Speakers:

Cindy Atwell
Senior Vice President, Business Development & Alliance Management
Precision Biosciences

Cindy Atwell is the Senior Vice President of Business Development and Alliance Management at Precision BioSciences, where she leads a team which forms new partnerships, manages current collaborations, and shapes new business processes as well as the portfolio. She holds approximately 22 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, with most of her time spent in business development and commercial roles. Over the course of her career, Cindy has led or participated in the negotiation of a number of transactions, totaling over $10Bn in value. Prior to Precision BioSciences, she led oncology and drug delivery deals as well as strategy projects at Halozyme. Over the years, Cindy has held various roles within the business development and commercial organizations at AbbVie, Amylin, and Impax. Early in her career, she participated in discovery research at a start-up biotechnology company.

Cindy holds a BS in biochemistry and molecular biology from Pennsylvania State University and an MBA from the University of California, San Diego's Rady School of Management.

Aida Bendt, CA-AM
Head of Alliance Management BD & Licensing Oncology R&D
AstraZeneca

Aida is the head of alliance management in oncology R&D at AstraZeneca. Her team is responsible for a broad portfolio of global strategic Alliances, including co-development, licensing, acquisitions, externalizations, and clinical collaborations. Aida has over 25 years of experience in the biopharma industry including project & portfolio management, alliance and integration management, business development, and compliance. At Medimmune she created and led a centralized alliance management function with accountability for key strategic partnerships across therapeutic areas. She was responsible along with her team for establishing innovative alliance best practices, advanced systems, and alliance capabilities at Medimmune. Prior to that during her 13 years at Medimmune, Aida held positions of increasing responsibility while managing a variety of drug development projects and partnerships across oncology, respiratory, inflammation, autoimmunity, and other therapeutic areas. Aida has experience leading through broad organization-wide change initiatives and has extensive drug development experience across diverse therapeutic areas gained through multiple roles earlier in her career. She fosters an alliance management community of excellence within AstraZeneca, is President of the DC/Mid Atlantic Chapter of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals, and CA-AM certified.

Christopher Black, CA-AM
Head, Corporate Alliance Management & Integration
Merck

Chris leads Merck's corporate alliance management & integration team. His group provides enterprise-level leadership for a multi-billion-dollar portfolio of strategic alliances and collaborations, as well as managing multiple M&A integration programs.

The majority of Chris' 15 years at Merck have involved management of partnerships for co-development, co-manufacturing and/or co-commercialization of vaccines and pharmaceuticals. He has managed global, regional and local strategic alliances, Joint Ventures, Institutional Businesses and NGO partners collectively active in over 110 countries.

Prior to Merck, Chris was an active-duty US Army officer. After the military, Chris joined Cintas Corporation, a business services company, where he held positions including sales manager, plant manager, regional director and general manager.

Chris has been a member of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals since 2010 and has recently joined its global advisory board.

Elena Bonfiglioli
General Manager, Worldwide Healthcare, Strategy Lead, Pharma and Life Sciences
Microsoft

 

 

Mary Beth Campbell, PhD
Director of Alliance Management
Vir Biotechnology

Mary Beth is presently a director of alliance management at Vir Biotechnology and is a PhD physicist by training with experience across technology transfer, business development, and alliance management. At Vir, she is responsible for a portfolio of exploratory and early-stage research collaborations with academia, non-profit organizations, and biotech partners. Prior to joining Vir in 2021, Mary Beth led the Corporate Partnerships team at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), where she was responsible for developing, maintaining, and augmenting research partnerships and strategic relationships between Caltech and industry collaborators. She began her career in science policy, focusing on innovation policy and program evaluation.

A registered U.S. Patent Agent, Campbell was awarded the 2013 Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM) Howard Bremer Scholarship for new technology transfer professionals. Mary Beth was a national defense science and engineering graduate fellow while earning her PhD in applied physics from Harvard University.

Christine A. Carberry, CSAP
Principal
Carberry Consulting

Christine Carberry is a biopharmaceutical leader with the unique ability to transform strategy into results through the power of collaboration. Most recently she was the Chief Operating Officer at Keryx Biopharmaceuticals. In her leadership role she served on the Executive Committee while leading initiatives in cross-functional integration, operational excellence, and program management. She headed the Manufacturing, Technical Operations, Quality, Human Resources, and Regulatory functions.

Prior to Keryx, she served as a Senior Vice President at Forum Pharmaceuticals. At Forum, she established the Program & Alliance Management cross-functional matrix to integrate across the entire organization. She also led the CMC, Supply Chain, and Quality functions.

At Biogen for over 25 years, Christine held positions of increasing responsibility as the company advanced from a biotechnology pioneer to an internationally recognized Fortune 500 company.

Christine is a Certified Strategic Alliance Professional (CSAP). She holds an M.S. in innovation and technology management from Boston University, Graduate Certificates in Management and Biotechnology Strategy from Harvard University, and a B.S. in biochemistry from the University of New Hampshire.

