PMLS Virtual Series 2021 – Precision Diagnostics for Precision Medicine Virtual Summit
On Demand Now Click Here
May 11, 2021
Steve Anderson, PhD
Chief Science Officer, Covance; Senior Vice President, LabCorp Drug Development
Steve Anderson, PhD
Chief Science Officer, Covance; Senior Vice President, LabCorp Drug Development
Dr. Anderson is a senior vice president at Laboratory Corporation of America (LabCorp), and the Chief Scientific Officer for the Covance Drug Development business of LabCorp. He has been with the LabCorp organization for 26 years and has held a variety of positions including director of operations for ViroMed Laboratories, director of operations for Monogram Biosciences, director of operations for the Center for Molecular Biology and Pathology, director of operations for Integrated Oncology and Genetics, national director of Research and Development, and global head of LabCorp Clinical Trials. Dr Anderson is a member of a variety of professional societies including the American Association for Cancer Research, the American Society of Clinical Oncology and the Association for Molecular Pathology.
Dr Anderson’s research interests are in the development and applications for molecular diagnostics, including several examples of companion diagnostics and pharmacogenomics assays. He has authored more than 175 articles and abstracts published in such journals as Genetics, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Clinical Chemistry, the Journal of Infectious Disease, Human Pathology, American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Oncogene, the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Clinical Cancer Research, Breast Cancer Research, BMC Cancer, the Journal of Molecular Diagnostics, Archives of Pathology and Laboratory Investigation and Expert Reviews in Molecular Diagnostics.
He has a PhD in genetics from Iowa State University, and was an American Cancer Society postdoctoral fellow at the Waksman Institute of Rutgers University.
Karen Balstrup, MBA, MS
Director, CDx Commercialization, Agilent
Karen Balstrup, MBA, MS
Director, CDx Commercialization, Agilent
Ms. Balstrup serves as the Director of CDx Commercialization in Pathology Marketing at Agilent, where she leads engagement with pharma partners throughout the continuum of CDx launch strategy, tactics and global deployment.
Karen has worked in clinical cancer diagnostics for the past 13 years, first at Dako and currently at Agilent. As a key driver of the worldwide launch of Agilent’s PD-L1 companion diagnostics portfolio, Karen has vast experience in CDx commercialization.
Empowered by Agilent’s dedication to precision medicine and extensive collaboration with our partners, Karen has been engaged in establishing programs that drive high-quality diagnostic testing through educational programs and advanced digital tools.
Karen graduated in chemical engineering from DTU – Technical University of Denmark and holds an MBA from the Copenhagen Business School.
Suzanne Belinson, PhD, MPH
Vice President, Commercial Markets, Tempus
Suzanne Belinson, PhD, MPH
Vice President, Commercial Markets, Tempus
In her current role, Suzanne focuses on commercial strategy and growth for Tempus developing and executing partnerships with organizations to improve healthcare value and outcomes by leveraging molecular and clinical data. Value creation for commercial payers, benefit managers and group purchasing organizations is where she focuses. Dr. Belinson is especially interested in applications of data to power solutions for the transition to and management of value based care. Prior to Tempus, Dr. Belinson served as Executive Director, Clinical Markets, at the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association where she led the sales and market development as well as day to day operations of Evidence Street. Dr. Belinson received her bachelor’s degree from Cleveland State University, a Masters in Public Health from the University of Pittsburgh, and a PhD in Epidemiology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Jeff Conroy, PhD
Chief Scientific Officer, OmniSeq
Jeff Conroy, PhD
Chief Scientific Officer, OmniSeq
Dr. Conroy serves as Chief Scientific Officer for Omniseq. In this role, he oversees the scientific functions of Omniseq, including Research and Development (R&D), Bioinformatics, and Information Technology. He leads business development activities with key industry and pharmaceutical partners, and oversees the development and implementation of advanced diagnostic tests from target design through analytical validation.
Prior to joining OmniSeq, Dr. Conroy spent three years as Director of Genomic Technologies in the Center for Personalized Medicine at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center. While at Roswell, he also served 15 years as Co-Director of the Genomics Shared Resource, overseeing its expansion to more than 50 genomics-based service offerings and a user base of 200+ investigators per year. During his clinical and basic research career, Dr. Conroy has authored or co-authored more than 70 peer-reviewed manuscripts with a focus on genomics and molecular pathology.
