Speakers

John Wilkinson

Chief Executive of the European Medical Technology Industry Association, Belgium

He has held senior positions in Becton-Dickinson and Ohmeda, before becoming Chief Executive of a medical imaging start-up venture. This was followed by four years as Director General of the Association of British Healthcare Industries in the United Kingdom.

Having global and regional operational responsibilities in the past has given him an insight into healthcare markets worldwide. In addition, he has lived and worked in the USA.

He has given evidence to the UK Health Select Committee on issues such as the cost benefits of new medical technologies and the speed of, and barriers to, adoption of new innovations within the NHS. He also acted as the joint-secretariat with the UK Department of Health for the Healthcare Industries Task Force (HITF).

John was appointed Chief Executive at Eucomed on 1 April 2008. He was awarded an OBE in the 2010 UK New Year's Honours List for services to the medical technology industry.

John Dalli

European Commissioner for Health and Consumers

John Dalli served as a Cabinet Minister in the Maltese Government since 1987 having been first elected to the House of Representatives of Malta on behalf of the Nationalist Party in 1987. He has served as Parliamentary Secretary for Industry (1987-1990), Minister of Economic Affairs (1990-92), Minister of Finance (1992-1996, 1998-2003) Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Investment Promotion (2004). Between March 2008 and February 2010, John Dalli served as Minister for Social Policy which includes the Health, housing, employment and industrial relations portfolio.

As a qualified accountant, Dalli has also worked in the private sector in Malta and abroad, both in industry and as an independent consultant.

In February 2010 John Dalli was appointed as European Commissioner for Health and Consumers.

John Dalli was born on 5th October 1948. He is married and has two daughters.

Dr. Vincenzo Costigliola MD

President of the European Medical Association

Dr. Costigliola graduated in Medicine from the University of Naples in 1972 and with distinction, in Anesthesiology and Intensive Care from the University of Pisa in 1978.

He also completed studies in Rheumatology, Dermatology, Procthology, Oncology, Surgery, Drugs Abuse, Emergency Treatment, Disaster Action, Hospital Organization, Medical Teaching Methodology and Computor and Audio-Visual Training for the Medical Profession.

His professional experience ranges from senior military positions as Chief of Medical Services in the Italian Navy for a number of years, responsibility of the outpatients clinic of the Shape (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe) Hospital in Belgium and family practice in Italy and Belgium. Medical advisor: OTAN; W.E.U. (Western European Union). Bruxelles.

Peteris Zilgalvis

Head of Unit, ICT for Health, DG Information Society and Media, European Commission

Peteris Zilgalvis is Head of Unit, ICT for Health, Directorate - ICT addressing Social Challenges, Information Society and Media Directorate General (INFSO). Earlier, he was Head of the Unit, Infectious Diseases in the Health Research Directorate. Until 2010, he was Head of the Governance and Ethics Unit, Directorate Science, Economy and Society at DG Research, European Commission.  From 1997 to 2005, he was Deputy Head of the Bioethics Department of the Council of Europe, in its Directorate General of Legal Affairs.  In addition, he has held various positions in the Latvian civil service (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Environment). He was Senior Environmental Law Advisor to the World Bank/Russian Federation Environmental Management Project and was Regional Environmental Specialist for the Baltic Countries at the World Bank.

P. Zilgalvis studied political science (cum laude) at the University of California, Los Angeles. At the Law Center of the University of Southern California he obtained his JD (Doctor of Jurisprudence).  He is a member of the California State Bar.  He has published over 25 publications on bioethics, economics, European and environmental law in English and in Latvian.

Nicole Denjoy

Secretary General, COCIR, Brussels

Nicole Denjoy is the COCIR Secretary General since October 2005:

• Leading the COCIR Office in Brussels and COCIR Office in China, raising COCIR profile in EU and internationally
• Building high level relationships with key stakeholders including decision-makers with COCIR members as well as with the European institutions and other regulatory bodies inside and outside Europe (includes USA, Japan, Canada and China)
• Articulating strategies on specific activities with COCIR members on economic, regulatory, technical, business aspects as well as promoting active contribution of COCIR in the sustainability of healthcare systems

Nicole’s overall experience is:

• 27 years experience in the field of Regulatory Affairs, Vigilance and Quality Assurance working with known international healthcare industries, including L’air Liquide, Ohmeda, Boston Scientific and Baxter
• 17 years experience in International & European Standardization

Nicole has a Master in Organisation and Change Management.

