Meet the speakers

Xoli Belgrave leads the Patient Inclusion Center of Excellence at Parexel's Patient Office. She has 20+ years of global clinical research experience in project/program delivery, leadership, organisational change and corporate strategy working in Pharma and CROs. Before coming into clinical research, Xoli worked with patients and carers in hospital and care home settings and through charities supporting families impacted by HIV in the London area. She obtained her MSc in Neuroscience at Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London and a BSc Honours in Medical Biochemistry from Brunel University. She is currently a Doctoral Candidate in Organisational Change at Ashridge Business School, Hult University.

Oliver has spent most of his career working on the policy environment for clinical research, having previously served as a Policy Advisor at Cancer Research UK. Oliver has an MA in Public Administration and Public Policy and a BA in History.

Enitan is a Professor of Paediatric Infection at the University of Liverpool, and Honorary Consultant in Paediatric Infectious Diseases and Immunology at Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust. Her research career spans the full translational spectrum from innovation to applied health, and she has extensive experience of design, development, delivery and dissemination of research. In her research, she has partnered with industry partners to deliver meaningful patient outcomes. She is an NIHR Senior Investigator.

As Clinical Director of the Clinical Research Network: North West Coast, Enitan has prioritised collaboration with the life science industry, as well as increasing research participation in marginalised communities. She set up, and leads the successful NIHR- funded Research Scholars Programme, which is now rolled out across the whole North West region, and which has delivered a new generation of research leaders who are contributing to commercial research capacity and capability. Under her leadership, significant investment into research delivery in primary and social care, has increased

the commercial research activity in these settings.

Enitan’s vision is to embed research into routine NHS care, improve diversity and reach of research delivery in health and social care, and build capacity and capability.

Helen Cole is Executive Lead for Health Technologies and Evaluation in the Northern Health Science Alliance (NHSA), which is a partnership of 19 research-intensive Universities and NHS Trusts across the North of England. Helen is a state registered Clinical Scientist, with around 20 years of experience as a medical physicist in Medical Device Evaluation for the National Health Service (NHS). 

Latterly, she spent eight years as Head of a National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) External Assessment Centre (EAC), delivering independent evaluation reports on innovative MedTech and Diagnostic technologies to the NICE Medical Technologies Evaluation Programme. In her role with the NHSA, Helen offers extensive experience to MedTech and Diagnostic innovators in developing their value proposition from an NHS commissioner (payer) perspective and identifying their evidence gaps for any potential future Health Technology Assessment (HTA), towards NHS adoption at scale.

Alicia has a background in FIH (first in human) Phase I clinical trials, across clinical operations and project management. She has been part of the NIHR Business Development Team for over four years now, attending national and international

healthcare conferences and representing the NIHR to promote how the company supports R&D activities for the life sciences industry.

Andrew has extensive experience running highly successful SMEs at Chairman and Managing Director level. Recently Andrew is utilising this for two major pieces of work; HealthTRIP and Scale Up Challenges and Opportunities with the ABHI, CPI funded by Innovate UK aimed at improving the life sciences landscape incorporating innovation, regulation and route to market.

A long-term director of MediWales, the life science network for Wales, Andrew has a strong record in re-shoring to UK manufacture and improving the carbon footprint.

As a director at eg technology, Paul is the departmental and technical lead in electronics engineering. Drawing on more than 25 years’ experience in industry, he provides input into business strategy and high-level operational decisions to develop internal capabilities and external opportunities. With product design and development experience across several sectors, from MedTech and LabTech to Home Security and Logistics, he is skilled at exploring new business opportunities and building relationships with various stakeholders.

Paul is a senior point of contact for clients at all stages of the product development journey, offering breadth and depth of industry knowledge in addition to cross-disciplinary engineering expertise. His diverse background in electronics and embedded software underpins his pragmatic and reliable approach to managing multidisciplinary teams and leading the creative and technical direction of engineering challenges.

Paul is directly involved in product engineering, in addition to his roles in account management, team leadership, and technical project management. With his engineering expertise, he focuses on system engineering and risk management. Paul holds a Master’s degree in Electronic and Electrical Engineering from Loughborough University.

Dr Gavin Galasko BM BCh MA DM (Oxon) FRCP is a Consultant Interventional Cardiologist and the Director of Research, Development and Innovation at Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. He is also the Director of the NIHR PRC: Blackpool. He is a fully trained interventional cardiologist with extensive general cardiology experience and a keen interest in research. He has over 30 peer-reviewed publications and over 30 peer-reviewed abstracts.

He studied medicine at Oxford University undertaking his cardiology training in London, Zürich and Liverpool before taking up his role as a Consultant Interventional Cardiologist at the Lancashire Cardiac Centre, Blackpool in 2010.

