Key Industry Expert Speakers
12th Market Access, Pricing & Reimbursement Global Congress 2025 Europe
Comprehensive Strategies and Embracing Innovations to Overcome Barriers in Patient Access
Tuesday 29th - Wednesday 30th April 2025
Copthorne Tara Hotel London Kensington, London, UK
- James Levine, President, Ipsen Foundation
- Riad Dirani, VP of Global HEOR, Medical Operations & Excellence, Teva
- Marta Contente, Senior Director, Pipeline Head of Immunology, GHEVO, Teva
- Zavy Gabriel, Head of International Market Access, AstraZeneca
- Marc De Benedetti, Global Biometrics & Data Sciences, Bristol Myers Squibb
- Dr Rebecca Ghosh, Real-World Evidence Specialist, MHRA
- Alison Lawrence, Associate Principal, Decisive Consulting Ltd
- Catherine Akesson, Senior Consultant, Strategic Market Access, Congentia
- Nazanin Mehin, Head, Global Market Access and Pricing, Immunology, Sanofi
- Josie Godfrey, Co-Founder and CEO, Realise Advocacy, Director, JG Zebra Consulting
- Lindsay Birrell, Co- CEO, Realise Advocacy, Chair of trustees, Medics 4 Rare Diseases
- Thomas Wilke, Scientific Lead, GIPAM GmbH
- Maria Rizzo, Senior Vice President, Evidence Synthesis, GIPAM GmbH
- Adrian Griffin, VP, HTA & Access Policy, J&J Innovative Medicine
- Matthias Heck, Senior Advisor Strategic Alliance Development, EUCOPE
- Fleur Chandler, Patient Access Specialist, Chair, Project Hercules
- Simon Lande, CEO & Co-founder, HealthLumen
- Omar Ali, Visiting Lecturer, VBA & Former Advisor, NICE, University of Portsmouth

Professor James LEVINE MD PhD
President
Dr. Levine has three decades of experience in the healthcare sector at Mayo Clinic. For the last 5 years he has been President of Fondation Ipsen, an international science foundation focused on Rare Disease innovation.
With a background in wearable technologies, data gathering and data analytics, and with more than 100 patents and trademarks, Levine helped found 35 companies (17 to Series A and 1 IPO). He was the Innovator of the Year in the state of Minnesota, the World Trade Fair and NASA. Under the Mayo Clinic NEAT Trademarks Levine’s team delivered scalable health solutions to 72 US corporations.
A great deal of James’ work focuses on biotech development, scalable health solutions and business opportunities in underserved countries. The UNESCO World Report on Science which he sponsored in his current role, facilitated business development (without personal gain) in underserved regions in the United States, and in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Cote d’Ivoire, Afghanistan, Jamaica, Asia, Kenya and India. Consulting to four USA Presidents, the State Department, US Army and internationally, Levine in 2018 was awarded the President’s Medal for promoting social embeddedness.
A physician and scientist, Levine has published more than 200 articles, six papers in Science and Nature plus articles in journals such as, the New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet and JAMA. He has written four books published in 19 languages in 37 countries. 300 million people live with rare diseases without effective cures. Sustainable solutions require the efficient use of capital to maximize impact and minimize suffering.

Marta Contente
Sr Director, Pipeline Head of Immunology,
Marta is currently the Immunology Pipeline Head at TEVA, where she leads the Immunology Global HEVO team. She oversees the strategic direction of the Global Value Teams and is responsible for enhancing the focus on value assessment and payer needs for pipeline assets.
Before joining TEVA, Marta was a Senior Director of Global Health Economics and Outcomes Research at Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS). She led a team responsible for supporting country HTA submissions and access for Cardiology, Immunology and Neuroscience products. Her responsibilities covered all countries outside of the US. Before this role Marta worked within the BMS global HEOR team across Oncology indications and at the Portuguese affiliate across company portfolio (Virology, Metabolics, Haem and Oncology) Previously to BMS, Marta worked at GSK and Pfizer as Market Access manager (Portugal), as well as at Lundbeck in Global Pricing.
Marta holds a degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences from Lisbon University, a Postgraduate Diploma in Health Economics from University of York and an Executive MBA from AESE - IESE Business School.

Robert Mitchell-Thain
CEO
Robert Mitchell-Thain is a patient advocate of 18 years, with experience in a number of roles, including currently Patient Insights Director at the Global Liver Institute, Vice-Chair of Liver Patients International, the Patient Voice in NHS England’s Hepatobiliary and Pancreas CCG, and was recently leading patient-centred solutions as Head of Education and Development at PBC Foundation.
Robert has experience in taking the patient experience and incorporating it into clinical guidelines, abstracts, and journal papers, as well as into every day practice. He has presented at EASL, AASLD and APASL liver-specific conferences. He has also presented to and on behalf of patients in USA, Canada, Israel, China, Japan, Israel, and all over Europe.
Robert has led a PBC-specific interactive App which can record GDPR-compliant anonymised data, allowing the patient experience to directly influence industry partners and help them to address unmet need. Using the app data, he presented in poster and orally at a number of national and international scientific conferences.
He is currently working with GLI to design and release an interactive patient-driven App that will cover multiple liver diseases, giving patients equitable access to information and the opportunity to be part of the solution in their particular liver disease.