Nicole is representing COCIR in a variety of influencial fora such as the Health Policy Forum, European Partnership Against Cancer, EUnetHTA Industry Stakeholder Forum, coordinated by DG Sanco. Nicole is also representing industry stakeholder group in eHealth activities such as i2010 sub-group and is actively participating in Joint Action on Governance on eHealth under close relationship with DG INFSO and DG Sanco.

Nicole since 2008 is representing COCIR, as one of the European Healthcare Industry Organisation in Global Harmonization Task Force (GHTF) Steering Committee and became the Standards Rapporteur in May 2010.

Nicole became as of May 2010 the chair of the BIAC Task Force on Health Care Policy representing the business branch in front of the OECD Health Committee.

ALESSANDRO GIULIANI

CURRICULUM VITAE ET STUDIORUM

1. SHORT BIOGRAPHY

Born in  : Roma, 14/2/1959

Living in  : Roma, Via Vescia 30, 00183

Working at: Roma, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, (Italian NIH) Environment and Health Dept.

Tel. ++39-06-70453395 (home)

       ++39-06-49902579 (work)

e-mail: alessandro.giuliani@iss.it

2. ACADEMIC CURRICULUM AND WORK EXPERIENCES

Diploma di Maturita' Classica  at Liceo Ginnasio E.Q. Visconti di Roma  score  60/60 (Anno scolastico 76/77)

Laurea in Biological Sciences  at  Universita' di Roma "La Sapienza" score 110/110 cum laude (Anno Accademico 81/82).

Host at  Istituto Superiore di Sanita' , Mutagenesis and Carcinogenesis Dept., Prof. Angelo Carere Head (1979-1982).

Post-Doc (EEC grant) at Istituto Superiore di Sanita',  Mutagenesis and Carcinogenesis Dept., Prof. Angelo Carere  Head (1982-1985).

Junior Scientist  at Sigma-Tau Biological Laboratories,  Dr.ssa Maria Teresa Ramacci  Head (1985-1988)

Head of    Mathematical Modeling Unit at Istituto Ricerca sulla Senescenza Sigma-Tau,   Dr.ssa Maria Teresa Ramacci, Dr. Menotti Calvani  Heads (1988-1997).

Visiting Scientist at University of California Los Angeles, Brain Research Institute,  1990.

Visiting Scientist at  Pomona College Los Angeles, Department of Organic Chemistry, 1991.

Professor on contract basis  of  Biophysics at  Universita' degli studi di Roma "La Sapienza", Medical school prof. Alfredo Colosimo (Head of Dept.) . Anni Accademici 1994/1995, 1995/1996, 1996/1997 .

Current Bioinformatics: Editorial Board member.

Senior Scientist  at  Comparative Toxicology and Ecotoxicology lab. (TCE) , Structure-Activity Relationships Unit at  Istituto Superiore di Sanita’ ,  Prof. Angelo Carere (Head of Department) Dr. Romualdo Benigni  (Unit head) (1997- 2003)

Senior Scientist  at  Environment and Health Dept. , Computational and experimental carcinogenesis unit, at  Istituto Superiore di Sanita’ ,  Prof. Margherita Bignami (Head of Department) (2003 - )

Professor on contract basis of Molecular Biophysics at Università di Ferrara. Prof. Franco dall’ Occhio (Head of Dept.) 2001

Visiting Scientist, Rush University of Chicago, Dept. of Molecular Biophysics and Physiology, Prof. Joseph P. Zbilut,  June 2003,

EU evaluator of Research Projects, Sixth Framework Programme: FP6-2003-NEST-A; FP6-2003-NEST-B ; FP6-NEST-PATH-SP1. April – July, 2004.

Visiting Scientist, Bioinformatics Institute Singapore, Computational Biology Dept., Prof. Chandra Verma, November – December 2004.

Visiting Scientist, Bioinformatics Institute Singapore, Computational Biology Dept., Prof. Chandra Verma, November – December 2005.

