro Paris tech)” and a PhD in statistical genetics from Paris-Sud University. Prior to joining Roche, Laurent started his career as a genetic statistician in two French genomic biotech companies. Laurent joined Roche in 2003 where he held multiple global leadership positions in translational bioinformatics, biostatistics, genomics and biomarker platforms, in support of drug discovery , translational research, and personalized Healthcare. He joined the Data Science and Statistics department, in 2017 where he set up a biomarker data scientists group supporting the personalized healthcare portfolio in neuroscience and oncology.
His primary interests and passion are in developing and applying advanced statistical methodologies to precision medicine, notably the development of risk prediction models, stat genetics approaches and more recently advanced analytics approaches to the development digital health technology tools.
He co-authored more than 40 scientific publications.
Francesca Ferrua
San Raffaele Telethon Institute for Gene Therapy, San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan
Francesca Ferrua is a physician scientist currently working as a staff pediatrician in the Immunohematology and Bone Marrow Transplantation (BMT) Unit of San Raffaele Hospital in Milan, Italy. She graduated at Vita-Salute San Raffaele University in Milan in 2008, where she also completed her éducation with a Residency in Pediatrics (2014) and an international PhD in Molecular Medicine (Basic and Applied Immunology Curriculum) (2019). In 2014, she spent a training period in the Pédiatrie Immunology and BMT Unit at Great North Children's Hospital in Newcastle, UK.
Francesca's main interest is the diagnosis, management and treatment of pédiatrie patients affected by inborn errors of immunity and non-malignant hematological diseases. She is expert in allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation and gene therapy in patients affected by primary immunodeficiencies (ADA-SCID, Wiskott-Aldrich Syndrome - WAS) and lysosomal storage disorders (Metachromatic Leukodystrophy - MLD; Mucopolysaccharidosis type I, MPSI).
In particular, she has been primarily involved as key investigator in the development and management of gene therapy clinical trials for WAS at San Raffaele Telethon Institute for Gene Therapy. Moreover, she is currently working on the pre-clinical development of gene-editing for the treatment of a primary immune deficiency, hyper IgM syndrome.
She is author of several scientific publications on peer-reviewed journal and member of a number of Scientific Societies.
Monika Frenzel
ICPerMed Secretariat, French National Research Agency (ANR), France
Dr Monika Frenzel, International Coordinator in the Biology and Health department of the French National Research Agency (L'Agence Nationale de la Recherche, ANR), represents ANR in several transnational collaborations and international funding programmes. As such, she is part of the coordination and support action (CSA) ICPerMed Secretariat and ICPerMed itself. She represents ANR within the ERA-Net on Personalised Medicine, ERA PerMed, and is appointed chair for the respective programme for already 4 years. She furthermore, represents ANR in the Coordination and Support Action (CSA) EU-Africa PerMed “Building Links Between Europe and Africa in Personalised Medicine”.
Monika Frenzel completed her PhD in Physical Biochemistry and Radiation Biology and worked as researcher in the field of cytogenetics and cohort studies.
Paula Garcia
ECRIN
Paula Garcia holds a Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry Pharmacy and Biology from the Universidad Autonoma de Guadalajara (Mexico) and an International Masters of Public Health from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Santé Publique (France). Paula has solid experience in international scientific cooperation and in the field of development aid. She previously worked as a project manager for the pharmaceutical industry, for the French research agency on HIV/AIDS and viral hepatitis (ANRS) and for a public health consulting firm, managing public health projects in developing countries.
Paula joined ECRIN as a project manager in 2019. She is focused on infrastructure development projects in Europe and beyond, helping ECRIN to liaise and cooperate with other existing and upcoming research infrastructures and networks. Paula was the project manager for the PErsonalised MedIcine Trials (PERMIT) project, which developed methodological recommendations for personalised medicine research programs.
Jillian Hastings-Ward
Genomics England, UK
Jillian is the Chair of the Participant Panel, representing the interests of Genomics England participants. Her family joined the Project in 2015, in search of answers for her young son who is severely disabled. She brings professional analytical, strategic and communication skills from a career in consultancy and the Civil Service. She also brings her years of lived experience with a child who has complex needs.
