Birgit Morlion is an engineer (PhD) with a mission to make digital health come true. Over the last 15 years she has been actively involved in eHealth research and facilitating the adoption of digital innovation in health care in Belgium. She was part of the start-up team of the Flemish digital research and innovation institute iMinds; helping to bridge the gap between research and exploitation of results. She also occupied strategic advisory roles for the Flemish and the Belgian Ministers of health in the domain of medical data-exchange and patient access to electronic medical records. In May 2017 she joined the eHealth, well-being and ageing unit of the European commission (DG Connect) where she works on the digital transformation of health and care in the Digital Single Market more specifically with a focus on mobile health (mHealth), integrated care and active and assisted living.

An holds a Belgian law degree issued by the University of Leuven as well as a master of laws issued by the Albert-Ludwig University of Freiburg im Breisgau (Germany). Prior to the Commission An has worked in the area of health law, first an assistant at the University of Leuven and thereafter in the private sector. Since more than twelve years, An has been working for the Commission dealing with different internal market issues.  Since three years she works in the field of public procurement. In particular, she deals with Austrian and German complaints. She also is responsible for the policy work related to the application of public procurement rules in the health and waste management sector.

Claudia Wild was born in 1960. Studies of communications & psychology at the University of Vienna and of political sciences at the Ohio University in Athens/Ohio/USA. Graduation at the University of Vienna: Doctor of Philosophy in 1985. 1985-1988 Research Associate on “media impact on cognitions” at the Institute for Communications and Political Science at the University of Nuernberg/Germany and other freelance media impact research projects. 1989-2006: Senior Researcher at the Institute of Technology Assessment at the Austrian Academy of Sciences and development in the research field Health Technology Assessment in Austria. Since April 2006 she is Director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for HTA. In 2009 habilitation/postdoctoral lecture qualification in social medicine (Medical University Graz) on the topic of “resource allocation in health-care systems”. She is member of several national and international organizations, teaches HTA at universities and private colleges and is an active reviewer for several international journals in the field of HTA.

Diar is the Associate Director of Medicines Optimisation at Dartford, Gravesham and Swanley and Swale CCGs. Diar takes the lead on the provision of medicines optimisation on all matters relating to medicines use, prescribing and the provision of pharmaceutical services to the CCGs. His interests have been focused on combatting inappropriate polypharmacy with the use of healthcare data analytics.

Diar also sits on the NICE technology appraisal committee, analysing HTA applications for the NHS.

Previously, he has worked as Medicine Optimisation Pharmacist at Medway CCG, a tutor at the Centre for Pharmacy Postgraduate Education (CPPE) based at the University of Manchester and a pharmacist clinical advisor in NHS 111.

Diar holds a Masters in Pharmacy and a Masters in Health Economics and Health Policy."

Chris currently works in the Scientific Advice team at NICE which provides advice helping companies to prepare for NICE evaluations and to support discussions with payers and commissioners to enable market access. He has also previously worked in the NICE medical technologies evaluation programme (MTEP) and the technology appraisals programme (TAP). Chris also has experience working in a healthcare consultancy where he worked on a variety of health technology assessment and market access projects. Chris has a Master’s degree in Biological Chemistry from the University of Sheffield, and completed a PhD in biological sciences from the University of Manchester.

Tom Jefferson is a physician, epidemiologist and researcher. Tom’s field of expertise is evidence synthesis applied to Cochrane and other systematic reviews and Health Technology Assessment.  Tom is a Senior Associate Tutor at the University of Oxford, a researcher at the Nordic Cochrane Centre and the scientific coordinator for the production of HTA reports on non-pharmaceuticals for Agenas, the Italian National Agency for Regional Healthcare.

Göran Larsson has a Ph.D. in medical biophysics from Umea University. After his Ph.D. Göran joined University of Cambridge, UK for a three year Post.Doc period. In 2004 he returned to Umea University where he worked as a university teacher and researcher until 2012 when he moved to Östersund for his current position as Director of Research and Education in Region Jämtland Härjedalen. In 2014 he become Professor in medical biophysics. Göran Larsson is interested in eHealth/mHealth solutions and is responsible for innovation processes related to digitalization of healthcare in his organization.