Gary Gustavsen, MS
Partner and Managing Director, Precision Medicine, Health Advances
Gary Gustavsen, MS
Partner and Managing Director, Precision Medicine, Health Advances
Gary joined Health Advances in 2005 and leads the firm’s Precision Medicine Practice. A noted writer and workshop leader in the field of companion diagnostics and precision medicine, his work focuses on commercialization strategy, indication prioritization, pricing and reimbursement strategy, system economics, and business development opportunities for both diagnostic and therapeutic clients.
Prior to joining Health Advances, Gary was a researcher at Brookhaven National Lab evaluating a proprietary line of synthetic growth factors. Gary also worked in the Cell & Tissue Technologies group at Becton Dickinson, the Exploratory Cancer Research group at OSI Pharmaceuticals, and most recently the Corporate Strategy group at Millennium Pharmaceuticals. Gary received his BSE degree in Biomedical Engineering from Duke University and his MS degree in Biomedical Engineering from Stony Brook University.
Catherine Hajek, MD
Associate Professor of Medicine, USD Sanford School of Medicine and Medical Director, Sanford Imagenetics
Catherine Hajek, MD
Associate Professor of Medicine, USD Sanford School of Medicine and Medical Director, Sanford Imagenetics
Cassie Hajek is an internist-geneticist at Sanford Health in Sioux Falls, SD. She graduated from the University of South Dakota Sanford School of Medicine and completed Internal Medicine residency at Montefiore Medical Center in Bronx, NY. Her medical genetics fellowship at the UCLA Intercampus Medical Genetics Program was focused on Adult Genetics and the genetics of common complex disease and genomic contribution to risk. Since completing her training, she has led the development of Sanford Health’s preemptive genetic screening program. This has included the design and launch of system-wide genomic education and clinical implementation of consenting, test delivery, return of results and clinical decision support. Her research is focused on developing clinical applications of genomic medicine. She is committed to identifying new approaches to integrating genetics and genomics in the care of patients and currently serves as the physician chair and medical director for the Sanford Imagenetics program at Sanford Health.
Damon Hostin
Lead, Health Systems, Market Access, Illumina
Damon Hostin, MS
Lead, Health Systems, Market Access, Illumina
Damon serves as Lead for Health Systems in Illumina’s Market Access department. Prior, Damon held multiple leadership positions at Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI), culminating in leading the Precision Medicine Alliance of CHI and Dignity Health (the Precision Medicine Alliance), bringing advanced diagnostic and data solutions to over 150 hospitals. Before CHI, he was clinical business leader for Complete Genomics. Earlier, he led the Life Science segment of Strategic Diagnostics’ (SDIX, now Origene) antibody and assay business, including IVD production, research tools and therapeutic candidate generation. Earlier, Hostin managed GenVis Labs, a clinical and agricultural genetic diagnostic company purchased by Pfizer in 2005. As a founder of Actinium Pharmaceuticals, he managed alliances in developing targeted oncology therapeutics. His start in genomics was as Team Leader, Sequencing at Celera Genomics, where he was published on the Human and Drosophila genomes in Science and contributed to pharmaceutical partnerships. His education includes undergraduate studies at Tulane University, Masters studies at Harvard, and certificate programs at Wharton and the NIH.
Taylor Jensen, PhD
Senior Director, Oncology R&D, Labcorp
Taylor Jensen, PhD
Senior Director, Oncology R & D, Labcorp
Taylor Jensen, Ph.D. is Sr. Director, Oncology R&D at Labcorp where he focuses on precision medicine assay development and product strategy in oncology. After studying in the field of cancer epigenetics, Dr. Jensen joined Sequenom in 2009 and was part of the team that developed and launched the first commercially available noninvasive prenatal test based on circulating cell-free DNA (cfDNA) in the U.S. Subsequently, Dr. Jensen has been involved in numerous assay development efforts focused on the identification and detection of genetic and epigenetic changes in cfDNA for use in prenatal and cancer diagnostics. Since the acquisition of Sequenom by LabCorp in 2016, his work has been primarily focused on the development of novel technologies and assays, primarily using cfDNA, with the overarching goal of utilizing these technologies to improve human health. He holds a Ph.D. in Pharmacology and Toxicology from the University of Arizona and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Arizona Cancer Center.
