Jan Schadrack
Jan joined Roche Global Medical Affairs in June 2015 and serves as the Therapeutic Area (TA) Head Neuroscience and Rare Diseases in Medical. Jan is very passionate about Medicine and Neuroscience and strongly believes that the possibilities of the biosciences and the digital age will rapidly transform the science and medical practice especially of nervous system disorders and numerous rare diseases. He is strongly inspired by how this will bring better solutions and wellbeing for patient care, the medical community, healthcare ecosystems, and ultimately society as a whole.
Jan is an MD PhD and specialized in psychiatry and neuropharmacology. In the biopharmaceutical industry he held various Clinical Development and Medical Affairs roles and gained longstanding and profound experience in Neuroscience including rare neurological diseases – having worked across many Neurology and Psychiatry disease areas with Novartis, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Johnson & Johnson, Biogen, before joining Roche.
Ann Ford
Ann Ford recently served as Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer at Medline Industries, Inc., in Northfield, IL. After completing her nursing education at Marquette University in Milwaukee, WI, she received her Juris Doctor degree from DePaul University College of Law in Chicago, IL.
Until she became an attorney, Ms Ford worked in high-risk obstetrics, pediatric intensive care, and neonatal intensive care. Upon graduating from law school, she spent 11 years in private practice representing physicians, nurses, and hospitals. After private practice, Ms Ford transitioned to in-house legal and compliance roles, including Vice President, General Counsel for two Chicago-area hospitals. In her previous role as Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer at Medline, she oversaw the global ethics and compliance program. In addition, she had been intimately involved with the development of a Medical Affairs function at Medline.
Ms Ford has served on various committees throughout her career, including the hospitals’ Institutional Review Boards. She is a frequent speaker on healthcare legal and compliance topics.
Tamas Koncz
Tamas Koncz, MD, MSc, Ph.D., is Chief Medical Officer (CMO) for the Inflammation and Immunology (I&I) Business at Pfizer. As CMO, Tamas leads the medical affairs organization, medical professionals across the world who are responsible for ensuring the safe and effective use of Pfizer I&I medicines, as well as continuous data generation and dissemination to advance the understanding of the medicines’ benefit: risk profiles. Medical affair colleagues are also involved in projects supporting research and early and late phase development, regulatory affairs, reimbursement and lifecycle management of the medicines. Throughout his career, Tamas has held various roles as a VP Global TA Lead, Global and European Medical Director, UK country medical adviser, health economist working with a broad portfolio and medical devices. Tamas holds an MD from the University of Debrecen, Hungary. Additionally, he completed an MSc in Economics at the Corvinus University, Budapest, an MSc in Health Economics at the University of York, UK and an MSc in Pharmaceutical Medicine at the University of Surrey, UK. Tamas also holds a Ph.D. from Semmelweis University, Hungary.
Danie du Plessis
Danie is currently EVP, Medical Affairs at Kyowa Kirin and is a senior pharmaceutical executive with 25 years’ experience mainly in Medical Affairs. He has a passion for modernising medical affairs and track record in leadership, people development, capability building and coaching. Danie is a qualified MD with a Masters in Clinical Pharmacology who combines medical and life science qualifications with an MBA. Danie has extensive experience building international teams, driving change and working in regulated markets for GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) across Europe, the Americas, Middle East, Africa, Australasia and Japan.
He previously worked for Eli Lilly & Company for 17 years in different medical roles as well as marketing and sales. During his different roles, he was based in South Africa, United Kingdom and Australia. Before joining the Pharmaceutical Industry, Danie had his own primary care practice.
Lode Dewulf
Lode Dewulf currently works as board member, consultant, coach and volunteer in the fields of his passions: personal development, patient affairs, medical affairs and business strategy. He sees these part-time roles as a real privilege, after a rich and varied full-time career of over 30 years in the pharmaceutical industry, which he joined after his medical training and practice.
As a physician he worked in general/family medicine settings, as well as in several hospital specialties in both Western and Third World settings. In industry he served and gained experience in several functions, including Medical Affairs, Drug Safety, and Health Economics, always taking the patient’s needs as goal and reference point. He worked in different disease areas, companies, countries and continents, which added to a very diverse experience base. His scope of responsibility within industry grew over the years, and he held several global roles, including as Global Medical Director, Global Head of Compliance and Global Head of Medical Affairs.
In 2012 he was appointed as the industry’s first senior executive officer dedicated to Patient Affairs. In this role he has helped to build bridges and impactful alliances between the willing, which have contributed to deep changes in strategy and culture within companies as well as to several external initiatives with great patient value, such as PFMD, PARADIGM and new FDA Guidance on Pregnancy and Lactation requirements.
He feels most proud of the relations and friendships that he has been able to build over the years. This also includes the mentoring and growing of several talented colleagues into impactful leadership roles, something he continues to do through his teaching and his work as executive coach.