Vickie Dalton, PsyD
HSPP and Clinical Psychologist

Dr. Victoria Dalton, PsyD, HSPP, is a forensically trained psychologist with dual specialties in forensic and clinical psychology. A large portion of her practice is to effectively address and manage conflict within the legal and business worlds. Specifically, Dr. Dalton frequently engages in court-ordered high-conflict family work as well as providing consultation services to both business and legal professionals attempting to manage their most difficult clientele. She presents and has testified on the topics of conflict resolution, high-conflict families, criminal psychopathy, grief and loss, substance abuse, and personality disorders. Dr. Dalton practices in the Indianapolis area and can be reached at vdalton@indianahealthgroup.com.

Janeen Doyle
Senior Vice President, Global Alliances
Bristol Myers Squibb

Janeen Doyle is the senior vice president of global alliances at Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS). In this role, Janeen is responsible for managing a portfolio of strategic collaborations with internal and external partners, spanning from early drug discovery to commercialization.

Janeen leads a group of alliance leaders who manage collaborations, governance structures and embed partnering best practices across Bristol Myers Squibb. External partnerships play a critical role in helping BMS carry out its mission of discovering, developing and delivering innovative medicines that help transform the lives of patients through science.

Prior to the BMS acquisition of Celgene, Janeen worked at Celgene for 10 years holding various positions of increasing responsibilities in business development, alliance management & integration, project leadership and medical affairs. Before joining Celgene in 2009, Janeen held a range of roles in clinical research for multiple biotechnology companies.

Janeen holds bachelor's degree in biology and a master's degree in business administration.

Mark Dresen
Manager, Alliance Management
Eli Lilly & Company

Mark, accompanied by his guide dog Francie, works as an Alliance Manager for Lilly managing both developmental and commercial global alliances with such names as GSK, United Therapeutics, Janson, Sanofi and others, also managing Lilly's authorized generic alliances and some of his department's publication efforts.

His degree is a B.S. in Communications with an emphasis on Organizational Communications. Prior to Lilly his background was in Market Analysis and Financial Underwriting. In his spare time, he does public speaking and advocacy work in the areas of Disability Awareness, Inclusion and Accessibility.

Jason Felsch, CSAP, PhD
Head, Alliance & Integration Management
AstraZeneca

Jason's healthcare experience spans diverse modalities and therapeutic areas, in industry and academia, startups, biotech, and Big Pharma. In 2018 Jason defined, introduced, and developed the alliance & integration management function at Boston-based Alexion Pharmaceuticals, which was acquired by AstraZeneca in 2021. His team provides leadership for post-deal management of Alexion's strategic partnering portfolio. Reporting into Finance and embedded within business development, his team leads cross-functional oversight of alliances, out-licensing, and post-merger integrations. They manage dozens of collaborative business relationships spanning research, development, and commercial stage franchises. Trained as a biochemist at Chicago and Harvard, his early research career included work at the Mayo Clinic and at a drug discovery startup ultimately acquired by Merck. Prior to joining Alexion, Jason led partnering at three Harvard-affiliated research institutions: Massachusetts General Hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and the Broad Institute. Outside of the office, Jason enjoys hiking, squash, and genealogy. ASAP member since 2010, Jason is a Certified Strategic Alliance Professional.

Patrick Gliha
Executive Director, Global Alliances
BMS

Patrick Gliha is an executive director and member of the BMS Global Alliances Leadership Team. In this role, Patrick is responsible for leading a team of seven alliance managers and overseeing a portfolio of external collaborations that are cross-therapeutic, cross-modality, and cross-phases of development and commercialization.

Patrick joined BMS in 2019 through the acquisition of Celgene. Prior to joining the global alliances team, he began his career working in global government affairs & policy at Celgene and Amgen, working on access and reimbursement for the in-line portfolio and late-stage pipeline.

Brent Harvey, CA-AM
Senior Director, Alliance Management and M&A Integration
Eli Lilly & Company

Brent leads teams focused on maximizing the value of partnered assets at each stage of the development and commercialization cycle.

Brent has played an integral role in some of the largest development and commercial alliances at Lilly, including worldwide partnerships with BMS, Merck KGaA, Daiichi-Sankyo, Innovent Biologics, GSK, and Sanofi. He also has alliance manager experience with venture capital collaborations, strategic equity investment companies, and oncology clinical trial collaborations. Brent has responsibilities for M&A integration as well.

Brent has an engineering degree from Purdue and an MBA from Indiana University. He also has a CA-AM and is a certified management accountant (CMA).

Carlos Keener
Partner
BTD

Carlos is an M&A integration expert, published author, founding Partner of BTD and a Master in Chemical Engineering from Imperial College, London. Carlos has supported acquisitions and integrations worldwide for over 20 years and continues to advise on M&A business strategy, post-deal operational performance and create programs for business restructuring and improvement.

Prior to BTD, Carlos worked with PwC and Accenture designing and managing integration and business improvement initiatives. Alongside his client work, Carlos is also a non-executive director of international energy firm IPR and regularly writes for and speaks at global events.