Michael Kolodziej, MD
Vice President, Chief Innovation Officer, ADVI Health
Michael Kolodziej, MD
Vice President, Chief Innovation Officer, ADVI Health
Michael Kolodziej M.D. is Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer, ADVI Health. Dr. Kolodziej attended college and medical school at Washington University in St. Louis where he was Phi Beta Kappa and Alpha Omega Alpha. He completed internal medicine and hematology-oncology training at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. After completing training, Dr. Kolodziej joined the faculty at the University of Oklahoma School of Medicine where he was an associate professor. He joined New York Oncology in the winter of 1998, and was a partner in the practice until December 2012. He was an active member of the US Oncology Pharmacy and Therapeutics committee, on the executive committee from 2002-2011, and chairman from 2004-2011. He served as Medical Director for Oncology Services for US Oncology from 2007-2011. In this role, he helped direct the implementation of the USON clinical pathways initiative, the integration of the USON EMR into this program, and the development of the USON disease management and advanced care planning programs, now known as Innovent Oncology. He joined Aetna in January, 2013 as National Medical Director, Oncology Solutions. While at Aetna, he directed Aetna’s oncology delivery reform pilots and was the architect of the Aetna Oncology Medical Home program. He was also active in Aetna’s pharmacy policy, condition analysis, and genetics subcommittees. Dr. Kolodziej joined Flatiron Health in July, 2016 as National Medical Director, Managed Care Strategy where he applied the core tech and data capabilities of Flatiron to facilitate practice transformation and success in alternative payment models. He joined ADVI in October, 2017. He is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians. He has published and spoken extensively on payment reform, personalized medicine, and practice care delivery transformation in oncology.
Luis M. Lasalvia, MD
Vice President & Global Medical Officer, Siemens Healthineers
Luis M. Lasalvia, MD
Vice President & Global Medical Officer, Siemens Healthineers
Dr. Luis Lasalvia, Vice President Siemens Healthineers, is pursuing effective, compassionate and patient centric healthcare. He has been guest speaker at approx. 500 conferences and events around the world, submitted several patents in the US and Europe, and authored more than 50 papers and articles in peer review journals, and other prestigious publications.
Entrepreneur and strategist with international background, has participated in projects in more than 50 countries in all continents. In precision medicine leads companywide though leadership, generating novel and action-oriented insights, proactively collaborating and working together with organizations and top leaders around the globe.
Has a unique mix of knowhow and experience in clinical and financial value. His clinical practice coupled with extensive experience in both pharmaceutical and medical device industries, pairs with startup advisory and venturing. Covered multiple roles as practicing physician, strategist, innovator, companywide clinical marketeer, corporate negotiator, and scouter.
Medical Doctor (Republic University, Montevideo), Master in International Business (Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona), holds Postgraduate degrees in Business Administration and in Marketing, with entrepreneurship, risk management, and innovation executive studies at The Wharton School of Business, New York University, and Harvard Business School.
Omar Perez, PhD
Head, Medical Diagnostic Strategy, AstraZeneca
Omar Perez, PhD
Head, Medical Diagnostic Strategy, AstraZeneca
Dr. Perez currently heads the medical diagnostic strategy team at AstraZeneca. Previously he oversaw the CDx group at GSK, overseeing the global oncology CDx portfolio. He also previously led global CDx developments for Pfizer’s oncology, leading industry first achievements to support the lung, prostate and breast cancer franchises. Dr. Perez is a founding team member of Tocagen, a gene therapy company and co-founder of Nodality, a biotechnology company focused on developing blood based diagnostics . He is an inventor of the multiparametric phosphoflow(TM) technologies and an author in 39 publications and 36 patents. Dr. Perez is recipient of several prestigious awards that include being a Kauffman Fellow finalist, nominee for MITs T35 Young Innovator award, the Herzenberg Prize, the Human Immunology Award Dana Foundation, and the BMS-Irvington Award. He is also a advisory board member to Panarea Partners and the National Hispanics Life Science Society.
Daryl Pritchard, PhD
Senior Vice President, Science Policy, Personalized Medicine Coalition
Daryl Pritchard, PhD
Senior Vice President, Science Policy, Personalized Medicine Coalition
Daryl Pritchard, Ph.D., is the Senior Vice President of Science Policy at PMC, where he leads the Coalition’s efforts to develop and promote optimal science-related policies and to increase awareness and understanding of personalized medicine among health care providers, patients, policymakers and other stakeholders. This includes working to identify and address barriers to the adoption of personalized medicine into the health care system, including the development and promotion of appropriate clinical, infrastructure, regulatory and payment policies.
Before coming to PMC, Dr. Pritchard served as the Director of Policy Research at the National Pharmaceutical Council (NPC), where he directed NPC’s policy research efforts in the areas of personalized medicine, the heterogeneity of treatment effects and the value of specialty biopharmaceuticals, and helped to advance NPC’s outreach, alliance development and government relations.
Prior to joining NPC, Dr. Pritchard served as the Director of Research Programs Advocacy and Personalized Medicine at the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), where he led the organization’s policy and research efforts regarding diagnostics and personalized therapies as well as the coordination of BIO’s activities involving federal biomedical research programs. He also spent three years as the Director of Government Affairs for the American Association for Dental Research and as the primary research policy coordinator for the American Dental Education Association.
