Speaker Bios

Professor Erwin Loh is Chief Medical Officer and Executive Director of Innovation, Patient Safety and Experience at Monash Health, Victoria’s largest health service, Australia. Prior to this he was the Deputy Chief Medical Officer at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. He is a Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Victoria and High Court of Australia. He has a medical degree from the University of Melbourne, and a law degree with honors from Monash University. He also has an MBA, Master of Health Service Management, and PhD with his thesis examining doctors in senior hospital management. He is Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Medical Administrators, Australasian College of Health Service Management, Australian Institute of Company Directors, and Australasian College of Legal Medicine.

He is currently Board Member of the Hudson Institute of Medical Research, Monash Health Research Precinct, Royal Australasian College of Medical Administrators and Australasian College of Legal Medicine. He is adjunct Clinical Professor at Monash University where he teaches health law and health services management. He is also on faculty and teaches Leadership and Innovation for the Harvard-Macy Institute and Monash University. He is the Chair of the Victorian State Committee of the Royal Australasian College of Administrators. He has been an invited speaker of local and international conferences, published articles and book chapters on health law and medical management, supervises doctoral students, and has an interest in medical futurology.

Gabe Rijpma is Sr. Director Health & Social Services for Asia. Based in Christchurch, New Zealand, Gabe’s responsibilities include leading the teams responsible for meeting the needs of healthcare customers and health technology companies across the greater Asia Pacific region.

A seasoned global trekker, he spent 18 years of his career in Singapore, the USA, and Australia before returning to his homeland in late 2015.

Prior to joining Microsoft, Gabe worked as Principal Consultant at Software Spectrum in Sydney, Australia, where he led the business solutions practice. His early career was spent as an entrepreneur and early pioneer in the Internet building numerous online businesses.

Dr. Witoolkollachit is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Orthopaedic and Joint Replacement Specialist and Founder of the Thai Hip & Knee Society. He served the ICD10 Thai Modification Committee and as Former Board executive of Royal College of Orthopaedic Surgeon Thailand. He received his MSc in Information Technology and Management and COBIT 5 Foundation implementations certified and a certificate in knee reconstruction (France). He has professional experience in Knee & Hip Arthroplasty for more than 20 years and also has been a lecturer for Thai Hip Knee Society for over 15 years. Since 2013, he has been serving as Director of Information and Communication Technology Center, Office of the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Public Health, Thailand. He was Chairman of HIMSS AsiaPac16 Organizing Committee in 2016. He is leader of many health IT projects including setting up eHealth Strategy of the Ministry of Public Health of Thailand, and establishing the Big Data of Health Data Center (HDC) for monitoring, predictive and prescriptive about public health activities of all the hospital and office service units of the Ministry of Public Health all over Thailand. The Big Data of HDC currently has electronic health records covering more than 14,000 million patients. His technology interest includes all innovating the way to deliver healthcare services across Thailand and deploy the digital technology to improve agility, efficiency and information security for hospitals and professionals to deliver always-on healthcare for Thailand such a crucial step in the nation’s digital transformation.

With extensive working experience, connection and exposure, both in broad international geography (over 30 countries) and diverse healthcare sectors/dimensions (Third Party Accreditation/Consulting Agencies, Public/private hospitals and academic medical centers, large physician group practices, health insurance including HMOs, IT companies, Public Health, Health policy research, etc), Dr. Jilan Liu is credited as one of the notable individuals that have contributed in reshaping the healthcare delivery around the world, and in China through standards/accreditation, patient/staff experience and organizational performances.

As Chief Executive for HIMSS Greater China, Dr. Liu made a significant breakthrough, in a very short timeframe, since 2014, with Hospitals and HIT industry in the Greater China Region in embracing international HIT standards, certification requirements, and a rethinking and reconsideration on prudent approach to IT investments and operations. She has also successfully led the effort to help organizations transforming healthcare through Information and Technology.

As JCI Principal Consultant and Director for Greater China Practice until the end of 2017, Dr. Liu has provided consultation services to hundreds of hospitals in around 30 countries around the world in the past ten years. She has guided her client hospitals in transforming their clinical and managerial operations toward better patient safety, higher quality, more respect with personalized care and services, and greater operational excellence and patient satisfaction.