Jutta Heix
Oslo Cancer Cluster, Norway
Jutta Heix, Head of International Affairs at the Oslo Cancer Cluster, is a life science professional with more than 25 years of experience in the biopharma sector. She holds a PhD from the University of Heidelberg / German Cancer Research Center and worked in different Business Development positions in international pharma and biotech companies prior to joining Oslo Cancer Cluster.
Jutta is responsible for the cluster’s international collaboration and initiatives and provides innovation and business development support to Oslo Cancer Cluster and Incubator members. She is the Project Lead of the Norwegian Precision Cancer Medicine Implementation Consortium CONNECT, a public-private collaboration driving the implementation of Precision Cancer Medicine by jointly addressing key obstacles and piloting novel solutions to transform the current practice.
Furthermore, Jutta organizes the annual Cancer Crosslinks Event, a scientific and educational meeting with international key opinion leaders in immuno-oncology and precision medicine in Oslo as well as the International Cancer Cluster Showcase, featuring emerging oncology companies from Europe and North America as Satellite event to BIO International Convention in the US. As a Co-Founder of the Norwegian Program, she is a member of the SPARK Norway Management Team advancing and professionalizing academic innovation projects.
Markus Kalliola
The Finnish innovation fund Sitra, Finland
Markus Kalliola is the project director in Health data 2030 project in The Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra and the coordinator of Joint Action Towards The European Health Data Space (TEHDAS). Prior to Sitra he worked in the European Commission in DG Health and food safety where he was responsible of the cross-border healthcare IT projects. Mr. Kalliola has vast experience in data economy and in the next years he will work towards healthier and fairer data economy for Europe as well as towards more competitive health data ecosystem in Finland.
Mr. Kalliola holds a positions of trust in HMA-EMA joint big data steering group, HMA-EMA Darwin EU advisory board and DNV Digital health advisory board.
Sang-Heon Lee
Korea University Anam Hospital, Korea
Dr. Lee is the head of the Medical Science and Information Unit at Korea University Medicine and the chief executive officer (CEO) at HUNIVERSE Global. HUNIVERSE Global offers cloud-based medical platforms, including electric medical record systems (EMR), to provide precision medicine to patients. He received a doctorate in rehabilitation medicine at the College of Medicine in Korea University. He was a principal investigator for a project to develop a cloud-based hospital information system (HIS) that has been operating in three Korea University hospitals. He pursues active corroborations with researchers and AI companies to build better AI models using big medical data accumulated via the cloud-based HIS.
Deborah Marshall
University of Calgary, Canada
Deborah is a health economist and health services researcher leading a programme of applied research using patient preferences, patient engagement and simulation modelling methods. Dr Marshall leads the health economics, socioeconomic benefits, patient preferences and patient engagement activities for several national and international research programmes in precision health and patient-oriented research to develop health economic tools and approaches to evaluate outcomes: 1) UCAN CAN-DU (Understanding Childhood Arthritis Network Canada-Netherlands) and 2) UCAN CURE (Precision Decisions for Childhood Arthritis personalized medicine networks in childhood arthritis combining genomic techniques, machine learning methods and simulation modelling to predict response to treatment and its associated health outcomes and economic impact; 3) SOLVE Care4Rare Canada - harnessing multi-omics to deliver innovative diagnostic care for rare genetic diseases; 4) TIGeR (Translational Implementation of Genomics for Rare diseases), partnership with Medical Genetics and Alberta Provincial Laboratory for the clinical application of genome wide sequencing; and 5) IMAGINE Strategy for Patient Oriented Research (SPOR) Chronic Disease Network (Inflammation, Microbiome, and Alimentation: Gastro-Intestinal and Neuropsychiatric Effects, CIHR SPOR). She is a Founding Member of the Global Economics and Evaluation of Clinical Genomics Sequencing Working Group (GEECS).
