Mentorship Working Group – Medical Affairs Professional Society

Leon Rozen

6:35 pm/in Mentorship Working Group /by Medical Affairs

A senior level pharma and biotechnology executive with over 20 years management and leadership experience in the health sector, pharmaceutical and biotech industries. Leon has worked in senior management positions in Australia, Europe and the US during which time he has led strategy development, set up teams and functions and led major international projects. He has a passion for people development with particular interests in coaching, mentoring and the developing field of neuroleadership.

Leon has experience in leadership and management roles and his strengths are leading groups, facilitating strategy development and developing staff. He has enhanced this experience with further learnings including training in elements of psychotherapy, accreditation as a practitioner of Extended DISC personality profiling and Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) and is a certified Performance Coach.

Lauren Kennedy

7:53 am/in Mentorship Working Group /by Medical Affairs

Lauren is a registered pharmacist with a background in both community and hospital pharmacy. Lauren has a breadth of experience in medical affairs, including roles in pharmacovigilance, as an MSL and a medical manager. She has had exposure to working across multiple indications and products within immunology. Lauren currently works at AbbVie as a medical manager in dermatology and is passionate about driving high quality education to assist informed healthcare decision making.

Walid Younes

Dr. Younes joined CSL Behring in April 2022 as Head of Medical Affairs Middle East & Africa with 15 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry in Europe and Middle East.

Prior to joining CSL Behring, he held the position of GCC Cluster Medical Lead for Kyowa Kirin Pharma where he successfully established the medical organization and strategy for the region.

Previously, Dr. Younes held various positions within Novartis, Roche Pharma and Gilead Sciences in France and then in Middle East where he was providing medical support, developing Phase 3/4 clinical trials and initiating national awareness and educational programs. A native of Tunisia, Dr. Younes received his medical degree from the University of Tunis, Tunisia. He went on to receive his Oncology Specialized Certification from The University of Paris VI France. A long with the industry journey, Dr Younes completed medical specialized courses from the university of Paris V (Geriatrics & HIV management) and from Harvard Medical School (Immunology & Genetics).

Sue Giordano

7:46 am/in Mentorship Working Group /by Medical Affairs

Suzanne Giordano, Ph.D. joined Sunovion Pharmaceuticals Inc. in 2012 and is currently Vice President and Head of Field Medical. In this role Suzanne has direct responsibility for the US field-based teams including HEOR Liaisons and Medical Science Liaisons across the Sunovion portfolio. She has led several Sunovion initiatives including leading the clinical and medical affairs patient engagement working group.

Dr. Giordano earned a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from SUNY Stony Brook and conducted postdoctoral research in Neuroscience followed by an Associate Professor position in Neuroscience. She was awarded fellowships by the American Brain Tumor Association and The Alexander von Humboldt Organization and a grant by the National science Foundation.

Before coming to Sunovion Suzanne held a positions as Senior Director and Medical Affairs Area Lead for Women’s Health at Pfizer; Director of Scientific Communication at Abbott and started her industry career at Novartis as a field based Medical Science Associate.

Suzanne has 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry which includes both field-based and in house roles within medical affairs.

Robin Winter-Sperry

7:32 pm/in Board of Directors, Membership Committee, Mentorship Working Group Field Medical Chicago /by Medical Affairs

Dr. Robin Winter-Sperry started working in the industry in the area of Dermatology. She has had a long and distinguished career including Sanofi/Genzyme Global Medical Affairs, Strategy & Tactics in the area of Multiple Sclerosis and President and CEO of Scientific Advantage, LLC. She created Novartis’ Medical Science Liaison (MSL) department of Scientific Operations and Sanofi-Synthelabo’s Medical Therapeutic Liaison division.

She has been involved in over 28 product launches. She has pioneered the recognition of MSLs as a specialty in the biopharmaceutical and device industry and is responsible for creating and developing many of the industry’s leading Medical Affairs and Medical Liaison teams.

Tim Mikhelashvili

12:39 pm/in Membership Committee, Mentorship Working Group Medical Operation /by Medical Affairs

Tim Mikhelashvili is the Founder and CEO of Amedea Pharma, Inc. and also a Director, Medical Science Liaison at UroGen Pharma. He is a Doctor of Pharmacy with a Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Scientific Publications and Medical Education from Rutgers with 16 years of experience in headquarters and field-based Medical Science Liaison and Trainer roles spanning both large, established companies such as Sanofi and AstraZeneca early in his career, as well as rare disease start-up companies such as Salix, Baxalta, Synergy, and UroGen. Passionate about company culture and performance metrics, he has driven company-wide leadership initiatives. He is certified by MIT Sloan in “Leading Organizational Change”, and is currently focused on transforming the Medical Affairs function to take the lead in helping the pharmaceutical industry grow its reputation and trust from patients and providers.