ADRIAN GRIFFIN
VP, HTA Market Access Policy
Adrian has worked in the life sciences industry for over 25 years, predominantly in the fields of health economics, outcomes research, and reimbursement policy, with experience across the pharmaceutical, medical device, and diagnostic sectors. His present role is Vice President, HTA and Access Policy at Johnson & Johnson. Adrian graduated in Medicinal Chemistry from University College London, obtained a post-graduate teaching qualification from Oxford University, and a MSc in Health Economics at City University, London. Adrian is actively engaged in numerous multi-stakeholder forums where key issues of HTA and access policy are debated and shaped, such as the HTAi Policy Forum, and initiatives that have brought regulators and HTA agencies together with companies, thus improving transparency and appreciation of different stakeholder perspectives. Adrian served on the NICE Technology Appraisal Committee between 2003 and 2020 and was on the Board of Directors for ISPOR (the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research), between 2013-15.

Riad Dirani
VP, Global HEOR, Medical Operations & Excellence
Riad Dirani, PhD, is currently the VP of Global Health Economic and Outcomes Research and Medical Operations & Excellence at Teva Pharmaceuticals. His responsibilities include overseeing the HEOR, Epidemiology, RWE, Medical Operations, and Medical Communications within Medical Affairs/R&D, and developing and expanding their strategic capabilities optimize the development and commercialization of Teva’s portfolio of products and offerings globally in innovative, generic, and biosimilar medicines.
Riad has worked in the pharmaceutical industry since 2000, including positions of increasing responsibility at Aventis, GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson in multiple therapeutic areas. Riad joined Teva in 2014 to build the HEOR group and establish its operating model.
Riad received his Ph.D. in Health Services Research/Health Economics from The Pennsylvania State University.

ALISON LAWRENCE
Associate Principal
Ali has been working in market access since 2001, in UK, European, US and Global environments. Her focus has been on payer engagement at national and sub-national levels, and facilitating clients in preparing for reimbursement negotiations, around a core value proposition. She is skilled at the chairing and facilitation of group workshops, in addition to performing in-depth-interviews with payers and KOLs in all regions. Ali’s recent experience includes primary research with payers representing a variety of archetypes in the US market, to inform launch strategy and value communications.

ZAVY GABRIEL
Head of International Market Access
Zavy Gabriel has over 20 years’ experience in Pricing & Market Access within consultancy and industry roles, including 20+ HTA submissions. She started her career as a consultant at Heron, and then spent 5 years at Pfizer working on UK market access and evidence generation. She joined AstraZeneca in 2012 as a Market Access Lead within the UK team, leading teams to deliver national market access and pricing strategies. Zavy then completed a successful secondment within the AZ Global Pricing Implementation team. In 2020, Zavy moved to the International Region at AZ where she now leads a team to support the emerging markets with their price and access strategies.

DR REBECCA GHOSH
Real-World Evidence Specialist
Dr Rebecca Ghosh is a Real-World Evidence Specialist in the Scientific, Data and Insight group at the MHRA where she is leading the MHRA the Real-World Evidence Scientific Dialogue Programme and Real-World Data Guidance series. She has over 15 years experience working as an epidemiologist specialising in public health research using real-world data for a range of observational studies, spatial epidemiology and interventional research. Rebecca holds an MSc in Public Health from the LSHTM and a PhD in epidemiology from Imperial college.

NAZANIN MEHIN
Head of Global Market Access and Pricing for Immunology
Nazanin approaches her work with one priority: getting access to life-changing therapies for people who need them. That focus has driven her thirty years in healthcare, from public sector to academic with twenty-four years of them in the pharmaceutical industry. Nazanin began her career as a pharmacist in the Canadian public healthcare system, with teaching engagements in cytogenetics. She saw an opportunity to help more people in an industry role and has served across multiple Market Access leadership roles coupled with regional practical experience in the US, Canada, Europe, and globally at two of the largest global pharma companies, Eli Lilly and Sanofi. Since joining Sanofi in 2003, Nazanin has held several Health Economics, market access and pricing leadership roles with accountability for multi-billion-dollar portfolios in multiple therapeutic areas, regenerative medicine plus medical devices. Nazanin is Always striving to achieve strategic business goals and securing local Access for patients while creating and operationalizing high-performing market access team functions (Pricing, HTA, HE, RWE). Nazanin possess a strong understanding of commercial operations with her experience in setting up the transformation of the Sanofi Diabetes Business model to address customer care pain points across multiple countries. Today, Nazanin leads Global Market Access and Pricing for Immunology at Sanofi. Nazanin and her team develop and implement the full immunology portfolio market access and pricing strategies. As a leader, Nazanin guides her teams to integrate medical, marketing and affiliates to demonstrate to payers the value of health care interventions across the health care delivery continuum.