Paolo joined Humanitas Research Hospital in July 2017. He graduated from University of Naples Federico II with a Bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Engineering. He completed his Master’s degree in Clinical Engineering at the same University and subsequently completed his second level Master’s degree in Health Economics at SDA Bocconi School of Management. Prior to joining Humanitas Research Hospital, Paolo worked for 3 years as Clinical Engineer and Operation Manager at PLV Fatebenefratelli private Group of Hospitals.

Prof Maarten J Postma (29/01/1960) holds the chair in Pharmacoeconomics at the University of Groningen (Netherlands). Also, he holds a chair in Global Health Economics at the University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG) and is director of UMCG’s research institute SHARE. He did his MSc in econometrics and his PhD in health economics. He specifically leads a team of 50 PhD and post-doc researchers in health- and pharmacoeconomics, contributing to many international research networks and scientific communications. Research areas comprise cost-effectiveness methods, for example, in vaccinology, transfusion science and personalized medicine. He serves (served) on various committees advising the Dutch government on reimbursement of drugs and vaccines (CVZ and Health Council). Also, he is advisor to various health-economics consultancy companies and pharmaceutical companies worldwide, Ministries of Health in neighbouring countries, member of editorial boards of scientific journals, on advisory boards for pharmaceutical companies and consultant for WHO. He is a member of UK’s Joint Committee of Vaccination & Immunization and advisor to the All Wales Medicines Strategy Group (Grwp Strategaeth Meddyginiaethau Gymru Gyfam). He is specialized in the role of pharmacoeconomics/health economics in the reimbursement process. He has over 350 MEDLINE-publications, an H-factor of 43 and extensive teaching/lecturing experience (Groningen, Heidelberg, Utrecht, Bielefeld, Ankara, Indonesia and Vietnam).

Graduated in 1987 as Electro-Mechanical Engineer with specialty electronics at the Catholic University of Leuven,  followed by a post-graduate year of Master of Business Administration. A first working experience in the field of Clinical Engineering at Intermedics, a US based pacemaker and implantable defibrillator company. Build out and directed the European Clinical Research Department. Holder of 5 patents in field of cardiac stimulation in health failure and co-author of 3 publication in this period. Joined in 1999 Medtronic to head the European Heart Failure clinical outcomes & research department ensuring the development of Clinical and Health Economic Outcome Evidence. In close cooperation with Clinical Community landmark trials were designed, conducted and published  in the Int’l journals as New England Journal of Medicine, Circulation and others with a high impact factor. A contribution of to 8 publication of which 3 as co-author. This evidence based ensured : Cardiac Resynchronization therapy obtained a class I indication level of evidence A in clinical guidelines; Cardiac Resynchronization therapy obtained a positive HTA appraisals for the full population studied . In September 2008, took on the responsibility of Assistant Director Health Economics, EurMEA at Alcon in the field of Ophthalmology for both medicinal and medical devices ranging from treatments of bacterial conjunctivitis, dry eye and glaucoma to Implantable Ocular Lenses. Developed comprehensive Patient Report Outcomes instrument to support patient diagnosis and assessing the outcome value of dry eye treatment to patients. Supported and co-authored to an additional 8 publications. As of 1st May 2012, head of Market Access and Economic Policies for  MEDTECH EUROPE to strive to balanced pro-innovation policies and to shift to a Value based Access model within EU frameworks.  Initiatives in dialogue with  procurers, payer, HTA member states representatives and other stakeholders are MEAT Value Based Procurement, Value of Diagnostic Information,  Modern HTA Cooperation in Europe,  new evidence and financing schemes to shift to access of medical technologies of value for patients, healthcare, society and our economy.

Richard Charter is the Head of Market Access and Pricing for BD Medical EMEA, focusing on the Diabetes Care franchise. He is the co-chair of the ISPOR Special Interest Group on the Value Assessment of Medical Devices. He is also the founder of the SDA Bocconi ISPOR Chapter in Milano, Italy, one of Europe’s leading business schools, where he graduated from the health economics and policy specialized Master program. With nearly 15 years of experience in finance and healthcare, Richard is uniquely positioned to create patient access agreements to align all stakeholders in healthcare. Healthcare practitioners, regulators, payers and manufacturers all have an obligation to deliver higher quality of life and positive health outcomes to the patients we serve, and overcoming the challenges in alignment and crossing silos in healthcare is the current focus of his work. Richard was born in England, raised in Canada and is currently living in Basel, Switzerland.

