World Drug Safety Congress Americas 2012 - list of speakers 

Dr. Ahuja is currently Director, Asia Pacific for Baxter Healthcare. He is based in India and is responsible for driving the strategic direction, implementation and maintenance of a high performing Pharmacovigilance function for Baxter in Asia-Pacific. He has held various roles in pharmaceutical companies and contract research organisations in the ...

Dr. Beninger is Vice President of Global Patient Safety at Genzyme, a Sanofi Company in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he is responsible for maintaining the global safety profile of the company’s cardio-renal and biosurgical device products. He began his career in drug development in 1987 at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and then at...

Mariette Boerstoel-Streefland, MD, MBA, MS (epi), has been in the pharmaceutical industry for over 20 years, and is currently Chief Safety Officer and Vice-President Global Drug Safety for Forest Research Institute in Jersey City. She received her MD at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands in 1986 and subsequently worked in clinical...

Carmen Bozic MD is Senior Vice President and Global Head of Drug Safety and Risk Management at Biogen Idec. Her department is responsible for clinical trial and post marketing safety and risk management for Biogen Idec’s pipeline and marketed products. She has over 10 years of industry experience, managing clinical development programs in...

Dr. Cobert is an expert on Drug Safety and Pharmacovigilance, and author of the textbook Cobert’s Manual of Drug Safety and Pharmacovigilance – 2nd edition, used in training courses on drug safety and pharamcovigialnce. He is also co-author of Drug Safety Data with Dr. Michael Klepper, and Pharmacovigilance from A-Z. He has extensive experience ...

Milbhor D’Silva is a transplant and multiorgan procurement surgeon by background. His clinical work was complemented by live animal research using solid organ models of transplantation. His pharmaceutical medicine career spans 14 years. Over this period he has worked with both, therapeutic drug development (Novartis, Abbott) and medical diagnostic ...

Dr Shirish D Sherlekar is a trained doctor by profession. He have worked for five years at the P.D. Hinduja Hospital and Research centre as a resident surgeon and the Hospital of the Kaiga atomic power plant as a Medical director before shifting to the pharmaceutical industry in 1991. Since joining the industry 1991 he has worked in both...

Jonathan Deutsch, M.D. is a graduate of the University of Rochester and The Sackler School of Medicine. Dr. Deutsch completed his internship at Overlook Hospital in Summit, NJ, USA in the Department of Internal Medicine, and he completed his training in Anesthesiology and Pain Management at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. ...

Dr. Reinerio A. Deza, currently Head of Pharmacovigilance at Cubist Pharmaceuticals, has over 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, primarily in Pharmacovigilance (PV) but has also included Medical Affairs. Most recently, Rene was at Merck (Schering-Plough) as the Sr. Director of Medical Services and the Clinical Risk Management...

Dr. Sylvia Dobo is a seasoned pharmacovigilance expert with over eight years industry experience. Prior to entering the pharmaceutical safety industry, she practiced full scope primary care while on faculty at the Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University in Chicago. Dr. Dobo began providing medical review and product team support at...

Steven has over 10 years of clinical research and global pharmacovigilance and pharmacoepidemiology experience. He’s currently Senior Director of Pharmacoviglance and Pharmacoepidemiology at AMAG Pharmaceuticals, overseeing all aspects of pre and post-marketing global drug safety and risk management. Prior to joining AMAG, Steven was Associate...

Hoda Eid holds a Ph.D. from the Université de Montréal in Canada and a Post-Doctoral fellowship from the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston. She returned to Canada in 1992 as an Assistant Professor at the University of Ottawa and a Research Scientist at the Ottawa Heart Institute. In her research carrier, Dr. Eid...

Dr. Michael Forstner is “Integrated Safety Risk Manager” at F. Hoffmann-La Roche in Basel. In this role his main duties are to develop and implement processes for the coherent and consistent global management of drug safety risks together with his colleagues at other Roche drug development sites. These processes include data driven, integrated...

Dr. Geller is Director of Risk Management within the Global Pharmacovigilance Organization at Baxter Healthcare Corporation. She has held a number of positions at Baxter in the R&D, quality and regulatory organizations. Since 2005 she has lead the development of risk management activities at Baxter. Dr. Geller received her undergraduate degree in...

Dr. Grey is Director, Pharmacovigilance Education and Process Documentation in the Worldwide Safety Strategy organization at Pfizer, Inc. in New York City. Nancy started her career as a Chiropractic Physician with a private practice in Denver, Colorado. After founding and running a Chiropractic temporary employment agency in the NY, NJ and CT...

Suzanne Guidera has 15 years of experience in various Patient Safety roles, including operations, management, and project management. She received an undergraduate degree in Biology with a minor in Psychology, and Masters in Business. She has been at AstraZeneca in Wilmington DE for the past 8 and a-half years. She is currently part of a team...

Virginia (Ginny) Klunder is a seasoned healthcare professional with more than 14 years of pharmaceutical industry experience in global regulatory and drug safety quality and compliance management. She is an ASQ certified Manager of Quality/Organizational Excellence, has an MA in Nursing from New York University, and is currently a Director for...