Huei-Xin is the Director of Program Delivery - Ancillary Care with Integrated Healthcare information Systems Pte Ltd, whereby she oversees the planning and implementation of various medication related systems such as medication module within National Electronic Healthcare Records, allergy reporting system, pharmacy, laboratory, diagnostic and specialized systems. She is also the Head of National Pharmacy Program Management Office with Ministry of Health, Singapore, overseeing the implementation of National Pharmacy Strategy to transform pharmacy practice in Singapore.

Huei-Xin obtained her basic Pharmacy Degree with Merits and thereafter started her career as a Clinical Pharmacist with Singapore General Hospital. During her stay in Singapore General Hospital, Huei-Xin practised as a clinical pharmacist in kidney and solid organ transplant, renal and critical care medicine and implemented the pharmacist run transplant and renal ambulatory clinic and services. Huei-Xin was also active in clinical research and both early and late phase clinical trials comparing the safety and efficacy of different immunosuppressant regimens, studying the immunosuppressant pharmacokinetic, dosing and genetic polymorphism. She has authored a number of papers in these areas.

In 2007, Huei-Xin joined the Health Sciences Authority of Singapore and was responsible for the registration of new and generic drugs in Singapore. Huei-Xin represented Singapore in the Global Corporation Group and Regulator Forum, International Conference on Harmonization (ICH) and the APEC Life Science Innovative Forum Regulatory Steering Committee and worked with international regulatory bodies in the area of benefit-risk analysis. Huei-Xin was also responsible for the pre-market control of health products and led the development of cell and tissue therapy regulation.

Bart Barefoot, JD, is Director of Value Evidence & Outcomes and Real World Evidence Policy, Advocacy, and External Engagement at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in London, United Kingdom. Mr. Barefoot has 18 years’ experience in pharmaceutical policy and law. He earned a public policy degree from Duke University and a law degree (Juris Doctor) from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Prior to joining GSK in 2004, Mr. Barefoot practiced healthcare law in the Washington, D.C. office of Hogan & Hartson (now Hogan Lovells), an international law firm, specializing in health information privacy and human subject research regulatory issues for pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical device, and health system clients. From 2004-2015, he served in various public policy roles in GSK U.S. Pharmaceuticals and developed a specialization in comparative effectiveness research and evidence-based medicine policy issues.

Mr. Barefoot currently leads GSK’s global policy strategy development and engagement on real world evidence (RWE) issues. Collaborating with colleagues in allied functions including health outcomes, real world data analytics and epidemiology, regulatory affairs, market access, and government affairs, he seeks to enhance external conditions for RWE generation and to advance the acceptability of RWE by population health decision-makers. He is actively involved in numerous industry and multi-stakeholder RWE initiatives, including the Duke-Margolis RWE Collaborative in the United States and the GetReal and DO-IT/Big Data for Better Outcomes programs under the European Union's Innovative Medicines Initiative.

Dr. Chan is a physician epidemiologist with more than 30 years of global research experience in academia and private sector, with a primary focus on post-marketing evaluation of pharmaceutical agents and vaccines. He received his medical degree at National Taiwan University (NTU) in 1987) and ScD in epidemiology at Harvard School of Public Health in 1992. He has served on the faculty at National Taiwan University and Harvard School of Public Health and joined the private industry in 2005, and subsequently became Chief Scientist of the Epidemiology Unit at Optum.

Dr. Chan returned to NTU in 2013 and is currently a professor at NTU College of Medicine, Director of the NTU Health Data Research Center, and Director of Medical Research Department at NTU Hospital. In addition to scientific research, he has been providing consultation to Taiwan Food and Drug Administration and related health authority for more than 20 years. Dr. Chan has authored or co-authored more than 100 peer-reviewed articles and co-edited one of the two widely used English textbook on pharmacoepidemiology.

Dr. Xin Sun is Professor and Director of the Chinese Evidence-based Medicine Center at West China Hospital of Sichuan University in China. He also serves as Director the IDEAL China Center (Surgical Clinical Research Center), and Executive Editor-in-Chief of the Chinese Journal of Evidence-based Medicine and Journal of Evidence-based Medicine.