Henrique Martins
ISCTE-IUL, Catholica Business School, FCS-UIB Medical School, HL7 Europe Foundation Independent Consultant
He has a Medical Degree, Internal Medicine Speciality, a Master and PhD degrees in Management, and a Law Master’s degree (thesis on the Public Liability implications of AI in Health), presently doing a PhD in Law (Human Rights in the Metaverse: Digital Twins in Healthcare). He is a Medical Doctor and University Professor, teaching and researching in Digital Health, Healthcare Systems and Transformation, Leadership and Management education for Medical Students and Health Professionals. He was one of the first CMIOs in Portugal in 2009-2013 at Hospital Fernando Fonseca, Lisbon, where he implemented large EHR system and founded an Innovation Center in Big Data and Robotics. During the years at the Ministry of Health he was responsible for creating a health data sharing platform for all national health service compatible with the advanced GDPR principles as early as 2012 and set the agenda for ehealth in Portugal. He is the past president of SPMS, Portugal's Digital Health Agency, where he led National eHealth efforts for close to 7 years, implementing a wide set of innovative national level health digital services. In 2019 he established one of the first Digital Health ethics committee in an EU country. He represented Portugal for 8 years and was the former Member States co-chair of the EU eHealth Network, the highest policy body on eHealth in the Union.
Elected Fellow of the International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics (within IMIA) in July 2020. He is a National Defence Auditor (National institute of Defence, Ministry of Defence, Portugal). Since August 2020 he has integrates the HL7 Europe Foundation Board of Diretors. He now works as an Academic in two high-ranked business schools (ISCTE-IUL, and Catholica Business School), and one medical school (FCS-UIB), and on individual consulting projects in Healthcare Transformation and Digital Health (www.henriquemartins.eu). He has authored a series of papers some of which looking at new trends for digital health at Global, European, National and Hospital levels.
Ejner Moltzen
Innovation Fund Denmark, Denmark
Ejner Moltzen is a medicinal chemist by training and has for over almost 30 years been working within R&D at H. Lundbeck A/S in different managerial as well as strategic positions. He has been heavily involved with running efficient drug discovery projects, both in terms of delivering candidates for clinical trials and in terms of optimizing the related processes. He was part of Lundbeck’s global research management and thereby involved with setting the company’s research strategies and activities. He was also responsible for alliance management within R&D and was involved with both company collaborations as well as public-private partnerships, where he represented Lundbeck in EFPIA/IMI context. In 2016 he became independent and founded Somami Consulting ApS, which is a consulting company focusing on providing support within R&D projects, operations, alliance management, strategy and policy initiatives, collaboration contracts and project evaluations. He is supporting public agencies as well as private enterprises, nationally as well as internationally. He is in particular involved with Innovation Fund Denmark where he is this agency’s lead representative within international activities relating to personalized medicine. He is currently elected as Chair of ICPermed which is an EC funded European initiative to promote implementation of personalized medicine.
Maria Teresa Moreno-Casbas
Nursing and Healthcare Research Unit (Investén- isciii). Instituto de Salud Carlos III
Dr Moreno Casbas had formal education in Nursing in the University of Valladolid in 1981. She obtained a Maîtrise en Sciences by the University of Montreal Canada and she is obtained her Ph Doctoral degree in Epidemiology and Public Health at the University Rey Juan Carlos. Her 2-year postdoctoral work at the University of Toronto focused on health care policy and implementation of Evidence Best Practices. From 1996, she is the Nursing Director of the Spanish Nursing and Healthcare Research Unit located in the Institute of Health Carlos III, which belongs to the Spanish the Ministry of Science and Innovation. Since that year this unit has strategically sought to improve research in Nursing and Healthcare in Spain and now the effort is focused on the implementation of nursing research findings on the daily practice of Spanish health professionals working in our National Health System. Se was nominate Fellow of the European Academy of Nursing in 2016 and Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing in 2019.
Balázs Nagy
Semmelweis University of Medicine Hungary
Balázs Nagy graduated from the University of Debrecen Faculty of Economics and Business Administration (MSc in 2000; PhD in 2009). Between 2000-2004 he was working for the Hungarian National Health Insurance Fund and the Hungarian Ministry of Health where he specialized in managed care. He spent the 2003-2004 semester with a doctoral scholarship at the University of Sheffield, School of Health and Related Research. From October 2004, he was granted a 4-year joint research fellowship and an academic research position at Corvinus University of Budapest and University of Sheffield. Currently he is a Senior Research Fellow at Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) and University of Sheffield and Head of Economic Modelling Division at Syreon Research Institute. His research interests are health technology assessment and modelling in health care, health insurance, health care financing, capitation finance, and risk adjustment.
