Program

Medical Doctor, graduate of Medical Academy in Wroclaw, Poland (class 1989). In 1996 he received Ph.D. title in medicine. He specializes in pediatrics, family medicine and public health. He completed numerous trainings in organization, management and education in health care (i.e. 1995 - Belgium, Austria, 1996/97 - Collegium Medicum, Cracow, 1997 - Harvard University, USA, 2001 - USA, 2007/08 - Warsaw, Paris).
President of the Foundation of Public Health (1999 – 2000). Associate Professor in Institute of Public Health, Collegium Medicum of the Jagiellonian University (2000 – 2009). 
From 2007 to 2009 Deputy Director in the Polish Agency for Health Technology Assessment and Tariff System. From 2009 to 2011 he was Board Member and Director for Public Affairs in Pfizer Poland. 
Experienced in managing hospitals. He was Director of hospital in Drawsko Pomorskie (2012 – 2013) and Stefan Żeromski Specialist Hospital in Cracow (2013 – 2016). 
Honorary member of the Collegium of Family Physicians in Poland. His professional portfolio includes, among others, leadership in the HTA development team, participation in the Baltic Sea Task Force (later Northern Dimension) Experts Group for Primary Health Care and in EQUIP - European workshop group on quality. He was also expert of the World Health Organization and the World Bank for the organization of healthcare system, as well as the manager of the project "Data for Decision Makers" (Harvard-Jagiellonian Consortium for Health). 
In February 2017 appointed Undersecretary of State in the Ministry of Health of Poland, currently responsible for public health, health technology assessment and international cooperation.  

Finn Børlum Kristensen is an international strategic consultant in HTA and HEOR implementation and management and is a Professor in Health Services Research and HTA at University of Southern Denmark since 1999. He is also External Lecturer at Copenhagen Business School. He headed the Coordinating Secretariat of the European Network for HTA, EUnetHTA (www.eunethta.eu) from its inception in 2006 and was Chairman of the EUnetHTA Executive Committee until 2016.

Dr. Kristensen directed the Danish Centre for HTA (DACEHTA) from its establishment in 1997 until 2009. His PhD is in Epidemiology, and he is a medical specialist in public health. He also worked as a primary care physician for several years. He publishes frequently in scientific journals and was editor of a Health Technology Assessment Handbook. He is now a consultant to public and private organisations and companies.

Dr. Kristensen served on the ISPOR Board of Directors from 2011-13 and has chaired the ISPOR HTA Council since 2013.

Francis Arickx is the head of the directorate Reimbursement of Medicines and Pharmaceutical Policy within the Health Care Department at the National Institute for Health and Disability Insurance (NIHDI RIZIV/INAMI) in Belgium where he manages the departments responsible for administrative and scientific assessment and appraisal of reimbursement claims for medicines, orphan drugs, medical nutrition.

Francis Arickx is the former secretary general for the Commission for Reimbursement of Medicines and acts as representative/expert for the Institute and Belgium on a number of national and European platforms (NM CAPR, MEDEV, MoCA). He is one of the country's coordinators for the BeNeLuxA Initiative (www.beneluxa.org).

Francis graduated in pharmaceutical sciences from the University of Ghent, Belgium and teaches ‘Health Policy’ in the Pharmaceutical Sciences Department at the University of Antwerp.