Katherine Kendrick, CSAP
Head of Alliance Management
Jazz Pharmaceuticals

Katherine Kendrick is Head of Alliance Management at Jazz Pharmaceuticals, a global biopharmaceutical company that develops life-changing medicines for people with serious diseases, who often have limited or no options. Katherine leads the Jazz Alliance Management team and department, delivering alliance portfolio management and value for global partnerships in development and commercial life cycle phases. Prior to joining Jazz in 2019, Katherine was with Eli Lilly & Company and Elanco Animal Health, where she established and led the Alliance Management organization. For more than 20 years, Katherine has focused on global clinical development and strategic alliance partnering in the human and animal health pharmaceutical sector. She is passionate about building and optimizing alliance teams and advising alliance leaders, enabling challenging decision-making with a patient focused, alliance value driven approach. Katherine holds a BS in Biomedical Science from Texas A&M University and has been an active member of ASAP since 2011. It's not all about work for Katherine–in her personal time, she is a veterinary nursing student at Purdue University and volunteers with the veterinary team for Save Elephant Foundation in Thailand, rescuing and rehabilitating endangered Asian Elephants.

Lisa Keough, CA-AM
Senior Director, Alliance Management and M&A Integration
Eli Lilly & Company

Lisa has been in the alliance management profession at Lilly since 2006. In her sixteen years of alliance management experience, she has been the lead alliance manager for multiple worldwide strategic alliances across several therapeutic areas including neuroscience, diabetes, Alzheimer's disease, and CoVid-19 antibody therapies. These alliances have spanned the lifecycle of drug development from clinical to regulatory submission through commercial launch. In addition to managing strategic alliances, Lisa has led the integrations (pre-deal through 100-days post close) on several acquisitions. She achieved the Certificate of Achievement-Alliance Management (CA-AM) in 2011.

Prior to her role in alliance management, she spent five years in clinical development at Lilly. During the five years prior to joining Lilly, she worked in a hospital laboratory and then as a project manager for a central laboratory.

Kim Koch
Senior Director, Alliance Management and Corporate Business Development
Eli Lilly and Company

Kimberly (Kim) Koch, CA-AM, is a public author, speaker, and senior director of alliance management at Eli Lilly and Company. Kim's broad experience in medicinal chemistry, oncology, neuroscience, clinical development, crisis management, and alliance dispute resolution has all contributed to her skill as an alliance manager and as a mentor to many Lilly alliance managers. Kim developed Lilly's first single-page alliance scorecard and has contributed to the development of many innovative alliance management tools and techniques during her tenure in Lilly's Office of Alliance Management.

Ravi Kolla, PhD
Senior Director of Alliance Management
Vir Biotechnology

Ravi is presently a senior director of alliance management at Vir Biotechnology and is a PhD immunologist by training with experience across drug development research, project management, business development, and alliance management. Ravi has worked in the fields of infectious disease, oncology, autoimmunity and inflammation and has supported the spectrum of early research through commercial collaborations throughout his 15 plus year career. In his present role focused on early-stage research and early clinical collaboration, Ravi leads numerous alliances with large pharma, non-profit organizations, US Government agencies, and academic partners to curate the breadth and depth of the Vir portfolio.

As the practice of bringing drugs to patients increasingly hinges on successful collaboration, Ravi relies on his scientific training, and service on both sides of large pharma and smaller biotech organizations and startups to culture a goal-oriented, open and honest relationship between partners to make clear and help realize all short and long-term objectives of a collaboration.

Adam Kornetsky
Principal
Vantage Partners

Adam Kornetsky is a principal at Vantage Partners, where he focuses life sciences and healthcare. Adam helps clients unlock the value of collaboration and achieve breakthrough results in a changing healthcare landscape. His experience includes advising organizations on building and executing alliance management capabilities, designing and implementing change management and organizational design initiatives, conducting partnership launches and health checks, and facilitating negotiation and conflict management training. Adam has also supported many clients in their goal of creating a more innovative business environment.

Adam has co-authored several articles on navigating complexities in healthcare partnerships, on topics that include virtual alliance launches and engagement model due diligence. He speaks regularly at Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals (ASAP) conferences and frequently leads workshops at the Strategic Alliance Management Congress, exploring topics such as "Managing and Executing Pharma-Digital Partnerships" and "Alliance Managers as Interventionists."

Adam received his MBA with honors from Boston University's Questrom School of Business, with a concentration in Health Sector Management and focus on Leadership and Organizational Transformation. He received his BA in International Relations and Economics from Tufts University.

Karen Kotkow, PhD
Director, Alliance Management
Novartis

Karen is a director of alliance management at Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research NIBR where she manages complex strategic collaborations with diverse stakeholders across multiple therapeutic areas and technology platforms to support NIBR's commitment to develop innovative therapeutics to significantly improve the lives of patients. Her current focus is on cell and gene therapy and immunology. Karen has experience across drug development research, early-stage clinical development, project management and business development.

Prior to her current role Karen was a program manager at NIBR in Translational Clinical Oncology. In addition, she has fostered industry-academic partnerships and research collaborations with non-profit patient advocacy groups at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. While at Curis, Inc. Karen managed a preclinical research alliance with Genentech that resulted in the development of vismodegib, a first-in-class oral small molecule drug for advanced basal cell carcinoma.

Karen holds a A.B from Colgate University, a Ph.D. from Tufts University in Biochemistry and an M.B.A from the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Emma Lees
Senior Vice President, Research & Early Development & BMS Boston Site Head
Bristol Myers Squibb

 

 

Regina Lemus, PhD
Manager, GI Drug Discovery Unit, Alliance Management
Takeda

Regina is an alliance and project manager in the gastroenterology drug discovery unit at Takeda. She manages early discovery stage alliances and projects with an emphasis on academic alliances.