Laura Navne
The Danish Centre for Social Science, VIVE, Denmark
Laura Navne is associate professor in medical anthropology at VIVE, Copenhagen. Medical technology, decision-making, and ethics is at the heart of Laura’s more than twelve years career of research. Currently, Laura is engaged in research on the ethics in genomics, exploring the ethical and social implications of the emergence of precision medicine and the use of new gene-technologies (exome sequencing) in the field of rare diseases and diabetes. In her PhD from Department of Public Health, University of Copenhagen in 2017, Laura studied practices and experiences of life-and-death decisions in a neonatal intensive care unit in Denmark. Laura has for many years been engaged in cross-disciplinary collaborations, working together with political scientists, medical doctors, midwifes in Denmark and Canada (SickKids Hospital). Academically Laura has affiliations with the department of anthropology at University of Toronto (2020-2021) and New York University (2015).
Irene Norstedt
European Commission - Director responsible for the People Directorate within the DG for Research and Innovation
Irene Norstedt works at the European Commission where she is the Director responsible for the People Directorate within the DG for Research and Innovation. Irene has been at the European Commission since 1996, and was instrumental in the creation of the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) in 2008. From 16 December 2014 to 15 September 2015, Irene served as Acting Executive Director of the Innovative Medicines Initiative. Prior to joining the European Commission, she worked for the Swedish life science company Biacore AB and at the Swedish embassy in London. Irene studied biotechnology and polymer science, and holds a Master of Science (MsC) in Chemical Engineering.
Mike Paulden
University of Alberta, Canada
I am a health economist with an interest in health technology assessment. My research is focused upon developing appropriate methods for the economic evaluation of health technologies. I hold an MA in economics conferred by the University of Cambridge, an MSc in health economics from the University of York and a PhD in medicine from the University of Alberta.
Katherine Payne
The University of Manchester, UK
Professor Katherine Payne (ORCID: 0000-0002-3938-4350) is an academic health economist with 28-years applied and methodological research experience in the economic evaluation (using RCT and decision-analytic models) and valuation (using discrete choice experiments and contingent valuation) of health care interventions and specifically precision medicine. She developed an interest in genomics when working as the health economist for the North West Genetics Knowledge Park (2003 to 2007) and continues to collaborate closely with colleagues based in the Manchester Centre for Genomic Medicine. This research profile has supported her methodological interest of how to identify, measure and value the benefits of interventions that extend beyond the impact on health.
She has over 150 peer-reviewed publications and had a key role in multi-disciplinary research programmes funded by Innovate UK, MRC, NIHR, Department of Health and Charities (Versus Arthritis and Cancer Research UK). She has been the lead economist on a number of large MRC-funded consortia looking at using targeted approaches (developing prescribing algorithms) for biologics and other medicines (for lupus, psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis).
She has a particular interest in the use of economic evidence to inform decision-making in practice and was a member of a NICE Technology Appraisal committee.
Paula Pohlmann
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, USA
Precision medicine in the treatment of patients with breast cancer: the I-SPY trials’ experience
Dr Pohlmann is a board-certified medical oncologist specializing in phase I clinical trials and in breast cancer research and treatment. After completing medical studies and postgraduation at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil, Dr. Pohlmann received the Kalf Fellowship/Career Development Award for studies on breast cancer immunology at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. She subsequently worked at the Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN on therapeutic MAbs pharmacology, serum proteomics and biomarker development, leading to 4 patents later licensed for development by industry. She completed clinical retraining in both Medicine and Hematology-Oncology at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, subsequently joining Vanderbilt Faculty. She became an I-SPY 2 clinical investigator in 2013, when she joined the Breast Cancer Program of the Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center in Washington, DC. In 2021, Dr Pohlmann joined the Department of Breast Medical Oncology of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. She has a secondary appointment at the Department of Investigational Cancer Therapeutics. At the MDACC, Dr Pohlmann serves at the Advisory Council of Clinical Research Leaders and as the Chief of Clinical Research of the Breast Medical Oncology Department. Dr Pohlmann currently serves as an I-SPY 2.2 investigator, as member of the I-SPY Safety and New Agents Committees and as the PRE-ISPY/I-SPY Phase IB national leader.