Pero Draganić, MD, PhD, is an associate professor at the HALMED – Croatian Agency for Medicinal Products and Medical Devices and an affiliate at the Department of Biotechnology, University of Rijeka, Rijeka, Croatia. From 1987 till 2004 he served as an Assistant Professor of Pharmacology at the Department of Pharmacology, University of Rijeka School of Medicine. His research was in pharmacology, neuropharmacology and neuroscience, and spent additional scientific education at the Croatian Institute for Brain Research, Zagreb, as well at the Department of Comparative Biosciences University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI. In 2005 Dr. Draganić continued his occupation in HALMED as a pharmacologist with affiliation to clinical pharmacology, epidemiology and pharmacoeconomics. He currently serves as the Principal advisor for distribution of medicines and pharmacoeconomics, to all issues in this matter, and was also a member of HALMED’s Drugs Committee. Dr. Draganić was also a member of the Working Group for establishing the Croatian HTA Agency. At the Department of Biotechnology, University of Rijeka, he is currently an Associate Professor in the Pharmacoeconomics.  For several years he is a member of the ISPOR Research Abstract Review Committee, and in 2010 at ISPOR 13th Annual European Congress in Prague, he was Decision Maker Case Study Review Committee Co-Chair. Dr. Draganić is also a member of several professional organizations in Croatia (ISPOR Croatia, Pharmacological Society, Society for Neuroscience, Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapy), as well as abroad like ISPOR, IBRO, EPHAR, and IUPHAR.

Dr. Tesar is Head of the Department of Organisation and Management in Pharmacy at Pharmaceutical Faculty at Comenius University where he is an associate professor. He has a deep experience in health technology assessment and as payer was a member of the Reimbursement Committee for Drugs of the Slovak Ministry of Health for several years, acting on behalf of Union Health Insurance Fund. Tomas brings also his European exprience was a Member of the Executive Board of the EUnetHTA JA3 project and Member of the group of experts concerning Pharmaceutical preparations EPD of the European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines in Strasbourg, France. Tomas was a member of European Surveillance of Antimicrobial Consumption (ESAC) project and Self-Medication with Antibiotics and Resistance Levels in Europe (SAR) project. Dr. Tesar holds a PharmD, a PhD, a MBA and a MPH. He is a member of the Committee for drug policy in Union Health Insurance fund.

Maggie Galbraith is a project manager in the HTA division at the French National Authority for Health (HAS). HAS leads EUnetHTA WP5 focusing on evidence generation. Currently, she manages the daily operations of the EUnetHTA Early Dialogues Secretariat and the inclusion of stakeholders in Early Dialogues.

She was previously project manager for the Patient Safety and Quality of Care (PaSQ) Joint Action, the SEED consortium, the EU Network for Patient Safety (EUNetPaS) project and the ALzheimer COoperative Valuation in Europe (ALCOVE) Joint Action all of which received financing from the European Commission and were coordinated by HAS.

Prior to joining HAS, Ms. Galbraith worked in technology development at a large metropolitan hospital developing data-driven patient management and evidence-based self-diagnosis solutions.

She has a Master’s degree in Public Affairs from Sciences Po, Paris, an undergraduate degree in Russian Language and Political Science from Indiana University, and a CAP in Pâtisserie.

Katarzyna Kolasa has more than 20 years of academic and occupational experience in the healthcare sector. In the past, she worked at both global and regional Health Economics & Outcomes Research (HEOR) functions at AstraZeneca and BiogenIdec being based in Sweden and Switzerland respectively. At Bristol Myers Squibb and Lundbeck she was leading Market Access teams in Central Eastern European (CEE) and Nordic Region. Her practical skills in the field of health economics were developed during six years employment contract at the Kalmar County Council in Sweden as well. For the last four years, she has been developing experience with the pricing &reimbursement challenges in the field of medical devices. Since 2016, Katarzyna has been representing Straub Medical as Global Market Access Lead being the External Principal Consultant for that Swiss family owned company. Before that, Katarzyna was employed as a Senior HEOR Director at GE Healthcare. She holds a PhD degree in health economics and is an author of almost 40 scientific IF publications in the field of health technology assessment and pharmacoeconomics. Katarzyna Kolasa reviews manuscripts submitted to such prestigious journals as Health Policy, Value in Health, Expert Review of Pharmacoeconomics & Outcomes Research, International Journal for Equity in Health and International Journal of Technology Assessment.Her extensive knowledge in the field of health economics was acquired at University of York, University of Lund, and University of Bergen as well as during International Doctoral Courses in Health Economics and Policy organized by the Swiss School of Public Health. Katarzyna Kolasa heads the Health Economics & Healthcare Management Division (HeM) at the Kozminski University. She is the leader of the International Master Program Health Economics & Big Data at the Kozminski University financed by the research grant of the National Center for Research and Development which was listed as the best project in the POWER 2018 call. HeM Division vision is to become the leading research center in Poland in the field of digital health in Europe. It collaborates closely with health economics partners from the University of Lund, the University of Athens, University of Illinois, University of York and the University of Applied Science in Berlin. Katarzyna was nominated by the Ministry of Science to represent Poland in the COST Action CA17117, COST Association "Towards an International Network for Evidence-based Research in Clinical Health Research”.  