EU evaluator of Research Projects, Sixth Framework Programme: FP6-2005-NEST-A; FP6-2005-NEST-B ; FP6-NEST-PATH-SP1. April 2006.

Visiting Scientist, Systems Biology Dept. Keio University, Japan. Prof. Masa Tsuchya and Prof. Masaru Tomita. October 2006.

Editor-in-chief. Systems and Synthetic Biology, Springer 2008-

Visiting Scientist, National University of  Singapore, Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Prof. Kuznetsov, Prof. Chan, November 2008.

Professor on contract basis of Biology at Theology and Philosophy Faculties, Angelicum Pontificial University, Roma (Prof. Albert Bagood opm) 2009-

Professor on contract basis of Animal Biology, Università di Scienze Gastronomiche, Pollenzo-Bra (CN) 2009.

Evaluator for Israel Science Foundation (ISF).

Visiting Scientist at Kerala Bioinformatics Institute (India, Trivandrum), director prof. Achusanankar Nair, 2010.

3. MAIN RESEARCH INTERESTS

Dr. Alessandro Giuliani is mainly involved in the generation and testing of soft physical and statistical models for life sciences, with a special emphasis on the elucidation of mesoscopic complex systems like protein sequence/structure prediction, quantitative structure/activity relations in medicinal chemistry, analysis of physiological time series, analysis of ecological systems, systems biology approaches to gene expression regulation.

Dr. Alessandro Giuliani is member of the Italian Society of Chaos and Complexity and of the Italian Society for Pure and Applied Biophysics (SIBPA).

He is the editor in chief of Systems and Synthetic Biology, Springer.

He is in the editorial board of Current Bioinformatics,  The Open Access Applied Informatics Journal, Open Bioinformatics Journal.

He acts as a reviewer for the subsequent journals: American Journal of Physiology, Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, Chemical Toxicology, Medical and Biological Engineering and Computing, Physics Letters A, Journal of Chemical Information and Computer Science, Chemical Research in Toxicology, Biophysical Journal, Neuroscience Letters, Bioinformatics, Biopolymers, FEBS Journal, Genome Biology, Journal of Molecular Biology, Physica A, Physica D, In Silico Biology, Current Bioinformatics, PLoS Comp. Biol., PLoS ONE, PNAS, Nature Methods.

Total number of publications on international peer reviewed journal: 196

MOST RELEVANT PUBLICATIONS FOR THE LECTURE THEME ON PEER REVIEWED JOURNALS

Giuliani A. (2011) The dawn of mesoscopic approach in drug development. Annal. Ist.Sup. Sanità 47 (1): 60-65.

Giuliani A., Licata I., Modonesi C. and Crosignani P. (2011) What is Artificial about Life ? The Scientific World Journal 11, 651–654. DOI 10.1100/tsw.2011.73.

Bertolaso M, De Grana L. , Giuliani A. (2010) Systems Biology reveals biology of systems. Complexity

DOI: 10.1002/cplx.20353  

N. Felli, L. Cianetti, E.Pelosi, A.Carè, C. Gong Liu, G.A. Calin, C.Peschle, S.Rossi ,G.Marziali, A.Giuliani (2010) Hematopoietic differentiation: a Coordinated Dynamical Process Towards Attractor Stable States BMC Systems Biology 4: 85 .

A.Giuliani (2010) Collective motions and specific effectors: a statistical mechanics perspective on biological regulation. BMC Genomics 11 (suppl. 1): S2.

J.P. Zbilut and A. Giuliani (2008) Biological Uncertainty. Theory In Biosciences 127(3): 223-227 .

Krishnan A., Giuliani A., Tomita M. (2007) Indeterminacy of Reverse Engineering of Gene Regulatory Networks: The Curse of Gene Elasticity. Plos ONE (6): e562.

M. Tsuchyia, S.T. Wong, Z. X. Yeo, A. Colosimo, M.C. Palumbo, L. Farina, M. Crescenzi, A. Mazzola,

R. Negri, M.M. Bianchi, K. Selvarajoo, M. Tomita and A.Giuliani (2007) Gene expression waves: cell cycle independent collective dynamics in cultured cells FEBS J. 274: 2874-2886.