Hans Hofstraat is Innovation Program Manager at Philips Research, a position he has held since 2009. As Innovation Program Manager, Hans works with teams within Philips Research, and with colleagues in Business and Markets, on innovations in the area of Oncology, Neurology, and Universal Access to Care, combining deep clinical insights with the opportunities offered by digital healthcare. Together with partners within and beyond Philips, Hans is passionate about identifying major needs in the health-technology domain, and to address these by developing meaningful solutions underpinned by proven outcomes. His aim is always to achieve innovations that broaden access to appropriate care and improve quality of life for patients and healthcare professionals.

Hofstraat holds several positions in (inter)national advisory bodies. Amongst others, he is a member of the Dutch Sounding Board for Horizon 2020, contributing to work on Health, Demographic Change and Well-being. He is a member of the Steering Committee and co-initiator of the big data initiative of Top Sector Life Sciences & Health. He is also a member of the Management Team of the Institute for Diagnostic and Interventional Imaging (IDII), in which Philips participates together with UMC Utrecht, University Utrecht, and TU Eindhoven. He is a member of the Supervisory Board of the European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT) Health, and a member of the European Scientific Panel for Health.

Hans joined Philips Research from Akzo Nobel Central Research in 1998. He has also worked as a (part-time) Professor at the Institute of Molecular Chemistry of the University of Amsterdam, and at the Public Works Department of the Dutch Ministry of Transport and Public Works in The Hague. He graduated with a PhD in physical chemistry from the Free University Amsterdam (thesis awarded with the Royal Dutch Shell prize), and was a post-doc at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, Zürich, Switzerland. He worked as a lecturer at the Free University, the Free University Medical Center, and the University College of Swaziland in Kwaluseni while completing his studies. Hans has authored about 200 publications with an h-index of 42 (Google Scholar) and holds 10 granted US patents.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/hofstraat/

Creative, international and multi-cultural business, communications and public affairs executive, lawyer and entrepreneur with results-driven management experience in business development, corporate and public affairs, government relations, corporate social responsibility, crisis management, branding and positioning, stakeholder engagement, product and corporate marketing, across industries-- from healthcare to not-for profit. Specialties: Strategic corporate communications, corporate affairs, government relations, crisis and issues management, perception management, employee and change management communications, media relations, marketing communications, labor relations, industry engagement, corporate responsibility, compliance communications, issues advocacy, multicultural communications.
Currently working as Vice President Market Access, Latin America at Medtronic. Previously worked as Vice President of Public Affairs and Director Communications Latin America Region at Baxter, and had several managing positions at Burson-Marsteller in past.

Elizabeth received her undergraduate degrees at State University of New York and Master’s of Business at Wake Forest University – Babcock school of Business. She is currently Head of Global Market Access, Roche Tissue Diagnostics in Tucson, Arizona. She provides leadership oversight of Market Access projects, strategic health economics and pricing, reimbursement support for Roche affiliates concentrating on high medical value assays.  She also oversees access management of External Quality Assessment program participation, and relevant guidelines and standards. Prior to her current role she has held other key positions within RTD that included launch optimization and commercialization of new FDA approved products.

Elizabeth has authored numerous publications and is frequent invited speaker at state, regional, national and international congresses. She is a voting member and committee representative with the Clinical Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) and member of the ISO/TC212 Clinical Laboratory Testing and in vitro Test Systems, US Technical Advisory Group, Advisor Histotechnology Committee, College of American Pathologists (CAP), board member of the Arizona Bioindustry Association and President of the Anatomic Pathology Patient Interest Association (APPIA).

