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Jacqueline Waldrop
Jacqueline Waldrop is the Oncology lead for the Global Medical Grants team at Pfizer Inc. Her responsibilities include Investigator Sponsored Research, Quality Improvement and Continuing Medical Education (CME) grants. She is responsible for developing and implementing grant-making strategies in collaboration with Pfizer colleagues as well as with external stakeholder organizations. The grants program aims to improve patient care through advances in independent research, medical education, and health care quality improvement initiatives.
Prior to joining Pfizer in 2006 Jacqueline worked as the Director of Continuing Professional Education for the American Heart Association managing the accredited program for physicians, nurses, pharmacists and emergency services. Her accomplishments at the AHA included expansion of guidelines-based education and implementation of an association-wide learning management system for healthcare professionals.
Jacqueline has a BA in Chemistry from Austin College in Sherman, TX. She has a MS in Quality Assurance and Regulatory Affairs and Certificate in Clinical Trial Management from Temple University School of Pharmacy in Philadelphia, PA.
Simon Kyaga
Simon Kyaga, MD, Phd, MBA, is Global Medical Director, Alzheimer’s Disease, for Europe Canada and Partner Markets (ECP) at BIOGEN and the co-lead for the MAPS focus area working group on Medical Strategy & Launch Excellence.
Dr. Kyaga has worked in medical affairs positions in different companies spanning from country to regional, and global roles. He completed his doctorate in medicine at the Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden before pursuing an internship at the Karolinska Hospital, and residency in Psychiatry. He has a doctorate (PhD) in psychiatric epidemiology using large-scale data, and a Global Executive MBA from INSEAD, Paris, France.
He has a long-standing interest in medical education and previously served as a member of the national board of the Swedish Medical Association, as the scientific secretary of the Swedish Society of Medicine and as medical advisor to the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare before joining the pharmaceutical industry.
Simon has 20+ years of experience from all aspects of healthcare. Having met more than 10,000 patients in his clinical work, he is passionate about the opportunities of science to bring relief to the patients most in need, and of medical affairs to bring value to healthcare overall.
John Pracyk
John Pracyk is an executive medical leader with deep expertise in the safe and effective design, development, and commercialization of medical devices. Clinically trained as a Neurological Surgeon he possesses an uncommon blend of business and medical expertise and is a passionate proponent of value-based care and outcomes-driven, evidence-based practices. Dr. Pracyk is a recognized thought leader and program architect in the development of collaborative healthcare delivery platforms with a proven track record of multidisciplinary program buildouts and care redesign successes. A servant leader who motivates high-performing teams to outpace innovation timelines, exceed expectations, and fuel organizational transformation.
Prior to joining Olympus, Dr. Pracyk held multiple leadership roles of increasing responsibility with DePuy Synthes-Spine, Johnson & Johnson Medical Devices. He began his MedTech career in 2016 as Franchise Medical Director where he fostered meaningful innovation to drive safety and value for patients worldwide. There he delivered deep medical and scientific insights to the R&D and commercial teams for product ideation and development, including conceptual, hands-on evaluation, and clinical research perspectives.
In 2017, Dr. Pracyk was tapped to be medically responsible for J&J’s Global Spine Platform as the Franchise Medical Leader leveraging integrated procedural solutions to drive innovation and answer unmet clinical needs. He forged relationships with internal and external stakeholders, including Key Opinion Leaders, practicing surgeons, global regulatory agencies, professional societies, and executive leadership teams from hospitals, health systems, and integrated delivery networks.
In 2018, Dr. Pracyk was appointed Integrated Leader of Preclinical Research, Clinical Research, and Medical Affairs (PCM), a newly integrated scientific platform for Spine. The PCM concept incorporates product development with preclinical and clinical research outcomes and unifies them within the context of Medical Affairs to substantiate safety, performance, and value. Their objective is to ensure that all platform decisions are medically informed, surgically literate, clinically relevant, and financially sustainable. His PCM team’s accomplishments were spotlighted in J&J’s Meet the Innovator series as they got out in front of all goals, condensed timetables to move ahead, and completed the clinical post market clinical follow up plans for the new European Medical Device Regulation a full year ahead of schedule.