Palumbo M.C.,  Colosimo A., Giuliani A. , Farina L. (2005) Functional Essentiality from Topology features in metabolic networks: a case study in yeast. FEBS Letters. (579): 4642-4646.

Giuliani A., R.Benigni, J.P. Zbilut, C.L. Webber, P. Sirabella and A. Colosimo (2002) Nonlinear Signal Analysis Methods in the Elucidation of Protein Sequence / Structure Relationships Chemical Reviews (102): 1471-1491.

M. Crescenzi and A. Giuliani (2001) The main biological determinants of tumor line taxonomy elucidated by a principal component analysis of microarray data. FEBS Letters (507) 1: 114-118.

 Giuliani A. , M. Colafranceschi, C.L. Webber, J.P. Zbilut (2001) A complexity score derived from principal components analysis of nonlinear order measures. Physica A (301) 1-4: 567-588.

P. Sirabella, A.Giuliani, A.Colosimo, J.W. Dippner (2001) Deconvolving the climate effects on cod recruitment by principal component analysis and canonical correlation. Marine Ecology – Progress Series (218) 213-222.

R.Benigni, R. Giaimo, D.Matranga, A. Giuliani (2001)The between-sexes difference in tumor incidence is related to the female conditions: models for Europe and Italy. Env.Health Persp. (109) (7): 705-709.

 Giuliani A., R.Benigni, P. Sirabella, J.P. Zbilut and A. Colosimo (2000) Nonlinear methods in the Analysis of Protein Sequences: A Case Study in Rubredoxins. Biophysical Journal (78) (1)  : 136-149.

Benigni R., M. Cotta-Ramusino, G. Gallo, F. Giorgi, A. Giuliani, M.R. Vari’  (2000) Deriving a quantitative chirality measure from molecular similarity indices. Journ.of  Med. Chem. 43 (20): 3699-3703.

Giuliani A., G.Piccirillo, V.Marigliano, A.Colosimo (1998) A Non-linear Explanation for Aging Induced Changes in Heartbeat Dynamics. Am.Journ. Physiol. (Heart.Circ.Physiol. 275): H1455-H1461.

Giuliani A., A. Colosimo, R.Benigni and J.P.Zbilut (1998) On the Constructive Role of Noise in Spatial Systems. Physics Letters A (247) (1,2): 47-52.

Giuliani A., Mancini A.M., Ghirardi O., Ramacci M.T.R., Voronina T., Sirabella P. and Colosimo A. (1996) Micro and Macrostructure of learning in Active Avoidance: a quantitative approach. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory 65 (1): 82-90.

Giuliani A., P. Lo Giudice, A.M. Mancini, G. Quatrini, L. Pacifici, C.L. Webber, M. Zak and J.P. Zbilut (1996) A Markovian Formalization of Heart Rate Dynamics Evinces a Quantum-Like Hypothesis. Biological Cybernetics (74): 181-187.

Giuliani A., Ghirardi O., Caprioli A., Di Serio S., Ramacci M.T. and Angelucci L. (1994) Multivariate Analysis of behavioral aging highlights some unexpected features of complex systems organization. Behavioral and Neural Biology (61), 2, 110-122.

Benigni R. and Giuliani A. (1994) Quantitative modeling and biology: The multivariate approach. American Journ. of Physiol. (266) (35), R1697-R1704.

Benigni R. and Giuliani A. (1988) Predicting carcinogenicity with short-term tests: biological models and operational approaches. Mut. Res. (205) 227-236.

Benigni R. and Giuliani A. (1986) A new insight into chemical mutagenesis by multivariate data analysis. J. Theor. Biol. (121) 477-486.

Herbert F. Riband

Vice President External Affairs International Medtronic

Herb Riband joined Medtronic in Switzerland in 1999 as Vice President and Senior Counsel for Europe, Middle East and Africa. In April 2002 he was named Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, Legal and External Affairs. In this capacity he was responsible for Medtronic's legal and compliance function in its Europe, Emerging Markets and Canada region, as well as building regional government affairs, reimbursement/health economics, communications, market development, regulatory affairs and community affairs capabilities across the region. In 2008, he was named Vice President External Affairs International for Medtronic's International region, with responsibility for leading a global strategic initiative focused on integrated health policy and market access activities, while continuing to lead International external affairs functions.