To drive strategic decision-making across the academic alliance portfolio, Regina works with scientific teams to articulate a clear value proposition for their alliances. She provides support throughout the alliance lifecycle, helping teams to negotiate, kick off, execute, and wind down academic alliances.

Regina received her Ph.D. in neuroscience from the University of California, Davis in 2009. Prior to joining Takeda in 2021, she spent over 10 years driving collaborative academic research projects as a neuroscientist at Scripps Research.

Ryan Lenox, CA-AM
Alliance Manager, Research Laboratories
Merck

Ryan joined Merck in 2014 where he has worked in several roles with increasing amounts of responsibility across medical affairs and Merck Research Laboratories (MRL). He is in his 5th year as an Alliance Manager and currently manages a diverse portfolio of relationships in MRL including large strategic alliances (co-development and co-commercialization) as well as discovery research agreements. Ryan holds a CA-AM from the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals (ASAP).

Ryan is a Certified Physician Assistant (PA-C) and practiced Emergency Medicine in the Philadelphia area prior to joining Merck. Ryan is also a veteran who served in the U.S. Navy.

Ragen Lester, CA-AM
Senior Director, Alliance Management
SOPHiA GENETICS

Ragen serves on the business development team at SOPHiA GENETICS as the senior director of alliance management. The team is responsible for a wide variety of healthcare technology and genomics partnerships, including; co-development, co-commercialization, technology innovation and licensing.

With over 25 years of experience in the biotech industry, she brings strategic partnering, biomarker research, life science sales, diagnostic marketing and in vitro diagnostic product development experience to her role. As a product management leader, Ragen has successfully launched IVD clinical diagnostic products into diverse global markets. At SOPHiA GENETICS., Ragen leads strategic alliances for healthcare technology and life science research including the active alliance with GE Healthcare.

Ragen holds a bachelor's degree in biochemistry and cell biology. She also holds the Certification of Achievement-Alliance Management (CA-AM) from the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals (2019) and has a great interest in utilizing AM best practices to drive value and resolve challenges with strategic partnering. Ragen is passionate about advancing data driven medicine and is thrilled to be a member of the incredible ASAP community.

Jeff Livingstone, PhD
CEO
Igia Pharmaceuticals

Jeff Livingstone, PhD, is the CEO of Igia Pharmaceuticals, a pediatric rare disease company developing a novel therapy to address hypertrophic cardiomyopathy in infants and children with Noonan syndrome or Noonan syndrome with multiple lentigines. He is also CEO of Igia's parent company LBR, a specialty clinical and regulatory development organization.

For nearly three decades Dr. Livingstone has been involved in drug research and development on both the technical and commercial sides. He has 20 years of corporate development and new venture strategy experience across a wide variety of business types, from small privately owned companies to global divisions of large public corporations. As a former member of the MIT Venture Mentoring Service and regular participant in the MIT Enterprise Forum, Dr. Livingstone also helped to establish several new companies, including Xpogen and CyberMedica.

Dr. Livingstone received his PhD in physical biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and his BS in biochemistry from the University of Missouri at Columbia.

Lauren Loughhead
Associate Director, Alliance Management
Precision BioSciences

Lauren is the associate director of alliance management at Precision Biosciences, where she manages strategic collaborations to support Precision's cell and gene therapy pipeline, including Precision's alliances with Eli Lilly and Novartis. Prior to Precision, Lauren worked in alliance management at The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, where she launched the Novo Broad Greenhouse, a joint initiative with Novo Ventures, and built a portfolio of novel drug discovery projects. Lauren began her career leading projects in alliance management, business development, and new products at Warp Drive Bio, a Third Rock Ventures portfolio company that merged with Revolution Medicines in 2018. Lauren holds a Ph.D. in Biological and Biomedical Sciences from Harvard University, and a B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley.

Ken Marran, CA-AM
Director, Corporate Alliance Management
Merck

Ken joined Merck in 2000 where he has worked in several roles of increasing responsibility across engineering, procurement, business development and alliance management. Ken is currently supporting global commercial activities and operations for multiple strategic global oncology alliances.

Ken holds a BS in civil engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and a Masters of Technology Management from Stevens Institute of Technology and is CA-AM from the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals (ASAP).

Mike McBride, CSAP
Vice President, Partner Relations
Upsher-Smith Laboratories

As VP, Partner Relations, Mike McBride champions Upsher-Smith Laboratories' efforts to grow its relationships across key customers, associations, suppliers and business partners, and to support product development, acquisition, launch and commercial trade objectives.

During his 30+-year tenure at Upsher-Smith, Mike helped establish teams in consumer products, managed markets and institutional sales, and helped shape the vision for the company's alliance management efforts. Mike is part of a cross-functional team who works to align Upsher-Smith's business objectives and resources with the priorities and initiatives of its business partners. Mike also represents his company on a variety of pharmaceutical industry association boards, councils and committees.

Mike holds a B.A. in mass communications from the University of Wisconsin, LaCrosse.

Lynda McDermott, CA-AM, MSOD, CSP
President
EquiPro International, Ltd.

Lynda McDermott is President of EquiPro International, Ltd., an international management consulting firm which specializes in leadership, team and business development for Fortune 500 and medium-size companies and professional services firms. She is also an alliance management consultant for organizations working in strategic partnerships and joint ventures. Her client list includes such companies as Pfizer, Biogen Idec, PricewaterhouseCoopers, BMS, and Sanofi Pharmaceuticals.