 

Dr. Alexander Berler has an MSc in Biomedical Engineering and a PhD in Medical Informatics. He was affiliated with the Electrical Engineering Department, National Technical University of Athens, Greece, as a Postgraduate Student and Research Associate in the areas of healthcare information systems interoperability, medical informatics and telemedicine until 1999. He has worked at Information Society SA, the Greek official governmental information technology project office, as a project director responsible for the large healthcare informatics projects of the Greek government until 2006. He is currently employed as the Director of consulting services department at Gnomon Informatics with an expertise in international projects related to e-health, e-procurement and e-government. He has participated in multiple ehealth consulting projects in Greece, Cyprus, Luxembourg, Belgium, DG Santé EU Commission, eHealth Network – JaseHN- EU Commission and many more. He is an active member of the eHealthDSI community on the creation of tools for cross border healthcare across Europe and beyond. He is also acting as the IHE services director on behalf of IHE Europe, promoting the use of international standards via the IHE Technical frameworks and Integration profiles. He is a member of several societies, institutes and organizations (IEEE, ACM, etc), a member of several IHE Europe Committees and the Chair of HL7 Hellas, the Greek HL7 International Affiliate.

Dr. Valverde graduated from the University of Seville in 1991 with a degree in medicine and surgery. He specialised in Emergency and Casualty Medicine (1993) and Family and Community Medicine (2012).

He works at the European Commission, DG-CNECT, Unit H.3 eHealth, Wellbeing and Ageing as Policy & Programme Officer, based in Luxembourg. Currently Team Leader of the “1 Million Genomes” Initiative, PO for 8 H2020 funded research projects and Topic Coordinator for Call SC1-DTH-11-2019. Dr. Valverde is also an active member of the European Advisory Committee on Health Research (EACHR) of WHO-Europe.

Previous positions:

• Director of the Andalusian Agency for Health Technology Assessment (2000-2004);
• International & Research Advisor at the Cabinet of the Andalusia Regional Minister for Health (2004-2006);
• Scientific Officer at the European Commission Joint Research Centre (2006-2009);
• Director General of the Spanish National Centre for Accessibility Technologies (2010-2011); and
• Andalusian Regional Health Department as senior emergency & casualty physician, coordinator, regulator and researcher (2011-2018, 1995-2000).

Dr Valverde´s research has focused on eHealth including Personal Health Systems, Health 2.0, mHealth, and European healthcare systems enabled through Information Society Technologies. Another related research line is on accessibility technologies for active and healthy ageing.

 

Guenka Petrova is a professor on Social Pharmacy and Pharmacoeconomics at the Medical University of Sofia, Bulgaria. She is a chief of the department of "Organisation and economy of pharmacy" at the Faculty of Pharmacy. Professor Petrova is also a visiting professor at the University of Belgrade, and lecturer at the University of Nantes, Bucharest University and others. Professor Petrova's scientific interests are in the economic areas of the pharmaceutical sector. She has more than 250 publications is this area, 15 PhD students, and is a coordinator of the scientific projects funded by the Erasmus+, EAR, Horison2020 and other scientific programs.    

Professor Wim Goettsch is a key contributor to European HTA. At Utrecht University he is a Professor of HTA of Pharmaceuticals. He has serves as a special HTA advisor to Zorginstituut Nederland and a former director of EUnetHTA JA3 Directorate.