In connection with his Medtronic role, Mr. Riband has long been active in Eucomed, the European medical technology industry association. Eucomed’s mission is to create and maintain a suitable framework enabling the manufacturers of medical technology and other relevant economic actors to operate, innovate and market in an open, predictable and competitive market place, with the ultimate objective of contributing to improve the access of patients and clinicians to modern, innovative and reliable medical technology products. Mr. Riband has served as Chair of the Eucomed Public Affairs Network since 2009 and is a long-standing member of Eucomed’s International Affairs Group and Corporate Advisory Council.

Since 2008 Mr. Riband has served as a member of two industry/government bodies, the UK Ministerial Medical Technology Strategy Group (MMTSG) and the Geneva-based Council for Multilateral Business Diplomacy. He is a regular speaker at conferences and health policy events.

Prior to joining Medtronic, Mr. Riband held a variety of international legal and business positions with law firms and multinational corporations. He started his career in 1987 with the law firm of Baker & McKenzie in Washington, D.C. and in 1991 joined Ernst & Young in Madrid, Spain. In 1996 he became Vice President and Asst. General Counsel of the IDV Americas division of Grand Metropolitan PLC based in Hartford, Connecticut. In 1998 he moved to London, England to become General Counsel, International Markets for the UDV division of Diageo PLC.

A native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Mr. Riband received his B.A. Degree with Distinction from Cornell University and J.D. Degree from the University of Michigan Law School. He has lived and worked in Europe for 18 years.

Dr. Anette Braun

Senior Policy and Technology Consultant at VDI Future Technology Centre in Düsseldorf, Germany

Dr Anette Braun is a macro-economist and political scientist (PhD). Since 1997, she has been a senior policy and technology consultant at VDI Future Technology Center in Düsseldorf, where she coordinates various European Prospective Research Studies (2005-2008 Trend and Issue Analysis of the European Foresight Monitoring Network, 2007 the foresight programme of the Luxemburg Government). She is responsible for the performance of socio-economic analyses of global trends, drivers, emerging issues (roadmaps on health, e-health, biotech, nano, converging technologies), their exploitation, combination, synthesis and translation into discrete S&T policy priorities.

Anette Braun has acted as a Member of the High Level Expert Group for DG RTD in 2010 on “EU and the World in 2030-2050” and in 2005 on “Foresighting the New Technology Wave” and has published various articles and papers on RTD and foresight.

Prof. Martin Smits

Associate Professor of Information Systems and Management, Tilburg University, Member of the Centre for Research on the Transformation of Health Care (TRANZO)

Martin Smits' research focuses on the impact of IT on the performance of business processes in organizations and business networks. Topics include business process redesign, strategic information systems planning, information management, supply chain management, and supply chain integration. He is particularly interested in electronic markets, the development of market structure and market performance. He develops process models, governance models, and system dynamics models, in particular in the health care sector and the financial services sector.

Most recent publications

• Alt, R., & Smits, M.T. (2010). Design options for service directories in business networks. In A. Trish, M. Turpin, & J.P. van Deventer (Eds.), Proceedings of the 18th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS '10), Pretoria: University of Pretoria.
• Broek, A. van den, & Smits, M.T. (2010). Effectiviteit van stepped care in de geestelijke gezondheidszorg. Acta Hospitalia, 50(1), 35-50.
• Smits, M.T., Slenter, V., & Geurts, J. (2010). Improving manpower planning in health care. In A. Pucihar (Ed.), Proceedings of the 23rd Bled eConference, Slovenia: University of Maribor.
• Smits, M.T., & Weigand, H. (2010). Identifying market performance indicators that can be influenced by electronic intermediaries. In A. Trish, M. Turpin, & J.P. van Deventer (Eds.), Proceedings of the 18th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS '10), Pretoria: University of Pretoria.
• Smits, M.T. (2010). Impact of policy and process design on the performance of intake and treatment processes in mental health care: A system dynamics case study. Journal of the Operational Research Society, 61(10), 1437-1445.