Ronald W. Leong, MD, Executive Director, US Patient Safety, AstraZeneca, has 24 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry. He has worked at Upjohn, Proctor & Gamble, Wyeth and AstraZeneca, where he has been employed since 2002. His experience includes Clinical Development, U.S. regulatory affairs and both U.S. and international Drug...

Dr. McCormick is the Vice President of Drug Safety & Disposition with Cephalon, Inc., West Chester, PA and has administrative responsibility for the overall operations of nonclinical toxicology, nonclinical and clinical pharmacokinetics, drug metabolism and bioanalysis within the Division of Drug Development. He received his...

Jeanne Michaels is a Registered Nurse with a background of clinical work in various medical-surgical clinical arenas. She was an Associate Professor of Nursing at Purdue University followed by medical management positions in the health insurance and pharmaceutical distribution industries. She served as Corporate Quality and Education Manager for...

Yola Moride has received degrees in Genetics (MSc) and Pharmacoepidemiology (PhD) from McGill University and has trained as a Post-doctoral Fellow at the Pharmacovigilance Centre at the University of Bordeaux (France). Professor Moride has over 18 years of experience in the conduct of observational studies. She holds academic appointments at...

Srivatsan has more than two decades of experience in the Information Technology industry and deep knowledge of the Life Sciences domain. He has been responsible for providing leadership for growing Cognizant’s Life Sciences practice that includes strategic direction, long-term partnerships with customers, relationship and delivery...

Dr. Niemcryk is Head, Global Surveillance & Pharmacoepidemiology at Abbott Laboratories. With over 14 years in industry, he has also held positions at Bristol-Myers Squibb, AstraZeneca, and Bayer. Most of his industry experience has been directly in drug safety. Prior to moving to industry, he was Branch Chief of the Epidemiology and Data Analysis ...

Angela Pitwood is the Vice President of Pharmacovigilance at IndiPharm. Angela is responsible for the ongoing development and management of IndiPharm’s pharmacovigilance (Pv) operations. With over 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, Angela offers her clients the assurance that their Pv programs are being managed by a seasoned...

Krishnan has over fifteen years of experience in Global Sourcing Advisory Services, management, IT and technology consulting, and pharmaceutical R & D. Krishnan has global responsibility for Cognizant’s Life Sciences BPO strategy, P&L, and solutions. He has sold and delivered complex projects for clients in the Pharmaceutical / Life...

Dr. Richter has over 20 years of research experience in the pharmaceutical and CRO industries, as well as in academia. As the Vice President she is responsible for all aspects of PRA’s Safety and Risk Management services. To ensure consistent high performance and regulatory compliance, Dr. Richter developed robust contract language and quality...

Rudi Scheerlinck is a certified GP (VUB, Brussels) who holds a Post-graduate Program in Pharmacology and Pharmaceutical Medicine (ULB, Brussels). During 14 years of pharmacovigilance experience, he has gained experience in a broad area of interests, including signal detection, medical analysis, interpretation of safety and epidemiological...

Dr. Eleanor Segal (“Ellie”) is a family physician and geriatrician who was a clinician/teacher for over 20 years before joining the pharmaceutical industry (Syntex) in 1991. A graduate of the University of Michigan Medical School, she is board-certified in family medicine, a Fellow of the American Academy of Family Practice, holds a Certificate...

Dr. Val Simmons is currently the European QPPV for Eli Lilly, a position she has held since 1997. Val is a registered physician from the University of London, specialising in Anaesthesia and ICU Medicine and, since joining the pharmaceutical industry in 1987, she has subsequently pursued a career in drug safety through senior management positions...

Dr. Sommer is a board-certified general internist with over 18 years of experience in pharmacovigilance and clinical safety. After graduating Alpha Omega Alpha from Cornell University Medical College, she completed an internal medicine residency at Northwestern University, and then practiced internal medicine in Chicago for several years, also...

Dr. Jerzy E. Tyczynski has been a Director, Risk Management and Pharmacoepidemiology at Astellas Pharma Global Development, Inc. since November 2011. Dr. Tyczynski has 25 years of experience in designing and conducting epidemiology studies. He has been published in several peer-reviewed scientific journals including International Journal of...

Cheryl has an MBBCH (equivalent to MD) & a MBA from the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa. She practiced as a family practitioner for 10 years in South Africa prior to joining the pharmaceutical industry 19 years ago. Cheryl’s current position is Vice President and Head of Global Safety & Epidemiology at Allergan Inc. Prior to...

Dr. Diego Wyszynski is Medical Director and Head of Maternal and Pediatric Safety (MAPS) at Amgen Inc. Trained as a pediatrician in his native Argentina, Diego obtained masters and PhD degrees in Epidemiology from Johns Hopkins University and performed postdoctoral work at the National Institutes of Health. In Boston, Dr. Wyszynski was first...