Ernesto is the Founder and Managing Director of ValueConnected, considered by its clients as the #1 company in Europe for Value-Based Healthcare Strategies and Commercialization. Ernesto has 23 years of experience in the healthcare sector with previous positions at J&J, GlaxoSmithKline, Acelity and WHO.
As the Managing Director of ValueConnected, Ernesto oversees a team of 35 associates in 20 countries helping life science companies to quantify, demonstrate and apply the value of their medical technologies to business models of international payers and providers.
Ernesto holds an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin in the US and is passionate about the implications of Value-Based Care to the adoption and coverage of medical technologies. Ernesto is a frequent speaker in congresses across Europe and the US.

Bence Takács is working as a health economist at the National Institute of Pharmacy and Nutrition (NIPN) in Hungary at the Division for Health Technology Assessment since 2017 January. He takes part in critical evaluation of the submissions for pharmaceuticals, medical devices and other medical technologies utilized for preventive and/or therapeutical services. Since October of 2017 he is working in the Fair and Affordable Pricing initiative, where he contributed to the outputs of the analytical group. Since 2018 January he is taking part in the work of Work Package 7 (WP7) of EUnetHTA Joint Action 3, where Hungary acts as a lead partner in the Implementation Network for other CEE countries.

Claudia Wild has been Director of the LBI-HTA since its establishment in 2006. From 1989-2006 she worked as a Senior Researcher at the Institute of Technology Assessment at the Austrian Academy of Sciences and helped developing the research field Health Technology Assessment in Austria. Prior to that, she was Research Associate on "media impact on cognitions" at the Institute for Communications and Political Science at the University of Nuernberg/Germany and worked as a freelancer on media impact research projects. She studied communications & psychology at the University of Vienna and political sciences at the Ohio University in Athens/Ohio/USA and completed her studies with a Graduation at the University of Vienna as Doctor of Philosophy in 1985. In 2009, she habilitated in social medicine (Medical University Graz) on the topic of "resource allocation in health-care systems".

Rok Hren has more than 15 years of commercial experience in pharmaceutical industry, with more than 12 years on a board level in both (i) line management, which has included full P&L responsibility for operations in Slovenia and Romania, and (ii) leadership regional functions in Central and Eastern Europe. He regularly presents on the topic of pharmaceutical economics and policies at conferences in Europe and is well experienced in health care media business. He received his PhD in Physiology and Biophysics from Dalhousie University, Canada and MSc in International Health Policy (Health Economics) with Distinction from London School of Economics and Political Science, UK while he was a post-Doctoral Fellow at Nora Eccles Harrison Cardiovascular Research and Training Institute, University of Utah Medical School, USA. He is also an Assistant Professor at the University of Ljubljana and a President of ISPOR Slovenia Regional Chapter. In total, his publications gathered 300/394 citations (excluding self-citations) in WoS/Scopus (as of September 10, 2016).

Dr. Andrzej Ryś is a medical doctor specialised in radiology and public health, graduated from Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland. He founded in 1991 and ran as Director until 1997 the School of Public Health at the Jagiellonian University. Thereafter, from 1997 -1999, he served as Director of the Krakow’s City Health Department. Between 1999 -2002, he continued his career as Deputy Minister of Health in Poland where he developed a new system of emergency medical service, a reform of the education system for the health professionals and he was a member of the Polish EU accession negotiators team for the harmonisation of the Polish Health Care Law with the EU’s Acquis Communautaire.

After becoming Senior Consultant of “Health and Management Ltd” for the World Bank (WHO) and EAR in Serbia (in 2002), he founded in 2003 the “Center for Innovation, Technology Transfer and University Development” (CITTRU) at the Jagiellonian University in 2003, where he assumed the role of Director until 2006 . From 2004-2005 he was also Director of Development at “Diagnostyka Ltd”.