Outside of Olympus, Dr. Pracyk is becoming a leading voice in the Medical Affairs Professional Society (MAPS) where he was elected President of the Americas Region, Treasurer of the Executive Committee, and Board Director. MAPS amplifies the individual voices of over 6100 medical professionals that serve patients from within 200+ medical device and pharmaceutical manufacturers. By contextualizing the real-world clinical needs of patients, providers, and policy makers MAPS succinctly translates science into value to deliver a strategically critical scientific perspective in today’s ever-changing global healthcare landscape.
Dr. Pracyk obtained his BS, MD and PhD degrees through the Early Identification and the Medical Scientist Training Programs at Duke University. He was competitively awarded research fellowships at Cambridge University and the National Institutes of Health. He received his Neurological Surgery training at Duke University & The George Washington University and then completed a clinical spine fellowship at the University of Iowa. In 2015, he obtained a healthcare focused MBA at the Haslam College of Business of The University of Tennessee. Dr. Pracyk is a Fellow of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons and the American College of Surgeons, as well as a Diplomate of the American Board of Neurological Surgery. He maintains active memberships in the Medical Affairs Professional Society, American Association of Neurological Surgeons, Congress of Neurological Surgeons, North American Spine Society, AO Spine, Phi Kappa Phi, and the American College of Healthcare Executives.
Kirtida Pandya
Kirtida Pandya holds the position of Executive Director and Head of Medical Services and Operations within the Sandoz US Policy, Medical and External Engagement team. In this role, she has proactively facilitated the growth and transformation of this team. She has built and led a best in-class medical affairs organization with oversight of Operations, Program Management, Medical information/Communications, Training and Compliance, Material Approval Process, and Grants/IIT functions. Prior to joining Sandoz, she had been at Novartis for almost 8 years and was responsible for laying the medical communications foundation for Cosentyx, where she led the strategic planning and implementation of the medical plans, scientific support for continuing medical education, medical communications, and medical expert engagement activities for Cosentyx.
Kirtida has a strong medical background with expertise in several therapeutic areas and supporting products at various stages in their lifecycle. These skills have been honed based on her extensive experiences from both sides of the fence, i.e., working with pharmaceutical industry and medical communications agencies. In a previous role, she also led a strategic publication planning group and has held various other positions such as retail pharmacist, drug information specialist, and medical writer.
Kirtida graduated from Rutgers University with a Bachelors and a Doctorate degree in Pharmacy, as well as Masters in Healthcare Management. She is a Certified Medical Publication Professional and demonstrated her commitment to enhancing medical publications and communications through her involvement as a volunteer across several committees within International Society of Medical Publication Professionals (ISMPP). She has been a panelist at the Publication Planning Forum of CBI in 2010 in the “Best Practices for Communication with Authors outside Your Organization” session and has hosted sessions and taught several workshops at the ISMPP annual meetings. Most recently, she co‐led a workshop on “Understanding the Value of and Mastering Medical Affairs Strategic Planning” at the 2019 MAPS Annual meeting.
Marc Rubinstein
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).
Ann Hartry
Ann has almost 20 years of experience in Medical Affairs and HEOR with a focus in neurology and psychiatry. She joined Lundbeck in 2014 and is currently the Vice President & Deputy Head Global Value Evidence, leading the development and execution of a strategic approach to evidence generation for the full portfolio of products.
Ann has extensive experience as a member of both Medical Affairs and HEOR field teams. Her experience convinced her of the deep need to develop impactful and rigorous evidence (real world and randomized) to support engagement with external experts of all types to ensure that patients receive the best treatment possible.
Ann holds a Ph.D. in Cognitive Neuroscience. Prior to joining industry, her research focused on studies of depression and attentional mechanisms utilizing dense sensor array EEG. She is married, with two kids in college, and is happiest when exploring the less-traveled backroads of the world.