As a Consultant, Dr Galasko helped set up the regional primary PCI (PPCI) service for acute ST-elevation myocardial infarctions in Lancashire and South Cumbria in 2011 and has been on the on-call rota for the regional PPCI service since then. This service has led to significant reductions in regional heart attack mortality.

In 2018, Dr Galasko set up and continues to run the Blackpool Lipid Clinic based at Blackpool Victoria Hospital. This has grown from one clinic per month initially to more than 5 clinics weekly with the team now consisting of 2 Consultant Cardiologists, one Advanced Practitioner, one Cardiac Pharmacist and one Consultant Chemical Pathologist. More than 1000 patients will be seen in the clinic this year.  

Dr Galasko was co-PI on a recent £3.3M MRC grant to look at targeted therapy in microvascular angina and has examined a number of PhD theses on microvascular angina. He is also co-PI on a recently successful £250k BHF grant looking at dysfunctional cholesterol.

In 2017 Dr Galasko became the Director of Research, Development and Innovation for his hospital Trust, chairing the Trust R&D committee. In 2020 he led the successful bid for Blackpool Teaching Hospitals to become one of only five NIHR Patient Recruitment Centres, with him as the Director, focussing on high-throughput late phase commercial clinical research; in 2022 he led the bid for Blackpool Teaching Hospitals to be a collaborator and partner in the successful Manchester NIHR Biomedical Research Centre bid, focussing on earlier phase clinical academic research. He has personally been the PI for over 20 NIHR portfolio studies recruiting over 900 patients.

Suzanne Fuller is Head of Devices Compliance and Audit at MHRA, with responsibility for designation and monitoring of Approved Bodies, proactive market surveillance and action against non-compliant medical devices. Suzanne has spent her career working in a variety of roles in regulation and healthcare. She spent 10 years working for the General Medical Council, developing an implementing policy on professional standards and ethics and undergraduate and postgraduate medical education. She then worked for Health Education England in quality assurance, working with a range of healthcare providers to ensure the delivery of healthcare education was both safe and effective. This included leading onsite audits and inspections of major NHS Trusts. Suzanne has also worked for the Solicitors Regulation Authority, undertaking

audits of law firms to assess compliance with professional standards and legal requirements.

Martin shares Co-Clinical Director duties at CRN Greater Manchester with Professor Andy Ustianowski. Martin has been Clinical Director of the organisation since it was established in 2014 and before that time held regional director roles with the previous incarnations of the CRN and diabetes research network. Nationally, he is a Clinical Director with the NIHR CRN’s Business Development and Marketing team.

Martin is a Consultant Physician, specialising in diabetes and endocrinology, at Salford Royal Hospital, part of the Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust, with extensive Principal and Chief Investigator experience. He is also Chief Medical Officer at Manchester-based NWEH, a technology company providing software solutions for streamlining clinical trial design and recruitment delivery using novel decentralised clinical trial platforms to bring healthcare innovations to patients faster.

Professor Hall is the Professor of cardiovascular epidemiology, Leeds Institute of Biomedical and Clinical Science, University of Leeds, Personal Chair from 2001 and a Consultant in Cardiology at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. He is also Lead for Yorkshire & Humber Research Network (Cardiovascular, Renal, Endocrine, Diabetes, Stroke). He is focussed on the genetic basis and clinical consequences of premature acute coronary disease. Having obtained a PhD in Molecular Pharmacology (drug therapy) he performed a second period of research training in the field of Molecular Biology (genetics). He has led a series of large clinical studies that include: AIREX; EMMACE-1; British Heart Foundation Family Heart Study; MRC ADLIB Project; Wellcome Trust Case Control Study; GRACE Project EMMACE-2 SPACE ROCKET Trial. He also has a growing interest and expertise in the topic of cardiac biomarkers – particularly as they relate to acute coronary syndrome evaluation and management.

Alex Hammond is a Business Development Manager for the National Institute of Health and Care Research (NIHR) and his role is to advise life sciences companies, funders and researchers on the Network’s capability and capacity to deliver their research pipeline in the UK. Alex works closely with the Network’s portfolio of free services alongside an array of world renowned expertise from patient groups to clinical and academic research professionals. He has a close relationship to all clinical specialities with strong links specifically in Oncology, Oral and Dental, Surgery, Children’s and Genetics.

Dr Rod Hughes is an Executive Medical Director in Respiratory Early Clinical Development at AstraZeneca. He joined AstraZeneca in 2017 after working as a Respiratory Physician in Sheffield for 12 years. He is responsible for leading the clinical development of several early stage compounds in Asthma, COPD and Bronchiectasis. He is proud to have collaborated with clinicians in Manchester and Yorkshire to explore new and innovative study designs and recruitment approaches to allow more patients to benefit from clinical research opportunities.