In 2006, he became Director for Public Health and Risk Assessment at the Directorate-General for Health and Consumers (DG SANCO), in the European Commission, and from 2011 -2014 he assumed the position of Director for Health Systems and Products in DG SANCO. Since 2014, Dr. Andrzej Rys is the Director responsible for Health Systems, Medical Products and Innovation at DG SANTE, in the European Commission in Brussels, Belgium.

Dr. Stanimir Hasardzhiev is one of the founders and current Chairperson of the Bulgarian National Patients’ Organization (NPO) – the biggest patients’ umbrella organization in Bulgaria which accounts to around 80 disease-specific member organizations representing patients with different socially significant diseases in all 28 regions in Bulgaria.

Dr. Hasardzhiev has devoted himself to the work in the patients’ advocacy sector and in defense of patients’ rights. In 2011 and 2015-2016, he represented the Bulgarian patients in the Supervisory Board of the National Health Insurance Fund.

As of May 2013, Dr. Hasardzhiev has been a board member of the European Patients’ Forum as well as a member of several regional and international organizations and networks, e.g. World Hepatitis Alliance, European Community Advisory Board, International Capacity Building Alliance and others.

In addition, he is one of the initiators and founders of the joint initiative of the European Patients’ Forum and the Bulgarian National Patients’ Organization – the Patient Access Partnership (PACT) –, where Stanimir takes the position of a Secretary-General.

Dr. Hasardzhiev serves as a Secretary of the initiative "Health Partnership" which was officially launched in March 2015 as a permanent consultative body to the Council of Ministers. The platform incorporates representatives of the patient organizations, governmental institutions, unions of medical practitioners, hospitals, industry and providers of health care services, appliances and facilities.

Stanimir is also a Secretary-General of a newly established organization named CEE4Health. It is a Think Tank group on patient access focusing on the CEE region which brings together patient representatives, health professionals, pharmacoeconomists and all other kind of experts in the field of healthcare (but not only) who work together to identify regional challenges in healthcare and propose sustainable solutions to national governments.

Stanimir Hasardzhiev has many Bulgarian and international awards, such as the Best Media Award for the World Hepatitis Day campaign in 2008 “Am I number 12”.

Marcin Czech - undersecretary of State/ Vice-minister in the Ministry of Health in Poland in the period of 07.2017-01.2019, is a medical doctor by education with a PhD in medicine, he completed PhD studies in management, MBA, postgraduate program in Health Economics.

He finished his university training in socio-economic evaluation of medicines at the University of York, at the University of St. Andrews, the advanced course on socioeconomic evaluation of medicines at McMaster University and several certified specialty courses.  He also served an apprenticeship at the Management School of the University of Liverpool.

Marcin Czech works as a university professor at the Advanced Management Program in Pharmacoeconomics, Pharmaceutical Marketing and Law and holds the position of a Course Director of the Postgraduate Interdisciplinary Programme of Pharmaceutical Excellence at Business School, Warsaw University of Technology. In addition he leads the Department of Pharmacoeconomics at the Institute of Mother and Child in Warsaw.

He is an author and co-author of books and articles in the field of pharmacoeconomics, drug policy and management. His main research interests cover metabolic disorders, including diabetes and cardiology.

He is a member founder of the Polish Society of Pharmacoeconomics - ISPOR Polish Chapter, in the period of 2004-2006 he was the president of this organization, now President-Elect. He is also a member of the Board of Directors at the Society of Co-ordinated Care.

In July 2017 was nominated to the position of Undersecretary of State/ Vice-minister in the Ministry of Health in Poland responsible for drugs policy, pharmacy and international co-operation. Previously he held the position of the Real World Evidence Principal for Eastern Europe at IQVIA, a consulting company responsible for 30 countries of Eastern and Central Europe.    Prior to that he was working in regional European positions at Novo Nordisk in market access, health economics and public affairs and at Servier Poland leading the team responsible for pharmacoeconomics and pricing.