Ms. McDermott is co-author of the best-selling book World Class Teams (Wiley). She is a Certified Speaking Professional with the National Speakers Association and is on the faculty of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals and received the Certification of Achievement-Alliance Management (CA-AM). Ms. McDermott is an instructor for ASAP's CA-AM certification exam prep workshop and TE-AM Alliance Training program, and is an ASAP Educator Provider Partner. Ms. McDermott is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Miami University and has a Master's of Science in Organization Development from Bowling Green State University.

Jarrod Midboe
Director of Clinical Affairs & Vendor Alliance Management
Upsher-Smith Laboratories

Jarrod has led the buildout of alliance management systems and process at Upsher-Smith Laboratories, a specialty branded and generic pharmaceutical company. In this role, he is responsible for maturing pharmaceutical licensing, manufacturing, and development partnerships to realize growth strategy.

During his term at Upsher-Smith, Jarrod has served as a senior project manager, and led clinical affairs in creating a global partnering strategy. Previously, Jarrod held operations and sales leadership positions at Clinical Research Organizations satisfying sponsors early and late clinical phase submission requirements. Jarrod has extensive experience delivering value through domestic and international strategic partnerships.

Jarrod is motivated to work synergistically to optimize alliance relationships, has been a corporate member of ASAP for 5 years, and holds professional certifications as a Clinical Research Coordinator and Project Management Professional.

James Mullen
Executive Chairman, Board of Directors
Editas Medicine

James (Jim) Mullen joined the Editas medicine board of directors as chairman in March 2018 and in February 2021 was appointed as President and CEO. In June 2022, Jim became Executive Chairman.

Jim is a recognized biotech leader with more than 40 years of experience building leading biotechnology and pharmaceutical organizations on a global scale. Previously, he served as chief executive officer of Patheon NV, a leading global provider of pharmaceutical development and manufacturing services, until its acquisition by Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc. (Thermo Fisher), in August 2017. Before joining Patheon, Jim served as chief executive officer and president at Biogen, Inc. (Biogen), one of the world's largest biotechnology companies. Prior to being named chief executive officer, he held various operating positions at Biogen, including chief operating officer, vice president, international, and vice president, operations.

Jim also serves on the board of directors of Thermo Fisher Scientific. He previously served on the board of directors of Patheon, Biogen, and PerkinElmer, Inc. He was also chairman of the board of directors of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization.

Jim holds a BS in chemical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and an MBA from Villanova University.

Nick Palmer
Partner
BTD

Nick Palmer is an internationally recognized expert on alliance management and has three decades of experience helping clients accelerate growth through strategic alliances, mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures in energy, pharmaceutical and tech. Nick was an original ASAP Board member and lead partner for Accenture's Alliances & JV Practice. Now as a Partner at BTD, Nick's immediate focus is on bringing M&A practices and artificial intelligence tools to alliance management.

Caroline Rader
Director, Manufacturing Business Alliance Management
Merck

Caroline leads manufacturing/supply relationships for multiple global alliances between Merck and our partners. These strategic collaborations vary in terms of therapeutic focus, development/supply/commercialization strategy, geography and culture but collectively impact the lives of millions of patients worldwide. Caroline has been with Merck for over 20 years - first as an environmental engineer, then in sourcing & procurement managing categories ranging from professional services to clinical & observational research, and currently is a director in Merck manufacturing division's alliance management team.

Caroline holds a BS in Environmental Engineering from Northwestern University and an MBA from New York University. In her free time, Caroline enjoys hiking and kayaking, and volunteers as the principal for a non-profit Chinese language & culture school.

Prakash Raman, PhD
President, Chief Executive Officer
Ribon Therapeutics

Prakash Raman has served as Ribon’s president, chief executive officer and board member since February 2022. Dr. Raman brings to Ribon decades of biopharmaceutical business development and executive leadership experience, blending his scientific background, program and portfolio management and strong business development experience. Prior to joining Ribon, he served as Senior Partner, Chief Business Development Officer at Flagship Pioneering from October 2019 to February 2022, where he leveraged the platforms and assets in Flagship’s network to generate opportunities for significant value creation. Prior to Flagship, Dr. Raman spent nearly fourteen years at Novartis, most recently as Vice President, Global Head of Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research (NIBR) Business Development and Licensing (BD&L). During his time at Novartis, Dr. Raman was instrumental in forging key collaborations in immuno-oncology, executing many out-licensing opportunities and guiding the acquisitions of Advanced Accelerator Applications, Endocyte, IFM Tre and Selexys. In addition, he has led cross-functional drug discovery and early development project teams that successfully progressed compounds to clinical testing in patients. Prior to Novartis, Dr. Raman spent six years as a Senior Scientist at Millennium Pharmaceuticals and two years as a post-doctoral fellow at The Scripps Research Institute. He completed his undergraduate work at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, and received his Ph.D. in Organic and Medicinal Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Jen Rice, PhD
Associate Director, R&D Business Development
Takeda

Jen is associate director of business development in Takeda Pharmaceutical Company’s Center for External Innovation. At Takeda, Jen supports the gastroenterology (GI) therapeutic area unit through the sourcing of innovation and execution of collaboration and licensing deals that build the foundation for Takeda’s GI drug discovery and development pipeline.