MATTHIAS HECK
Senior Advisor Strategic Alliance Development
Matthias Heck is Senior Advisor for Strategic Alliance Development at the European Confederation of Pharmaceutical Entrepreneurs (EUCOPE). He focuses on partnership building and provides strategic guidance on legislative and policy matters. A German-qualified lawyer with some 20 years of experience in life sciences, Matthias has extensive expertise in market access, including AMNOG negotiations, and policy engagement at national and European levels. He previously held leadership roles in industry associations as well as companies, most recently as Head of EU Government Affairs at Alexion AstraZeneca Rare Disease.

MARC DE BENEDETTI, PH.D.
Global Biometrics & Data Sciences, MMA, RWE CoE, BMS
Marc is biostatistician at Bristol Myers Squibb, specializing in working with real-world data and the use of real-world evidence in regulatory decision making, and the use of propensity score methods in externally controlled single-arm trials.

Simon Lande
CEO & Co-founder
Simon Lande is the CEO and Co-founder of HealthLumen, responsible for setting the strategic direction of the company, and guiding the R&D process. Before co-founding HealthLumen in 2019, Simon founded and scaled a technology business in the field of online compliance for multinational organisations, eventually exiting to a US private equity company. His original training was as a Research Scientist, completing a PhD and post-doctoral studies in the field of neuromuscular transmission at Imperial College and the Royal Free Hospital, London.

CATHERINE AKESSON
Senior Consultant, Strategic Market Access
Catherine is a Senior Consultant at Cogentia. Her background includes a MA in Biology from the University of Oxford and an MRes in molecular biotechnology from Imperial College London. Catherine has 15 years' experience in market access, encompassing project delivery, subject matter expertise, and stakeholder engagement. At Cogentia, her particular interests include market access strategy and payer/clinician primary research.

Lindsay Birrell
Co- CEO, Realise Advocacy, Chair of trustees
>Former CEO of Metabolic Support UK
>Chair of trustees at Medics 4 Rare Diseases.
>Former member NHS England Metabolic Clinical Reference Group
>Patient Advocacy Group experience of UK routes to access
>PPV rep on NHSEi Rare disease Advisory Group

Josie Godfrey
JG Zebra Consulting, Co-Founder and CEO
>Strategic Director, Project HERCULES
>Director, JG Zebra Consulting
>Former Associate Director, NICE (Highly Specialised Technologies and Topic Selection)
>Former Head of Policy, NHS National Specialised Commissioning
>International Policy and Patient Advocacy, Sobi

FLEUR CHANDLER
Patient Access Specialist, Chair
Fleur Chandler is a health economist and health technology assessment specialist recognized for her leadership in Market Access and Health Economics and Outcomes Research (HEOR), with thirty years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry. Currently, Fleur is the founding director of Fleur Chandler Consulting Ltd, providing services to the pharmaceutical industry, patient organisations, and academic groups. In her previous roles, she led the Market Access function at Sanofi UK and Ireland, demonstrating the value of medicines to national HTA bodies and local health economies. Fleur also held leadership positions at GlaxoSmithKline, managing global evidence teams and developing portfolio value evidence generation strategies. Fleur is also deeply involved in patient advocacy and engagement. She is on the advisory board of Duchenne UK. She conceptualized and leads Project HERCULES, an innovative global collaborative project led by a patient organisation, which generates a disease-level evidence base for HTA in Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.

Maria Rizzo
Senior Vice President, Evidence Synthesis
With over 18 years of experience, Maria Rizzo began her career producing systematic literature reviews and meta-analyses for the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). She has since held global HEOR roles at Evidera and Cencora, supporting evidence generation for HTA submissions. Most recently, as Vice President of Evidence Review and Software at Cytel, she expanded the development and commercialization of LiveSLR®, a literature review platform to support HTA submissions. Maria Rizzo is now leading the Evidence Synthesis capabilities at GIPAM, a real-world evidence and market-access consultancy that navigates complex market access challenges using expertise and innovative tools. As part of this role, M

Matias Olsen
Senior Manager, Public Affairs & Policy
Matias Olsen is the Senior Manager, Public Affairs and Policy for the European Confederation of Pharmaceutical Entrepreneurs (EUCOPE). Matias supports EUCOPE on key topics, covering among others, implementation of EU HTA, advanced diagnostics, Real-World Evidence, the Patent Package, Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan and relevant market access topics. He coordinates members’ thematic working groups, including the P&R/Market Access Working Group, the Genomics Working Group and the EU HTA Regulation Task Force.
Matias has previously advocated on behalf of European cancer patients and worked in the Norwegian Social Security Administration, with reimbursement of medical devices and coordination of social security within the EU/EEA

Stefano Romanelli
Senior Government Affairs
Stefano works as Senior Government Affairs Manager for EUCOPE, the EU trade associations that represent small and mid-sized companies. He deals with EU policies that cover the EU Pharmaceutical Strategy, recently focussing on the revision of the pharmaceutical legislation and of the OMP Regulation. In addition, his experiences include rare diseases, non-communicable diseases, supply chains and medicine shortages.