Nigel has global responsibility for Government Affairs and Public Policy for Terumo BCT. He has a wide experience in the Medical Technology field and has worked for a number of multinational companies in a variety of business functions. These companies include Becton Dickinson and C.R. Bard. During his time in Becton Dickinson he was involved in the development of new techniques used in regional anaesthesia, particularly in the creating a market for Combined Spinal and Epidural Anaesthesia. In C.R. Bard he developed a new business  model in Europe  used to treat prostate cancer with brachytherapy. He has also been involved in several acquisitions and integration projects.

He is Chairperson of the Public Affairs Group, representing Industry at the European Trade Association (MedTech Europe) a board member of MedPharmPlast, Chairperson of the regulatory committee for MedPharmPlast and a board member of the UK / Japan 21st Century Group. This group's primary goal is to serve as a catalyst for increasing the level of mutual understanding and awareness of the political, economic, and social environments in each country. Following each of the group's annual meetings, a summary report and recommendations are submitted to the prime ministers of both countries.

A British national, Nigel has spent the last 27 years working outside his home country in France, German and now Belgium. He studied Human Biology at Loughborough University in England and attended an Executive Business Program at Harvard University in Boston, USA.

Patrice is a medical device industry expert with 25 years of experience in Clinical and Medical Affairs. He holds a Masters Degree in Pharmacology and a Masters Degree in Business Administration for Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Companies. After he joined Sofradim/Medtronic in 1998, he took the lead and established the clinical research department. Since 2012, he is the Leader of the Scientific Communication for Abdominal and Robotic Surgery. Prior to joining Medtronic, he spent almost 5 years as a clinical research manager at Biomatech, a consulting and testing company focused on medical devices. In addition, Patrice was an expert in numerous standards including ISO 14155, Medtech, and was a member of several task forces.

Mr Gårdebäck program director for the Swedish National Strategic Innovation program Medtech4Health which focus on financing of innovative projects and strategic collaborations, nationally and internationally within the medtech area.  By acting as catalyst, Medtech4Health seek to encourage the increased implementation of medical technical solutions in healthcare, make healthcare more effective, and strengthen the Swedish medtech industry. This is done through awarding funding to different projects, through strategic investments, and by lobbying at different levels both inside and outside Sweden. The program is governemnet founded through the Swedish Innovation Agency VINNOVA and have a financing budget around 6 Million Euro / year.

Mr Gårdebäck has more than 25 years of experience in global international medtech companies like Siemens, Elekta, GE Medical systems and Medtronic.  The last two Mr Gårdebäck held the position as CEO for the business in Sweden.  He is also board member in several companies and has a technical degree as Master of Science in Physics from KTH, the Royal Institute of Technology. In addition to general management positions Mr Gårdebäck have experience working in R&D departments as well as project management and marketing & sales positions including tendering and healthpolicy related activities.

Katarzyna Kolasa has more than 18 years of working experience in the healthcare sector, with 12 years with the pharmaceutical and medical devices industry and six with the public payer. In the past, she worked at both global and regional HEOR functions at AstraZeneca and BiogenIdec being based in Sweden and Switzerland respectively. At Bristol Myers Squibb and Lunbeck she was leading Market Access teams in CEE and Nordic Region. Her practical skills in the field of health economics were developed during six years employment contract at the Kalmar County Council in Sweden. Since 2015, she has been working with pricing &reimbursement challenges in the field of medical devices. Currently being Global Market Access Principal Consultant for Straub Medical. Before that, Katarzyna was a Senior HEOR Director at GE Healthcare.

She holds a PhD degree in health economics and is an author of the number of publications in the field of health technology assessment and pharmacoeconomics. Katarzyna Kolasa reviews manuscripts for Health Policy, Value in Health, Expert Review of Pharmacoeconomics & Outcomes Research, International Journal for Equity in Health and International Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care.

Her extensive knowledge in the field of health economics was acquired at University of York, University of Lund, and University of Bergen as well as during International Doctoral Courses in Health Economics and Policy organized by the Swiss School of Public Health.

Katarzyna Kolasa is DIA tutor for HTA courses. In addition to her role as a University teacher, she lead Equity study (InterQuality project) organized by Warsaw Medical University, funded under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme. She worked for the World Bank regarding the hospital management project in Poland as well.

In 2017, Kathy joined Inspire Medical Systems, a manufacturer of an implantable hypoglossal nerve stimulation device for treatment of obstructive sleep apnea, to lead the Reimbursement and Market Access function. 