Dr. Sun established the Clinical Research, Evaluation And Translation research group (CREAT Group) with research focus on clinical trials, real world studies, health care big data and analytics, and their applications to drug and technology evaluation, and disease-specific programs. Over the past ten years, Dr. Sun has received many public research grants including those from Chinese central government, Natural Science Foundation of China, U.S. Agency for Health Research and Quality, Canadian Institution of Health Research, and over 20 grants from industry. He has published 80 SCI-cited articles, including 14 published in NEJM, JAMA, and BMJ, and was a lead author of 1 technical report to the U.S. government. He became the most productive BMJ author from China by publishing 8 articles in the BMJ over the past seven years, and recently received the BMJ Award for excellence in research.

Dr. Sun serves as President of ISPOR West China Chapter, Vice Chairs of Evidence-based Medicine Committee of the Chinese Health Promotion Association and Rational Drug Use Committee of the Chinese Geriatric Research Association, and plays an active role in committees of many professional associations in China.

Manabu Akazawa, PhD, MPH is a Professor of Meiji Pharmaceutical University and is the upcoming President of the ISPOR Japan Chapter from 2019-2020. He holds a pharmacist license in Japan. After working at pharmaceutical industry for 10 years, he moved to the USA to obtain a Masters of Public Health in Yale University and PhD in Health Policy and Management, specializing in epidemiology, in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Professor Akazawa has considerable research experiences in the area of pharmacoepidemiology, pharmacoeconomics, and healthcare services research. Using data collected in the real-world clinical settings, he has conducted safety and economic evaluations in various disease areas including COPD, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, diabetes, pneumonia, and other chronic conditions in elderly. Currently, he serves as the editor in chief of the Japanese Journal of Social Pharmacy and an editor of the Japanese Journal of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics.

Jörg Mahlich is Head of Health Economics and Outcomes Research at Janssen pharmaceutical companies of Johnson and Johnson in Germany. In addition, he is Lecturer of Health Economics at the Economics Department of the University of Vienna and research affiliate at the Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE) of the University of Düsseldorf, Germany. Previous to that he held different positions in industry and consulting in Austria, Germany, and Japan. He is interested in global pharmaceutical economics and policy. Jörg graduated in economics from the University of Kiel, Germany and holds a doctoral degree in economics from the University of Vienna, Austria.

Gergana Zlateva is a Vice President, Oncology Market Access at Pfizer Inc. Gergana’ s team is responsible for leading global pricing and market access strategies for Pfizer’s oncology medicines, working towards securing patient access to innovative treatments for challenging conditions. Prior to this role, Gergana was the Payer Insights and Access Cluster Lead for North America, and managed a team of colleagues supporting Pfizer’s portfolio of patent protected and post-LOE products.

During her 15-year tenure with Pfizer, Gergana has held various positions of increasing responsibility covering health economics, outcomes research, real world data, pricing, and reimbursement activities across several therapy areas and geographies. Gergana has led successfully business initiatives establishing new organizational models, capabilities, and process at various organizational levels. In her work, Gergana has a track record of partnering with different stakeholders and incorporating customers’ perspective.

Prior to joining Pfizer in 2003, Gergana worked for 5 years on public health, civil society, and business development programs with several United Nations agencies. Gergana holds a PhD in Economics from Fordham University, NY and a BA and MPA from Southern Illinois University, IL. Gergana’s CV includes more than 60 peer-reviewed manuscripts cited over 2,000 times.

Darin Kottege has over 7 years’ experience across the Australian Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS). The majority of which comes from his time in Australian Government Department of Health. He has been involved in the development and implementation of a wide range of policies, programs and reforms ensuring the ongoing sustainability of Australia’s PBS. Darin was directly involved in the negotiations for multiple Agreements between the Commonwealth of Australia and the pharmaceutical supply chain. He also provided strategic policy advice and Government Budget impact forecasting to the Office of the Minister for Health.

Darin has tertiary qualifications in health sciences including a Bachelor of Medical Science and a Graduate Certificate in Human Movement Science with a focus on biomechanics and exercise physiology.

Darin is the Manager for Access & Funding Policy at Medicines Australia, the peak body representing research based pharmaceutical companies in Australia, where he collaborates with government on the development of sound policies to support access to prescription medicines for Australian patients.

Jang Sae Rak is Deputy Director of Pharmaceutical Benefit Listing Division at Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service (HIRA) in South Korea. He works mainly in the areas of drug listing and pricing, price reassessment, and drug utilization review at HIRA. Mr. Sae Rak also has experience in pharmaceutical industry, and he has the qualification in pharmacy.