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Donna Holder
Donna Holder is the Senior Director, Global MSL Excellence at Daiichi Sankyo Inc (DSI) where she is accountable for ensuring the strategic alignment of MSL activities across DSI regions, and for strengthening the MSL capability worldwide. Donna has over 25 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry with a wealth of experience in Medical Affairs. Most recently she was the Executive Director, Global Field Medical Center of Excellence (CoE) at Merck from January 2018 to May 2020 where she was responsible for the Field Medical capability worldwide along with the leadership of scientific and capability training function for Field Medical.
She started her career at Marion Merrell Dow (now Sanofi) in Clinical Development and then joined AstraMerck (now AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals) where she spent over ten years in senior leadership roles including leadership of MSL, Medical Information, and Contact Center teams. In her last role at AZ as Senior Director, MSL Excellence in Global Medical Affairs, Donna was accountable for the strategic direction of the MSL function. She led development, delivery, and measurement of initiatives to strengthen MSL capabilities worldwide. Donna left AZ at the end of 2014 and became a Medical Affairs consultant, partnering with pharmaceutical and biotech clients to deliver solutions including capability development, business process development, business strategy, operations management, and coaching. Donna earned her Doctor of Pharmacy from the University of Michigan.
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.