Before joining Takeda, Jen spent nearly a decade supporting commercialization of academic innovations – most recently serving as director of business development at Harvard University’s Office of Technology Development (OTD). At Harvard Jen worked with investigators and entrepreneurs to patent, market, and license their inventions, as well as establish strategic partnerships with industry and support new company creation. Prior to Harvard, Jen held the position of technology manager and special programs manager in the office of technology management at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign where she managed the university’s life sciences patent portfolio and helped establish a gap funding program called the Illinois Proof of Concept (I-POC) Fund.

Jen received her B.A. in biochemistry and molecular biology from Boston University and her Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Lynn Richard, CSAP
Chief Alliance Officer & Vice President, Global and Strategic Alliances
GE Healthcare

Lynn Richard has more than 25 years of experience in technology and consulting roles serving government, telco, financial services, healthcare, and technology industries. Leveraging extensive experience in partner optimization and channel strategies, Lynn is expert in driving business expansion, creating alliances and partnerships which drive incremental revenue, business development and mergers and acquisitions.

Lynn Richard is presently Chief Alliances Officer and Vice President, Global and Strategic Alliances at General Electric Healthcare. Lynn is responsible for designing, leading, and driving strategy and execution with strategic alliances and partners, including both technology and pharmaceutical alliances. Lynn leads collaborations with some of the top technology, pharmaceutical and services companies in the world. Before joining GE Healthcare, Lynn was an alliance leader in Unisys Corporation and held several senior sales, marketing, and alliances leadership roles at IBM.

Lynn holds a Master of Business Administration, Marketing and Management from Murray State University and a Bachelor of Science in Political Science and Business Administration from Murray State University. He also received a Graduate Degree in Banking from University of Colorado where he won the Scholastic Achievement Award. He is a regular contributor to and presenter at Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals conferences and is a Certified Strategic Alliance Professional (CSAP). He presently serves as a Board of Directors Member of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals.

Louis Rinfret, PhD
Founder and CEO
allianceboard

Louis Rinfret is founder and CEO of allianceboard, the alliance management platform. Louis has over two decades of experience in the software industry moving from technical and product management roles to leading business units and strategy for organizations ranging from start-ups and research institutes to multi-nationals such as SAP Business Objects and Expedia CruiseShipCenters. Combining his passions for technology and alliance management, Louis is on a mission to empower alliance managers to succeed with their strategic alliances.

Louis has been active in managing, teaching about and researching strategic alliances for the past 15 years and has been a member of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals (ASAP) since 2005. Louis holds a PhD in Strategy from Lancaster University (UK) where he wrote a thesis on the performance of strategic alliances.

Louis is an avid trail runner and when he is not at his desk you will probably find him training for the next race with his wife and two daughters.

Michael Roch, CA-AM
Chief Commercial Officer
Allianceboard

Michael Roch is the Chief Commercial Officer of allianceboard, the alliance management platform. Michael loves helping organizations succeed with their partnership-based business models and has been working alongside partnerships, alliances and joint ventures in the knowledge services, technology, power generation and real estate sectors for most of his career as a consultant, attorney and entrepreneur.

Prior to joining allianceboard as Louis' partner, he served as Co-CEO Europe of a 4,000-member platform-based ecosystem originated in Australia. Michael also was co-founder and CEO of a London-based management consulting firm focused on partnerships and global alliances; within nine years, the firm served market leaders in more than 40 countries.

Michael has been a member of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals since 2016 and holds ASAP's CAAM certification. He holds an MBA and Juris Doctor from the University of Denver (USA) and is currently working on his DBA on coopetition management at Grenoble École de Management (France).

Michael's passion are music, tennis and skiing; he's an active member of Lions International. He lives in Zurich, Switzerland, with his wife and their most recent adoption, a Chocolate Labrador.

Kristin Rosner, CA-AM, PhD
Global Alliance Management Lead
Takeda

Kristin joined the Takeda Gastroenterology Drug Discovery Unit (GI DDU) team in December 2019 as the head of GI DDU alliance management to oversee the discovery alliance portfolio. In addition to overseeing the portfolio, she manages some of the GI DDU's largest alliances and coaches her colleagues on alliance management best practices. She had previously been at X-Chem where she established its alliance and program management function. Working with the scientific team, she developed many of X-Chem's alliance management foundational processes and procedures.

Kristin spent the early part of her career working as a team lead and medicinal chemist, in biotech and pharma companies in Cambridge MA. Her first exposure to alliance management was as an "accidental alliance manager" on the Neogensis and Schering-Plough collaboration in the early 2000s when she was a project lead in the collaboration.

Kristin received her BS in chemistry from the University of Vermont and her PhD in chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She has been a member of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals for many years and earned her CA-AM certification in 2019.