Paul de Raeve

General Secretary of the European Federation of Nurses Associations

Paul De Raeve is born in Belgium on the 23rd December 1963. Paul De Raeve graduated as registered nurse in 1984. He obtained a Master degree in Nursing Science at the Free University of Brussels in 1989. In 1996 he received a Master degree in Statistics from the Catholic University of Brussels. He is actually Doctoral Student in Nursing at the Kings College University of London.

Since 1984 Paul De Raeve worked full time as a Registered Nurse in a centre for children with muscular disease. He was a Head nurse Neonatology in the Al Hada Hospital in Saudi Arabia from 1990 up to 1992. On his return from the Middle East, he was appointed as a staff manager at the Free University hospital of Brussels, parttime delegated to the Belgium Ministry of Health and Environment. He was responsible for developing a national comparable data warehouse for nursing, introducing qualitative indicators within the hospital financing system and providing data for the political decision making process.

In 2002, Paul De Raeve was appointed as General Secretary of the European Federation of Nurses Associations (EFN). EFN activities relate to the promotion and protection of nurses and the nursing profession with particular reference to the EU. Working towards this mission includes ensuring that nursing is central in the development, implementation and evaluation of the European Health Policy in the field of education (Directive 36, Continuous Professional Development), Workforce Planning, Health Services and Patient Safety. Outcomes are achieved in partnership with other health providers, patients’ organizations, civil society and many other European stakeholders.

Alejandra Guillén

Project Manager - Innovation of Medtronic Iberica, Madrid

Alejandra Guillén has an MSc in Telecommunication engineering from the Polytechnic University of Valencia in 2006, having completed her Master’s Thesis in TUDelft in 2005-2006. She obtained a Master in Business administration in 2007 from the Polytechnic University of Madrid. Since 2008 she has worked for Medtronic Iberica in Spain managing the company’s activities in the development of innovative services for health care within the Service Solutions department.

Alejandra is also active in FENIN, the Spanish Federation of Medical Technology Industry, devoted to the promotion of innovation and the development of the healthcare sector. At FENIN, she participates in the creation of a national Platform for Innovation in the Medical Technology Industry.

Alejandra is originally from Argentina and has been living in Spain for 22 years.

Dr. Petra Wilson

Dr. Petra Wilson acts as secretary general for the European branch of Continua Health Alliance and is also co-lead of its European Policy Working Group. Petra is also active with the Health Information Management and Systems Society, where she serves as a member of the European Governing Council. She also acts as an advisor to the Health on the Net Foundation.

Originally trained in law, Petra spent several years as a lecturer and Senior Research Fellow at Nottingham University, UK, specializing in healthcare law and European law. She has a PhD in public health law from Oxford University, and has published widely on the legal aspects of using information technologies in healthcare. Originally from the UK, she is fluent in English, German, and French.

Mr. Géraud d'Argenlieu

From a business school formation, about 15 years in Healthcare sector (pharmaceutical industry and Healthcare information system) Geraud was in charge of project management, marketing and business development. He joined UNI MEDICINE in 2000 to develop telemedicine marketing (healthcare network, tele-expertise…) and, GIE SANTEOS administrator, actively cooperating in experimentation of follow-up for e-PMF (patient medical file).

Directory board member, he is now in charge of marketing and sales at SANTEOS (Atos origin group , healthcare subsidiary)

Dr. Anne Monnier

Anne MONNIER has a PhD in Psychology and Sociology (change management) from Sciences Po. Paris. She has a full career of marketing research and public opinion analysis in both French and international environment.

She joined ASIP Santé in 2006 as responsible of Change Management department. She heads a team in charge of helping doctors and hospitals and all stake holders at a regional level to develop PHR in real life all over the country (experimentation phase, marketing research, training programs, communication programs, satisfaction tracking, ...). This department also manages tenders at a regional level to experiment added value services of the French PHR (Dossier Médical Personnel).

Dott. Fausto Felli

President of Equity in Health Institute

- Dr. Fausto Felli is member of several important organizations in the European Union such as the Health Expert Group Age Platform - Brussels, the European Public Health Alliance - Brussels, the European Forum for Good Clinical Practice -- Brussels.