Val Jarvis-Evans is Pfizer’s Director of Clinical Site Operations for the UK and Netherlands. She has been in the industry for 25 years having started as a CRA and progressed her career through all levels of study management in both pharma and CRO.

Marie Kane joined Validae Health in September 2022 as Vice President of Innovative Trials.

Prior to joining Validae Health, Marie spent nine years at NorthWest EHealth (NWEH) Limited as a Founding Director and Deputy Chief Executive Officer (DCEO). There, she led the spin out of the company from the NHS and the University of Manchester, helped to establish the company’s global reputation as a leader in data driven trials, developed a portfolio of repeat business with top twenty pharma, and led the Series A round in 2021.

Marie is an expert in design and execution of real world, pragmatic, data enabled clinical trials having led the NWEH team to deliver the technology and data for GSK’s global first trial using electronic health care data as source, the Salford Lung Studies, and the development of the VictorionSpirit trial for Novartis plus a range of projects for global pharma.

Prior to NWEH, Marie spent her career in the NHS and universities leading the design and delivery of a range of data, information and knowledge projects at a local and national level. Marie has also conducted and published research into safety in healthcare as part of MRC and NHS funded programmes.

Marie has an Executive MBA from the University of Manchester and BA in History from the University of Hull.

Rachel is an Associate Director at Health Innovation North East and North Cumbria (HI NENC). Rachel’s portfolio of work includes:

• overseeing the development of HI NENC’s Innovation Pathway, inclusive of organisational processes and systems and change management

• leading on the development of HI NENC’s bespoke digital innovation tracker

• programme director for local programmes of work that aim to improve regional population health and economic growth

• responsible for business planning and reporting of metrics for review by commissioners

Rachel’s background is in Mathematics & Statistics, including a Masters in Clinical Research.

Prof Francis L Martin is the Lead Manager RD&I at Blackpool Victoria Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. He took up this role in March 2023 and comes with a wealth of academic experience in translational clinical research having held previous roles at Lancaster University and Institute of Cancer Research. He has published extensively in the area of inter-disciplinary developments of sensor-based technologies for healthcare applications and is a highly cited researcher. Previously, he has headed his own research laboratories and has supervised >50 PhD/MD studentships. For most of his career, he has worked in close collaboration with colleagues within the NHS. In his current role, Prof Martin manages the day-today running of the PRC Blackpool which primarily undertakes late-phase clinical trials and is also developing the BRC which is focused on early clinical translational research. 

Tobian Muir is a consultant in plastic and reconstructive surgery, based at the James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough since 2003. He is the associate lead of MedConnect North and the surgical subspecialist research lead for plastic surgery in the North East. He has a subspecialist interest in the treatment of vascular anomalies. The James Cook vascular birthmark unit has experience of 3000 sclerotherapy treatments over the last 15 years. He is the co-founder of INSPECT, the International Network for Sharing Practice in electrochemotherapy collaboration, which includes 38 European centres and 2000 patients on the registry. He is the Chief Investigator for the BEST (Bleomycin electrosclerotherapy) NIHR study.

As part of the leadership of the Innovations Team, Ian is actively involved in both the NIHR i4i Programme and the AI in Health and Care Award. He manages a portfolio of funded projects and is involved in many funding competitions, particularly providing support for applicants. He interacts with many SMEs in the sector and seeks to signpost them to appropriate support be that funding, expertise, collaborators or support for clinical studies. 

Two years in Big Pharma and a DPhil in chemistry led him to joining Kodak European R&D labs, followed by nine years at GE Healthcare Imaging R&D, leading the Discovery portfolio in diagnosis of neurodegeneration. He is a (co-)inventor on 38 patent applications. He joined NIHR in November 2014.

In his spare time, he is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, a member of UKRI Peer Review College, the External Advisory Boards for CPI HealthTRIP and the NHSE Cancer Innovation Programme. He is a mentor for the UKRI Future Leaders Fellowships, NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Programme and KQ Labs Accelerator.  

James is co-founder and Senior Partner of Newmarket Strategy, a consultancy dedicated to improving access to health innovation by providing strategic advice and technical support to the healthcare, life sciences and health tech sectors. He is also a non-executive director at HDR-UK and the Albion Development VCT plc. In early 2023 James was commissioned by the Government to carry out an independent review of commercial clinical trials in the UK, which was published in May.

James has operated at the highest levels of government, including as a Minister at the Department for Health & Social Care, as Director of the No.10 Policy Unit, and as an advisor to DHSC Ministers during the COVID-19 crisis. As Minister his responsibilities included implementing the Life Science Industrial Strategy, delivering a new pricing scheme with the pharmaceutical industry, chairing the National Genomics Board, and driving the digital transformation of the NHS. He was also responsible for preparing the health and social care sectors for Brexit and helping to design the post-Brexit regulatory regime.