Amedea Pharma, Inc. is his organizational and performance management consulting company inspired by innovative analytic techniques “to transform numbers into stories”, meanings, and future behaviors. He advises artificial intelligence start-ups and professional societies, writes articles, creates and delivers courses and webinars about Field Medical Insights, Metrics, and Virtual Engagement. Finally, Tim is the host of his inspirational @Alloutcoach Podcast and YouTube Channel dedicated to breaking down barriers between people and extending the boundaries of human responsibilities and abilities, where his slogan is “stretch yourself, lift others”, and his personal goal is to create more leaders.

Marc Rubinstein

6:33 pm/in Executive Program Committee, Mentorship Working Group Medical Technology /by Medical Affairs

Dr. Marc Rubinstein joined Werfen (Instrumentation Laboratory) in 2016 as the new Medical Director. His current role is building the relatively new medical affairs team, leading the medical affairs strategy, as well the medical science liaison team.

Prior to joining Werfen, Marc served as the Sr. Manager Global Medical Affairs at Baxter Healthcare. He specialized in KOL’s and fostering publications related to medical device products.

Prior to joining the industry, Marc spent several years in academia at the University of California, Irvine working with various medical devices and medical imaging technology where he published several peer-review journals as well as multiple book chapters.

Marc holds a Medical Doctor degree from the Universidad Anahuac, Mexico. He did his general surgery residency at the University of Southern California and Huntington Hospital in Los Angeles, California. He is currently doing his MBA at the Haslam College of Business (U Tennessee Knoxville).

Gregory Christopherson

5:57 pm/in Executive Program Committee, Mentorship Working Group Medical Technology Launch Excellence Masterclass, Chicago /by Medical Affairs

Greg Christopherson is the Vice President of Medical Affairs for Medline Industries, a privately-owned manufacturer and distributor of medical devices and supplies devoted to the continuum of healthcare. His current role oversees creation and execution of a comprehensive clinical strategy for the company, encompassing: identification of business and regulatory needs (Clinical Affairs), study design and execution (Clinical Operations), communication of clinical results and publication tactics (Medical Communications) and development of clinical research partners, medical education initiatives and coordination of Medical Science Liaisons (Clinical Development).

Prior to joining Medline, Greg served in a scientific affairs capacity for the medical aesthetics division of Allergan, coordinating R&D efforts to commercially support new product launches and the existing device portfolio for breast implants and acellular dermal matrices. He played a key collaborative role internally, integrating divisions across the company (Regulatory, Sales & Marketing, Medical Affairs, R&D) to define and execute research strategy, as well as acting as the primary scientist for KOL engagement and medical education.

His previous experience is heavily centered in R&D, as a postdoctoral fellow in the NIH examining the pathophysiology of heterotopic ossification in blast-injured soldiers at Walter Reed, and as a senior scientist at LifeCell, creating novel tissue-based devices for colorectal and wound healing applications. He received his B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Michigan Technological University, and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Materials Science & Engineering from Johns Hopkins University.

Alexandra Safronova

3:47 pm/in EMEA Leadership Committee, Mentorship Working Group Patient Centricity /by Medical Affairs

Alexandra Safronova, MD is currently Head of Medical, Ever Neuro Pharma.

Dr. Safronova earned her medical degree from Moscow Medical Academy cum laude. She completed her residency in internal medicine at Moscow Medical Academy, and fellowships in intensive care at Pirogov Medical University and endocrinology at the Russian Medical Postgraduate Academy.

Before her pharmaceutical career, Dr. Safronova served as a staff physician in the Cardiology and Intensive Care Department at Medical Center of the Russian Academy of Science.

Dr. Safronova started her career in the pharmaceutical industry in 1999 as Clinical Research Scientist at GlaxoSmithKline, then she worked as Manager of Clinical Operations at Quintiles (now IQVIA).

In 2010 she joined Teva as Director of Clinical Research. Her primary task there was to set up Clinical Research Department from the scratch to support registration of new products and supervise global studies. Within two years Teva became #1 in clinical research in Russia. The company received 7 new market authorizations supported by the results of clinical program developed and executed by the department headed by Dr. Safronova. In 2013 Dr Safonova focused on building Medical Affairs function from scratch as Medical Director of Russia and CIS, Teva Pharmaceutical.

In 2015 -2018 she took position of Medical Director and Head of Medical Affairs Boehringer Ingelheim Russia.

Dr. Safronova’s experience in multiple therapeutic areas includes Phases I-IV and diverse disciplines of medical affairs and product commercialization, such as leading office based and field-based medical teams (MSLs),life cycle management, PV/safety, Regulatory Affairs, Medical information, Patient Advocacy.

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