Dr. Felli is a member of the Board of Directors of the European Medical Tourism Association (Budapest, Hungary) and has been Project Manager of the program “Redefine Budgets to Include Health” and Coordinator of the European

Network of Health Plan.

He is president of the Italian Institute for Quality of Life, founded in 1987, and has an extended experience in projects concerning health promotion and disease prevention.

Dr. Michael Wilks

Dr. Wilks worked as a family doctor in the UK from 1977 to 1992. He then specialised in clinical forensic medicine, and works as a forensic physician in London. He has been a member of the British Medical Association’s Medical Ethics Committee (MEC) since 1994, and chaired the committee for nine years until September 2006. His other work for the BMA includes a three-year term as chairman of the BMA’s policy- making forum, the Representative Body, and the creation of a new BMA service for the support of doctors with health problems.

Dr. Wilks is a trustee of the Sick Doctors Trust, which supports doctors with addictive disease, and chairs the Rehabilitation of Addicted Prisoners Trust (RAPt), which is the leading provider of abstinence-based treatment for addiction in UK prisons. He has been a member of the UK delegation to the Standing Committee of European Doctors (CPME) since 2002, and chaired its Ethics Committee until December 2007.

Dr. Wilks was the CPME President for 2008 and 2009.

Dr. Rob van der Staaij

Dr. Rob van der Staaij is an advisor and thought leader at Atos Consulting in the fields of information security, privacy and identity management. During his twenty years of experience he has assisted numerous organisations with their problems in issues in these areas.

One of his fields of interest is e-health. He gives advise to health organisations on how to handle and protect sensitive patient information and he was also recently invited by the Dutch Senate to explain about the privacy and security aspects of the Dutch electronic patient file.

Jennifer Bremner

Jeni previously worked in the UK with the Local Government Association. She has broad policy experience and during her time at the LGA managed their work in relation to health and social care, services for children and young people including education and Criminal Justice. Following a degree in philosophy she trained as a nurse and worked in the UK health service and the not-for-profit sector before joining local government in the 1990s. She has a particular interest in working across organisational boundaries, with a specialist focus on health services, the not-for-profit sector and government. Also a trained health economist, Jeni has worked in general health management and as a policy analyst both in the UK health service and for national and local government. She has been with the EHMA since 2007.

Pilar Viedma Gil De Vergara

Director-general for organization, evaluation and research in health council health office of valencian government.

Pilar Viedma is Doctor of Medicine “Cum Laude” with a special award by the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (Spain) in 2000, and has Master´s degrees in Public Health, Food Safety and Sanitary Research Methodology by the University of Valencia (Spain). She has also followed a Health policy innovation seminar at Harvard University (2009) and a Programme for Senior Executives in Health Institutions at IESE MBA School (2010).

She is Graduate in Pharmacy, having obtained her Degree in Pharmacy (Sanitary Orientation) in 1988.

She develops her professional career in the Healthcare and Public Health Sector since 1990 following a public competitive examination and has worked in Public Institutions since then having responsibilities in the following areas:

• Director-General for Organization, Evaluation and Research in Health in the Council Health Office of Valencian Government, since December 2004 to present.
• Head of Medicines Control at General Directorate of Pharmacy and Health Products, since 2000 to 2004. Council Health Office of Valencian Government.
• Head of Public Health at the Canarian Health Service, 1996 to 1997. Council Health Office of Canarian Government
• Different responsibilities at the General Directorate of Public Heath of the Council Health Office of Valencian Government during 1990 and 2000.

Founder member of the Spanish Society of Communitarian Nutrition, board of directors since 2002, and at present holds the position of vice-president of the Society.

Vice-president of the Valencian Community Health Research Foundation. Member of several Health Research Foundations: Prince Felipe Research Center, Center for Public Health Research, Ophthalmological Foundation, University Hospital La Fe, Clinic University Hospital of Valencia, Hospital of Elche, General University Hospital of Valencia, Dr Peset Hospital, Neurosciences Research Foundation, Gent x Gent.

In the scientific field she has written several publications including books and articles, many of them with of international relevance, most of them about Healthcare Management, and she has also participated as a speaker in many national and international conferences.

She was born in Valencia the 12th of july, 1963