Dr. Pritchard received his Ph.D. and master’s degree in genetics from George Washington University, and completed a post-doctoral research fellowship at the Children’s National Medical Center. He was awarded the first American Society of Human Genetics/National Human Genome Research Institute Fellowship in Genetics and Public Policy, where he worked as a legislative assistant in the House of Representatives.
Elissa Quinn
Director, Precision Medicine, Blueprint Medicines
Elissa Quinn
Director, Precision Medicine, Blueprint Medicines
With more than 20 years of experience in the field of molecular diagnostics and therapeutics, Elissa works in partnership with leaders across academia, large practice networks, key societies, patient advocacy groups and national labs to improve access for all patients to personalized medicine. Having worked for LabCorp, Roche, Genentech and currently Blueprint Medicines, companies driving innovation in the space of oncology and rare disease, Elissa’s unique understanding of the complex interplay between diagnostics and therapeutics has established her as a valued and trusted leader within the precision medicine ecosystem. Leveraging her strong network of interdisciplinary relationships, Elissa has built and led programs of national reach addressing barriers to adoption and integration of genomically guided care.
Elissa is currently working with industry and alliance partners to develop precision medicine navigation resources that address disparities in biomarker testing knowledge and incorporation into treatment plans. In her prior role at Genentech, Elissa developed and led precision medicine strategic collaborations and tissue quality improvement programs with large integrated delivery networks and national oncology networks, resulting in improved protocol standardization, and managed testing education partnerships with national reference laboratories that resulted in enhanced biomarker identification. Elissa serves as an advisor on numerous working groups and steering committees including LUNGevity Foundation, GO2 Foundation, Association of Community Cancer Centers and the Personalized Medicine Coalition.
Luca Quagliata, PhD
Vice President and Global Head of Medical Affairs, Clinical NGS and Oncology Division, Thermo Fisher Scientific
Luca Quagliata, PhD
Vice President and Global Head of Medical Affairs, Clinical NGS and Oncology Division, Thermo Fisher Scientific
Dr. Quagliata and Thermo Fisher are on a mission to democratize next-generation sequencing (NGS) and enable its widespread adoption to accelerate cancer diagnostics. Dr. Quagliata was introduced to NGS while visiting the NCI/NIH, and worked on one of the very first Ion Torrent instrument. Over the years, he took advantage of the Ion Torrent solutions’ exponential improvements and acquired extensive experience in molecular diagnostics of solid malignancies, helping the development of NGS into a tool that enables simultaneous analysis of multiple biomarkers, from gene variants to fusions. Dr. Quagliata is trained in medical biotechnology and holds a PhD in vascular medicine. Prior to joining Thermo Fisher, he was Senior Director for the R&D Unit and Leader of the Molecular Diagnostics Division, University Hospital Basel, Switzerland. With the ultimate goal of enabling precision medicine, Dr. Quagliata’s team was amongst the first in Europe to introduce NGS into routine diagnostics of solid tumors.
Lauren Silvis, JD
Senior Vice President, External Affairs, Tempus
Lauren Silvis, JD
Senior Vice President, External Affairs, Tempus
Lauren Silvis serves as Senior Vice President of External Affairs, overseeing regulatory, public policy and government affairs. Silvis most recently served as the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Prior to that role, she was the Deputy Center Director for Policy in FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health. At the FDA, she advanced policies on clinical testing, precision medicine, and digital health. Silvis was also a partner at Sidley Austin LLP, focusing on FDA regulation of pharmaceuticals and medical devices. She graduated from Duke University and earned her law degree from Georgetown University Law Center.
Byeong Yoon, PhD
Executive Director, Oncology Global Medical Affairs, Amgen
Byeong Yoon, PhD
Executive Director, Oncology Global Medical Affairs, Amgen
Byeong Yoon, PhD is an Executive Director in the Oncology Global Medical Affairs team at Amgen. In his role, Byeong oversees the team responsible for leading the medical affairs strategy and plan for Amgen’s oncology supportive care portfolio, biosimilars and diagnostics/biomarkers. Byeong has held multiple leadership positions at Amgen over the past 13 years and has been in the pharmaceutical industry for over 15 years. During that time, he has had the privilege of launching seven new drugs/indications and helping bring new therapeutic options for patients. Byeong received his undergraduate and doctorate degrees in Molecular, Cell, & Development Biology at the University of California, Los Angeles and is a proud Bruin.