Herman Sanchez
Chief Business Officer & Senior Partner, Strategic Advisory
Trinity Life Sciences

Herman has been working in the life sciences industry for over 20 years in various positions including designing and running randomized trial research, optimizing of clinical administration of health services, and working as a strategic consultant to the life sciences industry. He joined Trinity over a decade ago and has worked closely with clients to support strategic decision making across the product lifecycle. Prior to joining Trinity, he worked as a senior associate at Boston Healthcare with device and pharmaceutical clients on product entry strategy, business development and reimbursement strategy. In his work consulting for pharmaceutical/biotech and medical device companies he has covered several diseases/therapeutic areas including oncology, rare and ultra-rare diseases, cell therapies, cardiovascular, diabetes, hepatitis C, alcohol abuse/dependence, neurological, orthopedic, and renal. He has been published in peer-reviewed publications on various topics including renal disease, suicidal ideation, minority patient recruiting, alcohol use/abuse and depression/anxiety treatment.

As a leader at Trinity, he has worked to build out of Trinity's European office and helps to run and build our centers of excellence in SPARC, Launch, and Health Economics and Outcomes Research (HEOR).

Herman earned an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and an AB from Harvard University.

Matthew Schroeder, CA-AM
Associate Director, Alliances
Illumina

Matt heads the pharma alliance management team at Illumina, with a portfolio spanning companion diagnostic (CDx) development and commercialization, exploratory research and data insights partnerships, as well as strategic contract research organization (CRO) partnerships.

He has been with Illumina for four years and was a founding member of the Illumina alliance management team. Prior to his current role, Matt worked at a variety of pharma, diagnostic, and medical laboratory companies. Matt began his career in laboratory medicine as a clinical laboratory scientist and has also held roles in laboratory operations management and program management prior to discovering the alliance management profession.

Matt is passionate about training and educating the next generation of alliance professionals, as well as the intersection of genomics and oncology drug development. Matt joined the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals in 2018, obtained the Certification of Achievement in Alliance Management (CA-AM), and is excited to contribute thought leadership to the ASAP community.

Jeffrey C. Shuman, CSAP, PhD
Principal, The Rhythm of Business
Professor Emeritus of Management, Bentley University

Jeff is an educator and trusted advisor to executives who are building, leading, and managing alliances and partner networks. His mix of operational, consulting, research and classroom experiences allow him to blend the theoretical with the practical, providing useful, easily implementable and repeatable advice.

At The Rhythm of Business he partners with global companies in multiple industries to advance their alliance and collaboration management capability. Consulting engagements focus on driving results through enabling all functions of the business to work effectively with their partners throughout the lifecycle. He works with senior executive teams to shape partnering strategy, enable operational and organization readiness, and implement overarching governance. Partnering professionals benefit from his ability to quickly diagnose underperforming alliances, and accelerate the path to profitability. Customized education and training bring alliance and collaboration skills to all who interact with partners.

Jeff has been a member of ASAP since 2002. He was involved on the teams that developed the Certificate of Achievement – Alliance Management (CA-AM) certification and the CSAP certification and contributed to The ASAP Handbook of Alliance Management. He frequently presents at ASAP and other organization's conferences and events. Together with business partner Jan Twombly, he has a rich history of developing and publishing strategic and practical thinking that advances the art and science of partnering and alliance management.

Ben Siddall
Partner
Vantage Partners

Ben Siddall is a Partner at Vantage Partners, where his practice focuses on helping companies build and execute strategies which involve collaboration. Ben works primarily in the biopharma, device, and healthcare sectors, with additional experience in the technology and professional services sectors.

Ben's projects include a blend of strategic analysis and supporting individual relationships. His work often includes defining partner ecosystems, conducting scenario planning and war-gaming, defining criteria and processes to support selection of partners, launching new collaborations, and helping organizations define and improve their capability to partner effectively. He works with both innovation and customer related collaborations, and regularly works with cross-industry partnerships.

Prior to joining Vantage, Ben worked as an economic consultant and a commercial litigator. Ben received his J.D. cum laude from Georgetown University Law Center and his B.A. magna cum laude in political science from Boston University.

David S. Thompson, CSAP
Chief Alliance Officer
Eli Lilly and Company

David is an internationally recognized alliance architect and alliance builder, specializing in making alliances productive and profitable with a track record of: designing and operating effective and efficient alliances; successfully managing and negotiating alliance conflict; and developing high performing alliance management teams. David has published over 33 articles on the topic of alliance management and has been sought out by fortune 100 companies outside of the pharma industry to consult on their alliance management programs. David regularly teaches alliance management courses as a guest lecturer at universities and has taught scores of alliance managers not only from pharmaceutical and biotech companies, but also high tech, insurance, petroleum, funeral, automobile, and financial services industries. David also serves as a board member of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals.

Currently, David is the chief alliance officer at Eli Lilly and Company (Lilly). As the leader of Lilly's alliance management group, David is responsible for establishing and maintaining all major development, commercial, and manufacturing partnerships. He also oversees the integration of companies brought into Lilly via mergers and acquisitions. David has played a key role in many major alliances and acquisitions at Lilly, working with Boehringer Ingelheim, Amylin, Daiichi Sankyo and IMCLONE. His involvement begins during the due diligence process and continues throughout each alliance's lifecycle.

Prior to his role as chief alliance officer, David held leadership positions in sales, marketing, market research, pricing, new product planning, business development, and corporate strategy.

Ann E Trampas, CSAP
Professional Development Practice Lead
Phoenix Consulting and Senior Lecturer at the University of Illinois – Chicago (UIC).