Nikolaus Rajewsky
Berlin Institute for Medical Systems Biology of the Max Delbrück Center (MDC-BIMSB), Germany
Nikolaus Rajewsky uses both computational and experimental molecular biology methods to study the function of RNA in animal development and stem cells. Nikolaus is a Professor at the Charité, the Max Delbrück Center, and the Humboldt University in Berlin. He has received numerous awards, including the most important prize in Germany (“Leibniz” award). In 2008 he founded and since then chairs the “Berlin Institute for Medical Systems Biology” (“BIMSB”, a new MDC center, now 17 labs and a new building in the center of Berlin). His latest research (and of Colleagues) using single-cell approaches was featured in Science “Breakthrough of the Year 2018”. Nikolaus serves as coordinator of “LifeTime”, a pan-European consortium of 90 research institutions & >70 companies to understand molecular mechanisms of the progression of human diseases.
Trishna Rathod Mistry
NDORMS Department at University of Oxford, UK
I joined the Pharmaco and Device Epidemiology research group within the NDORMS department in January 2022 as a senior statistician. I have an interest in applying complex longitudinal models to routinely collected medical record data, particularly in the estimation of time-varying treatment in the presence of time-varying confounding.
Previously, I was employed by Keele University, School of Medicine (2010-2022) as a statistician. I completed my PhD in 2021 which aimed to estimate the time-varying effect of allopurinol in gout using marginal structural models and propensity score stratification. I have worked on a wide variety of primary care research projects across different study populations (musculoskeletal conditions, dementia, and chest pain) and study designs (randomised controlled trials, prognosis, case-crossover, and longitudinal cohorts).
My interest in medical statistics started when I studied Mathematical Sciences BSc at the University of Birmingham. After which, I studied Medical Statistics MSc at the University of Leicester.
Liisa-Maria Voipio-Pulkki
Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, Finland
Dr. Liisa-Maria Voipio-Pulkki is currently Chief Medical Officer and Senior Adviser in the Permanent Secretary´s cabinet at the Finnish Ministry of Social Affairs and Health. She served as Director General of Strategic Affairs in 2018-21.
She joined the Ministry in 2010 as the Director of the Health Care Group, concentrating on the health system performance and hospital reform issues. Previously she was employed as the Senior Medical Adviser of the Finnish Association of Local and Regional Authorities in 2004-2009, Chief of Emergency and Acute Care of the Helsinki University Hospital District in 2000-2004 and as a specialist and Adjunct Professor of Medicine in the University of Turku, Finland.
Since 2014 she has been actively involved in the Finnish Government´s “Health Growth Strategy”, focusing on implementation of innovations in health systems and the impact of the act on secondary use of health and social data.
Since 2017 she has chaired the Steering Committee of the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, a WHO hosted partnership supporting evidence-informed health policy making. Most recently, she has been an active member of the COVID-19 steering group of the Ministry
Eyal Zimlichman
Sheba Medical Center, Israel
Prof. Eyal Zimlichman is an internal medicine physician, a health care executive and a researcher focused on assessing and improving health care quality and value, patient engagement and patient safety.
Prof. Zimlichman currently serves as Chief Transformation Officer and Chief Innovation Officer at Sheba Medical Center, Israel's largest hospital. In this position he oversees the transformation efforts carried out at the Medical Center as it aims to redesign healthcare to be focused on patients, while being more effective, efficient and equitable. For these reasons, Prof. Zimlichman founded Sheba’s global innovation program (ARC – Accelerate, Redesign and Collaborate). Prior to this Prof. Zimlichman held the position of Chief Medical Officer and before that as Chief Quality Officer, both at Sheba.
Preceding his work at Sheba, Prof. Zimlichman held the position of Lead Researcher at Partners Health Care Clinical Affairs Department in Boston where he was involved in the efforts to bring about a strategic care redesign initiative. In that capacity, Prof. Zimlichman established their program for collecting and reporting patient reported outcomes across the continuum of care, a program that earned international appraisal. During that time, Prof. Zimlichman held an appointment at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School affiliated Center for Patient Safety Research and Practice, where he conducted research on implementing technology to improve quality and patient safety.
Prof. Zimlichman is a founding member of the International Academy of Quality and Safety in Health Care and an International Expert at the International Society of Quality in Healthcare (ISQua). He also served as an advisor to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
In 2007 Prof. Zimlichman was selected as a member of Sheba's Talpiot Medical Leadership Program, a program aimed at advancing the brightest young physicians into leadership roles. In 2017 he was appointed head of the program. Prof. Zimlichman is a graduate of the Harvard School of Public Health Master of Science in Healthcare Management program and has earned his MD at the Technion Israel Institute of Technology.
