Taking care of EU health policy. Coupling European Industrial Leadership with a Patient-Centered Approach

Patrizia Toia was born in Pogliano Milanese (Milan); she is graduated in Political Science at the University of Milan. She worked as Director of the Planning Service at Lombardy Region. She was regional councillor in Lombardy, with different responsibilities (Health, Budget).

She was Member of the Chamber of Deputies and in 1996 she was elected at the Senate of the Republic. She held various institutional positions: Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs with responsibility for Latin America, Asia and Oceania, Relations with the United Nations, Human Rights, Migration and Italians abroad, in 1999 she was appointed Minister for European Affairs and Minister for Relations with Parliament.

In 2004 she was elected at the European Parliament, confirmed in 2009, 2014 and 2019. Member of the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S & D), she is Vice-Chair of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy. She is also substitute member of the Committee on Development.

Tom is responsible for JLABS strategy across EMEA, as well as directing operations in JLABS @ BE. Before joining JLABS, Tom was the Head of the Janssen Campus Office Belgium, and continues to be a Member of the Janssen Pharmaceutica NV Management Board and Chair of the Works Council. He represents Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JLABS on the Janssen Benelux R&D Council, and Janssen Pharmaceutica NV in the Board of Flanders.bio, the Flemish trade organization for life science companies. In addition he is a Member of the Investment Committee for Industrial Scale-ups of PMV (Flemish Investment Association). Prior to these roles, Tom established the Venture & Incubation Center, a virtual incubator and business development model, to nurture and grow viable, high value business options for Janssen and the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies. Tom joined Johnson & Johnson in IT holding various positions in Janssen. He received his MSc in Computer Science from Antwerp University in Belgium and Executive Master in Innovation & Entrepreneurship.

Serge Bernasconi is CEO of MedTech Europe since 2013. He has a long experience in the healthcare sector, occupying high-level positions in several corporations such as Medtronic, Schering Plough and Johnson & Johnson.

Stefano is the president and principal policy analyst at I-Com, the Institute for Competitiveness, a think tank based in Rome and Brussels which he founded in 2005. He currently teaches political economy and economic policy at the Roma Tre University, in Rome. Stefano is a graduate of the Coripe Consortium for Research and Continuing Education in Economics (Piemonte, Italy), where he received a Masters Degree in Economics, and the George Mason University (Virginia, USA) where he obtained his MA (Economics). Stefano has served in key advisory or expert positions on a number of taskforces or scientific boards, including: Vice President of the Health City Institute; Scientific Director of the La Scossa Association; Board member of the European Foundation EYPROM; Expert Member of the Eurelectric Task Force on Investment; Expert Member of the Technical Secretariat for the Protection of Nature in the Italian Ministry of the Environment; Director at the Observatory on Energy Policy of the Einaudi Foundation. He has authored numerous publications on economic themes, particularly with regard to policy and regulation of the energy market and infrastructural services and the governance of the institutions, and his opinions and analysis has featured in major Italian newspapers including Il Foglio, il Sole24 Ore, Huffington Post Italia and more. Stefano has also undertaken study and consultancy assignments for Italian and international public institutions, including the Senate of the Republic, the Department for EU policies, the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and the OECD, leading companies and non-profit organizations.

Mr Sylvain Giraud (Twitter: @GiraudSylvain) is Head of Unit “Health Systems” in the Directorate General Health and Food Safety in the European Commission since 2016, in charge of developing country specific and cross country knowledge of health systems and supporting cooperation across the EU. He was previously working on international health issues and policy coordination in the same DG and on institutional cooperation in the Secretariat General. Before joining the Commission in 2002, he had worked for European trade associations and consultancies in Brussels. He is a graduate of the College of Europe, Bruges.

Ans Heirman is the Managing Director of MSD Norway since July 2017. She joined MSD in 2005 and started her career at MSD in marketing positions in MSD Belgium/Luxembourg and Merck’s global headquarters (New Jersey, USA). Next, Ans moved through several positions with increasing responsibilities in MSD Belgium/Luxembourg including Business Development, Chief of Staff, Sales Director Primary Care and Market Access, Policy and Public Affairs Director.

Ans graduated with great distinction as Bio-engineer (1999, Ghent University) and has a PhD in Applied Economics and Business Administration (2004, Ghent University). During her PhD, she was a Visiting Research Fellow at the Sloan School of Management, MIT, Boston. Her research on the early growth path of high tech start-ups was recognized by 2 awards (Best Paper on High Technology at the Babson Kauffman Entrepreneurship Research Conference, 2004 and Best Paper in Entrepreneurship at the Academy of Management, 2005). From 2002 to 2005, Ans was teaching entrepreneurial marketing and innovation management at Ghent University and the Vlerick Business School and she worked as strategy consultant supporting both start-up companies and innovation projects in large companies.

Graduated in economics at the University of Rome – La Sapienza, with a thesis on statistical breakdown of the wage differential between foreign and Italian citizens. After a collaboration as a research assistant with the Fondazione Brodolini, she worked for the Centro Europa Ricerche. She studied the main econometric techniques for evaluation of public intervention at the IRVAPP di Trento and at the summer school in Econometrics Cide – Bank of Italy. She is currently employed at I-Com as a research fellow. She carries out statistical analyses, economic and regulatory researches for the innovation and energy areas.

Nathalie Moll joined the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) as Director General in April 2017.

EFPIA represents the pharmaceutical industry operating in Europe. Together with its direct membership 40 leading pharmaceutical companies, 33 national associations representing over 1,900 companies and in collaboration with health and research players, EFPIA’s mission is to create an environment that enables our members to innovate, discover, develop and deliver new therapies and vaccines for people across Europe, as well as contribute to the European economy.

Prior to joining EFPIA, between 2010 and 2017 Nathalie was the Secretary General of EuropaBio ranked as the most effective European Trade Association in Brussels in 2013. She spent over 20 years working for the biotech industry at EU and national level in associations and corporate positions and held the position of Chair and Vice Chair of the International Council of Biotech Associations (ICBA).

Ortwin Schulte works as a Head of Unit “Health Policy” in the Permanent Representation of Germany to the EU since 2017. He has also served the Federal Ministry of Health in Bonn for almost ten years, working on food law and EU coordination; and in Berlin, as Head of the Task Force “German EU Precidency 2007”and Head of “Bilateral Health Relations”.

Stefano Soro was born in Genoa, Italy. He holds a degree in Management and Economics with a major in human resources management from Università Bocconi, Milan.

After working in the HR department of a multinational company, he joined the European Commission in 1994, serving in a variety of posts in Eurostat, the Enterprise and Industry DG and the Secretariat-General.

In 2002 he moved to the Health and Consumers Directorate General, where he has been responsible for relations with consumer organisations, the European Consumer Centres network and the establishment of a network of consumer protection enforcement authorities.

From 2006 to January 2012 he headed the “Product and service safety” Unit, responsible for non-food consumer safety issues. He chaired the International Consumer Product Safety Caucus, an international network of product safety regulators. From 2012 to 2016 he was the Head of the “Medicinal products – quality, safety and efficacy” Unit and then of the “Animal nutrition, veterinary medicines” Unit.

He joined the Directorate-General Internal Market, Industry Entrepreneurship and SMEs of the European Commission as Head of the “Biotechnology and Food Supply Chain” Unit in January 2017.