She has over 25 years of Medical Device industry experience and has led reimbursement teams both in Europe and the US.  Prior to joining Inspire, Kathy lead US reimbursement and pricing teams for Boston Scientific, St. Jude Medical, and Medtronic.  She lived in the Netherlands for several years, leading KCI Medical’s European reimbursement function.

Kathy holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical-Industrial Engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and an MBA from the University of Minnesota, Carlson School of Business in Minneapolis.   

After finishing his European Finance and Accounting studies in Bremen, Germany (Dipl.-Betriebswirt) and Leeds; England (BA (Hons)) plus obtaining an MBA in Edinburgh (Scotland), Tobias Happel worked for almost 2 years as a consultant for financial Application at Oracle. For the last 17 years he was in different finance and pricing roles at Philips Medical in Böblingen (Germany) with growing responsibilities ending up in a global pricing responsibility in the Value Segment Solutions Equipment and MR Patient Care.  In 2014 he was accredited as Certified Pricing Manager from the European Pricing Platform. Besides that, for the last 18 months he also led a value based pricing project in the MR Patient Care environment and is adapting some key learnings to other strategic value based pricing projects.

Jan joined Arjo in January 2011 as Sales and Marketing Director for Arjo Netherlands. In 2015 Jan was appointed Country Manager Netherlands and in 2016 Managing Director BENELUX. In this position Jan grew the business and strengthened customer intimacy by the development of new business models like Pay per Patient, a customer web portal, track and trace solutions and consultative selling based on solutions. Jan holds a Commercial economics degree from the University of applied science ‘s-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands and is a Registered Marketer certified by the European Marketing Certification Foundation.

Anne is currently working as a Hospital Economics Senior Segment Manager at Royal Philips in Germany. Her focus is to bring the voice of the economic stakeholders of the hospital in the solutions development, marketing and selling of the Monitoring & Analytics and Therapeutic Care businesses. She has been working at Philips for 6 years mostly in the marketing intelligence area and prior to that for other companies including Hewlett-Packard as a financial analyst at the start of her career. She holds a French Bachelor degree in Marketing and a Master in Business Administration with a major in finance from Cornell University.

Being a marketing expert with over a decade of international experience in the medical device industry, Franziska Preissing has been able to gather extensive experience, particularly in the field of introducing innovative products and therapies into intensive care and cardiac surgery. In the position of International Marketing Director of several medical device companies, as well working as a consultant, she has, over the years, acquired profound knowledge on reimbursement strategies and health economics, with a focus on how to proceed as a small and medium sized enterprise. Today Franziska Preissing is responsible for global reimbursement strategies and health economics at CytoSorbents Europe, who launched the CytoSorb adsorber, an extracorporeal therapy that enables innovative adsorption in SIRS (systemic inflammatory response syndrome) and sepsis patients.

Ernesto is the Founder and Managing Director of ValueConnected. He has over 16 years of experience leading healthcare strategies to drive access and expansion for new products, developing value propositions for both public and private stakeholders and assessing global market opportunities. He has worked for both government agencies and global healthcare companies in roles ranging from strategic marketing and new product development to health economics and reimbursement. Ernesto has led several Market Access projects across Europe, US, Middle East and Latin America. Ernesto holds an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin and is fluent in English, Spanish and Portuguese.

Mr. Wenthold has 15 years of experience providing consulting services to the biopharmaceutical, medical device and diagnostic companies on commercialization and market access strategy. Mr. Wenthold’s particular focus is global pricing, reimbursement, and market access for innovative medical technologies. He has substantial experience in global markets and managed Boston Healthcare Associates European HQ office in Berlin from 2013-2014. Mr Wenthold has been responsible for international operations since 2009. Mr Wenthold brings an in-depth understanding of global payers and health systems and a rigorous research methodology to properly assess investment opportunities and risks. He has experience supporting several due diligence transactions, embedding pricing and reimbursement risk, and building additional evidence investment and infrastructure development into go/ no-go and valuation decisions. He advises start-up and early stage companies as well as large multinationals and has experience across disease types, settings of care and global markets.