Nirmal Perera is currently a Senior Business Development Manager at the National Institute for Health and Care Research, where he regularly engages with external industry partners. Prior to his role at the NIHR, he spent over 5 years as a member of the European business development team at a major life science organisation, where he regularly engaged with a range of biotechnology organisations and specialised in strategy development. He originally qualified in Medicine and spent time in academic research, completing a PhD at UCL in Cancer Genetics.

Julie joined Pfizer as a Medical Affairs Manager for Scientific Engagement. In this role she engages external stakeholders from across the UK with Pfizer’s science. Her professional background is as a clinical pharmacist, having spent her early career working in the hospital sector and in roles spanning the interface between primary and secondary care. While working clinically, Julie developed an interest and passion for research. This led her to undertake various roles with the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Clinical Research Network (CRN) at a local and national level, as well as the completion of a Professional Doctorate in Pharmacy. Initially she began working for the NIHR as Lead Pharmacist for CRN West Midlands, but her role expanded to encompass Industry Operations Manager, Local Specialty Research Lead for Health Services Research, Deputy Improvement and Innovation Lead, in addition to managing the Patient and Public Involvement team. She then became a Business Development Manager for the CRN Coordinating Centre, before moving to her current role with Pfizer.

Tanya is the Industry Operations Manager for the NIHR Clinical Research Network Yorkshire and Humber (CRN Y&H). The CRN Y&H promotes increased opportunities for people to take part in health and social research, facilitates effective and efficient study setup and delivery, and supports the Government’s Strategy for UK Life Sciences by improving the environment for commercial contract research in health and social settings.

Tanya has a background in the life sciences industry working for Parexel and Covance before joining the NHS in 2008. During her time in the NHS she was responsible for the governance and contracting of commercial research at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals, before moving to Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust as a Senior Manager responsible for the Trust’s Research & Innovation and Library Departments and My Health My Community Programme. Tanya joined the CRN Y&H in 2017 as Industry Operations Manager. She is responsible for the implementation of CRN Business Development within the region, as well as oversight of the delivery of the region’s commercial research portfolio. Tanya is also Chair of the CRN Y&H Vaccine Research Group.

Andy shares Co-Clinical Director duties at CRN Greater Manchester with Professor Martin Gibson. He is also National Specialty Lead for Infection at NIHR CRN and joint Clinical Lead for the UK’s new Vaccine Innovation Pathway as well as Clinical Lead for the NIHR COVID Vaccine Research Programme, with extensive Principal and Chief Investigator experience. Andy is a consultant in infectious diseases and tropical medicine at the Regional Infectious Diseases Unit at North Manchester General Hospital, part of Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust.

He has recently been appointed Director of the NIHR Research Delivery Network North West, which will start to operate from October 2024 as part of NIHR’s reorganisation of the CRN infrastructure. CRN Greater Manchester and CRN North West Coast will combine to form this new North West-wide network under Andy’s leadership. Andy is also Clinical Lead for the Manchester Academic Health Science Centre which brings together academic and NHS partners to drive health research across the region.

Verena Wolfram is a Senior Medical Affairs Manager within the Evidence Generation and Scientific Partnerships team. Her work focuses on establishing scientific partnerships across the life science and health care ecosystem to help deliver Pfizer’s purpose on breakthroughs that change patients’ lives. Previously Verena has worked for the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) where she co-authored the Evidence Standards Framework for Digital Health technologies. At NICE she has also worked on antimicrobial prescribing, public health as well as clinical guidelines and within NICE’s health technology appraisal team. Verena has also worked as a healthcare consultant developing market access, launch and pricing strategies for biotechs and pharmas. She has held research posts in biomedical science at the University of Cambridge, the University of Manchester and the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology (MRC LMB). She holds a PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Cambridge, UK, and studied in Germany and Finland for her MSc in Molecular Biology, Biotechnology and Biochemistry.

Professor Caroline Wroe is Clinical Director of the NIHR Clinical Research Network for North East and North Cumbria and a Consultant Nephrologist at Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. In her NIHR role she leads a regional team across 30 clinical specialties, primary care, public health and social care to co-ordinate and facilitate research study delivery across the North East of England and North Cumbria. She supports the wider NIHR under-served Programme Board, leading project work to improve research accessibility for participants at site level. In her clinical role Caroline’s specialist interest is living kidney donation, she has worked with NHS Blood and Transplant over the last 5 years to support and deliver national strategy and improve equity of access to live donor transplantation.