Host and Moderator

Giorgio Calderari is the Helsinn Group CEO. He joined Helsinn in 1985 and since then has held various roles, including Chief Manufacturing Officer and Chief Operating Officer; he was appointed Group General Manager in 2010. He is a Board Member of Helsinn SA and of its affiliates and also of HAS Healthcare Advanced Synthesis. Giorgio is Member of the Board of Directors of BIOSplus and of the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland (SUPSI). He holds a PhD in Chemistry from the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich.

As a former BBC correspondent (Brussels, Berlin, Geneva, London) and radio presenter, Claire Doole is a sought-after moderator, facilitator and Master of Ceremonies, having facilitated high-level international conferences attended by government ministers, business leaders and senior experts. She moderated many events in Geneva for UN agencies, international trade federations and multinationals. In Brussels she is highly regarded by the European Commission, European Parliament and trade federations for her professional skill and delivery. A former spokesperson for UN Refugee Agency in London, WWF International in Gland (CH) and the International Federation of the Red Cross in Haiti, Claire specializes in moderating on environmental, health, development and humanitarian issues.

Speakers

Franco Cavalli was the Scientific Director of the Oncology Institute of Southern Switzerland (IOSI) in Bellinzona until 2017. He created this institute, which encompasses medical oncology, radio-oncology, nuclear medicine, palliative care, hematology and an important research division. He is currently still President of the Foundation, which manages the Institute of Oncology Research (IOR). He is Professor of medical oncology at the Medical Faculty in Bern and honorary Professor at different universities. He has an international reputation for the treatment of and research into malignant lymphoma and new drugs. Every second year he organizes the International Conference on Malignant Lymphoma in Lugano, which is the most important congress on this topic worldwide. He has been very active also in the field of clinical evaluation of new cancer drugs. In 1996, he founded the International Extranodal Lymphoma Study Group (IELSG). He was President of the Swiss Group for Clinical Research (SAKK), of the Swiss Cancer League, and is Chairman of the Scientific Committee of the European School of Oncology (ESO) and of the World Oncology Forum (WOF). He was President of the International Union Against Cancer (UICC) between 2006 and 2008.

Dr. Hudis is the Chief Executive Officer of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). He also serves as Executive Vice Chair of its Conquer Cancer Foundation and Chair of ASCO’s CancerLinQ. Dr. Hudis previously served in a variety of volunteer and leadership roles at ASCO, including as its President during the Society’s 50th anniversary year (2013-14). Before coming to ASCO full-time, he was the Chief of the Breast Medicine Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in New York City and Professor of Medicine at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University. As CEO of ASCO, Dr. Hudis is responsible for delivering on the board’s strategic goals through education, research, and support for the delivery of the highest quality of care by the Society’s nearly 45,000 members.

Amy P. Abernethy, MD, PhD is the President of Clinical Studies Platforms at Alphabet’s Verily, where she has responsibility for the company’s Baseline program and other initiatives to support clinical trials and real-world evidence (RWE) studies. Before joining Verily, she was Principal Deputy Commissioner and Acting Chief Information Officer of the US Food & Drug Administration. Prior roles include serving as CMO/CSO of Flatiron Health and multiple roles at Duke University, where she was Professor of Medicine.  She went to the University of Pennsylvania and then Duke University Medical School, and received her PhD from Flinders University in Australia.

Antonella Cardone is the Patient Advocacy Expert of Pancreatic Cancer Europe (PCE), the European multi-stakeholder platform of leading and most influential groups of physicians and patients, politicians, journalists, academia, and industry on pancreatic cancer. She was the Director of the European Cancer Patient Coalition (ECPC), which was the largest cancer patient umbrella organization in Europe with over 450 members in 50 countries. She has 25 years of experience working for non-profits in health, social and employment sectors.

Prior to ECPC, Antonella was the Executive Director of the Fit for Work Global Alliance, a multi-stakeholder coalition championing change in health and work policy. She has previously served as Director of the Global Smoke-free Partnership of the American Cancer Society, leading a movement of over 100 members to coordinate the development of smoke-free laws in 40 countries. She holds a Master’s in Science and one in Business Administration. She represented ECPC on the Board of All.Can and on the Board of Pancreatic Cancer Europe, in which she was vice-chair.

Dr. Karin Hehenberger has more than 20 years of experience in the life sciences sector, dedicating her career to applying medical science to impacting people living with chronic disease. Prior to founding Lyfebulb in 2014, she served as an executive at Eyetech Pharmaceuticals (EYET) & Coronado BioSciences (CNDO) and had strategic management roles at Johnson & Johnson (Vice President Metabolic Strategy), JDRF (Senior Vice President Strategic Alliances), and McKinsey, as well as senior partnership roles at public (Brummer & Partners) and private (Scandinavian Life Science Ventures) multi-billion dollar investment funds. She received her M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, and did her postdoctoral fellowship as a JDRF fellow at the Joslin Diabetes Center, Harvard Medical School.

Piergiorgio Pepe is an independent compliance and ethics advisor, CEO of Quantum Ethics. He advises high profile companies and institutions on ethics and compliance matters in healthcare and beyond. Piergiorgio is also very active in the academic field of compliance and ethics; he publishes and regularly teaches related courses at SciencesPo, INSEAD and Seton Hall. He is a member of the Board of ETHICS.

From 2013 to 2018, he was Compliance Director at AbbVie and, from 2006 to 2013, he worked as Business Program Director EMEA at Bristol-Myers Squibb. He was previously senior lawyer in the EU, Competition and Regulatory department of the international law firm Simmons & Simmons in London, with a focus on regulatory markets.

Piergiorgio is a law graduate of the University of Bari (Italy) and has masters in EU Law from the Institute of European Studies (ULB, Brussels). He is a Solicitor of the Supreme Court (Law Society of England and Wales) and an Avvocato at the Court of Bari, Italy.

In her last role as President of Novartis Oncology, Dr. Susanne Schaffert was member of the Executive Committee and was overseeing a global leading oncology business with USD 15bn of annual sales and 10,000 associates fully dedicated to oncology, present in 85 countries worldwide. She has been responsible for a very broad portfolio and pipeline in solid tumors and hematology and cutting edge therapeutic platforms such as targeted therapies, immuno-oncology therapeutics, cell therapies and radio ligand therapies. Susanne has held positions of increasing seniority across a range of business areas during her 25-year career at Novartis.

The majority of her roles have been in oncology, where she has a passion for making a difference in the lives of patients: “I want to make a difference for patients with cancer. Patients who are counting on us and expect us to keep pushing ahead so they can live longer and better lives.” Susanne holds a doctorate in organic chemistry from the University of Erlangen in Germany and leadership positions in the pharmaceutical industry being on the board and executive committee of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA), and vice chair of EFPIA’s Patient Access Committee.

Silvia Sebastiani has more than 15 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry and most of her career has been devoted to Medical Affairs. Her expertise ranges from scientific communication to post-registration studies, early access programs and patient advocacy.

Prior to joining the Helsinn Group, where she currently holds the position of Group Head of Medical Affairs, she completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB) in Bellinzona (CH).

Silvia holds a Master of Science and a PhD from the Faculty of Biology of the University of Rome “La Sapienza” and a specialization in Clinical Pathology from the Faculty of Medicine of the same university.