As Practice Lead Ann works with clients developing and delivering skills mastery classes in collaborative relationship management and consulting in optimizing their strategic alliances. At UIC she teaches Channels of Distribution and Ecommerce, Marketing, Sales Management and Business Strategy and advises the American Marketing Association Collegiate Chapter. She is also a faculty member of the American Management Association, where she facilitates a variety of courses.

Ann is currently a Board Member and former President of the Midwest Chapter of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals (ASAP) and a member of the Technical Advisory Group for the ISO standard for Collaborative Business. She is a member of the Executives Club of Chicago and the American Marketing Association. Previously Ann has held positions including ASAP Certification Program Director and Vice President of Global Alliances for IBM-SPSS.

Steve Twait, CSAP
President
Integrated Alliance Management, LLC

Steve is currently president of a newly formed consulting firm. Steve previously had responsibility for AstraZeneca's global late-phase and commercial alliance and integration management (AIM) strategy and execution capabilities. Steve's team led the integration of asset acquisitions, the transitions for divestments, and management of key late-phase alliances for AZ. Steve joined AZ in January 2015, after spending 26 years at Eli Lilly and Company where he was a founding member of Lilly's Office of Alliance Management. Steve is a well published author in Pharmaceutical Executive, PLG's Business Development & Licensing Journal, and Strategic Alliance Magazine and has been a board member and treasurer of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals.

Jan Twombly, CSAP
President, The Rhythm of Business
Board Director, Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals (ASAP)

Jan Twombly, Certified Strategic Alliance Professional (CSAP), is president of The Rhythm of Business, a service provider with core expertise in strategic alliances, alliance management, and collaboration. For more than 20 years, she has been developing and sharing thought leadership to enable success through partnering and alliances.

Twombly is a trusted advisor to leaders in both industry and academia, helping to develop their organizations' partnering and alliance strategies and operations. She offers education, training, and mentoring services to build the mindset, skillset, and toolset needed to succeed. Her clients count on her to advise on establishing new alliances, to develop alliance management organizations and practices, and to step in when alliances are in trouble. Data-driven, contextual assessments of complex alliances provide deep insights that solve problems and drive measurable improvement. Digitizing workflow helps alliance managers scale and optimize their work.

She serves on the Board of Directors of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals (ASAP), overseeing their editorial and content strategy. She is a frequent contributor to Strategic Alliance Quarterly, regularly speaks on collaboration and partnering, and authors The Partnering Guide blog and numerous whitepapers at www.rhythmofbusiness.com.

David Vallo, CA-AM
Head of Alliance Management, BioPharmaceuticals R&D
AstraZeneca

David Vallo is a seasoned project and alliance management professional with over 23 years of biotech industry experience. David is currently the Head of Alliance Management within BioPharmaceuticals R&D at AstraZeneca, where he is responsible for strategic leadership across the portfolio of AstraZeneca's BioPharmaceuticals R&D alliances. In addition, he leads the development of capabilities and processes to effectively manage external collaborations and partnerships and fosters an alliance management community of excellence within AstraZeneca. In addition to his alliance management experience, David managed projects from early research through development stages, research stage alliances as well as clinical trials (including vendors) related to a vaccine candidate through phase 2b.

Prior to joining MedImmune, David held numerous positions at other biotech companies, such as BioReliance and SRA Life Sciences, where he focused on project management and operations.

David earned his graduate degree in biotechnology from Johns Hopkins University, an undergraduate degree from Virginia Tech, is PMP and CA-AM certified.

Carl Waiters
Head of Alliance Management
ImmunoGen

Carl is an experienced alliance management professional with 18 years of pharmaceutical and biotech experience across the entire value chain with a focus on strategic alliance leadership and business development. Carl has deep knowledge in managing human risk, business risk, and legal uncertainties associated with global strategic partnerships across research, development, and commercialization. He is currently the head of alliance and project management at ImmunoGen, Inc. and has worked at other biotech and pharma companies, namely Eli Lilly for a 14-year period.

Alex Waldron
Chief Executive Officer
Wellinks

Alex Waldron is chief executive officer at Wellinks, a healthcare company on a mission to help patients with COPD live fully and breathe freely. Offering the first-ever integrated, virtual COPD management system, Wellinks supports patients through virtual pulmonary rehabilitation, health coaching, and monitoring through connected devices and an easy-to-use smartphone app.

Alex is a global healthcare business executive with 25+ years of experience leading large pharmaceutical, fully integrated biopharmaceutical, digital healthcare, and startup organizations. In previous roles, Alex was one of the original members of the Pear Therapeutics management team, architected the structure and growth of several divisions at Biogen, and helped to shape the emerging biosimilar market at Epirus Biopharmaceuticals. Alex has also worked in numerous commercial and operations roles at Genzyme, Astra Zeneca, Pfizer and Bristol-Myers Squibb.

Stefan Walke, PhD
Head of Alliance Management
Boehringer Ingelheim

Trained in Biochemistry, Stefan gained 20 years of health care related experience in consulting, biotech and pharma–always with a strong focus on strategy and business development. Within the human pharma business development organization at Boehringer Ingelheim, he was leading the contracts & alliance management team globally, before taking up the newly established role as global head of alliance management to further strengthen Boehringer's relationship with a strongly growing portfolio of strategic external innovation partners across the globe.