Iga Lipska is a Medical Doctor by education with Master of Science in public health. She graduated from the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands, where she defended her PhD thesis on health technology assessment of new medicines.
Iga has broad international and Polish experience in the healthcare sector, with a main focus on HTA at national and hospital level, drug pricing and reimbursement, health insurance, public health and evidence-based decision making process in health care.
She contributed her efforts significantly to the role of HTA in evidence based decision making processes on pharmaceutical reimbursement in Poland. She played a major role in HTA capacity building in Poland supporting the establishment of Polish national HTA Agency.
She also contributed her leadership and networking skills to the implementation of HTA in Central Eastern Europe and internationally advising in e.g. Croatia, Moldovia, Bulgaria, Turkey.
She served in variety of managerial roles in public and private sector supporting evidence based decision making in health care in Poland and abroad. She was the Director of Drug Policy and Pharmacy Department at Ministry of Health, the Director of HTA Department at Polish HTA Agency and the Director of Control Department at National Health Fund (public payer in Poland). She negotiated pharmaceutical reimbursement prices and Risk Sharing Schemes on behalf of Minister of Health while being the Economic Committee Member. She supported the establishment of global HTA benchmarking program at Center for Innovation in Regulatory Science in London, UK. 
She has been co-chairing ISPOR HTA Roundtable Europe for 3 years’ term (from 2019 to the end of 2022). 
Starting June 2022 she has been co-chairing HB-HTA Interest Group at Health Technology Assessment international for 3 years’ term.
Recently she has been affiliated to Medical University of Gdańsk which is also her Alma Mater. 
She has just been nominated the Chairwoman of the Board at Health Policy Institute in Poland with her main role to contribute to evidence based policy in health care and build capacity in that area based on her international and national experience.

Joanna Lis is a Head of Market Access in Sanofi Poland and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pharmacoeconomics at Faculty of Pharmacy at the Medical University of Warsaw (WUM). Prior to joining WUM and Sanofi, Joanna held various leadership positions in health economics area at Johnson & Johnson and Eli Lilly. Prior to joining the industry, she was an assistant professor at the Institute of Biocybernetics & Biomedical Engineering of the Polish Academy of Science (PAN) and the Medical Centre of Postgraduate Education for Physicians (CMKP). 

She was the President of the ISPOR Polish Chapter (2012-2016) as well as a member of the ISPOR Central and Eastern Europe Network. In 2016-2018 she was the Director in Board of Directors International Society for Pharmacoeconomics & Outcomes Research (ISPOR). As an active member of ISPOR Polish Chapter Management Boars and ISPOR, she has been heavily involved in the ISPOR Patient Registry Special Interest Group: (ISPOR Taxonomy of Patient Registries: Classification, Characteristics and Terms) and ISPOR Task Force for Transferability of Economic Evaluations across Jurisdictions. Dr. Lis has served as the Co-Chair of the Issue Panel Review Committee at ISPOR 13th Annual European Congress in Prague. Dr. Lis also co-organized the 5th Polish-Russian and Polish-Kazakh-Russian Forums on Pharmacoeconomics. She is also the co-editor of the Polish translation of ISPOR books: “Health Care Cost, Quality and Outcomes: ISPOR Book of Terms” & “Therapeutic & Diagnostic Device Outcomes Research.”

Dr. Lis is a deputy Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Health Policy and Outcomes Research (www.jhpor.pl). She has contributed as the co-author of the Polish HTA Guidelines adopted by the Polish HTA Agency in Poland in 2009. She is a member of the experts' team of the Polish HTA Agency working on HTA Guidelines updates and HTA for medical devices Guidelines development for Poland.

She was also a leader of one of the pathways in Project on FINANCING QUALITY IN HCS: InterQuality; 7th Framework Program of EU. Dr. Lis was a member of the experts team working with HAs on New Reimbursement Law development and implementation in Poland.

Dr. Lis holds a PhD in biostatistics and computer modelling in medicine, MSc in mathematics and physics from the Jagiellonian University in Cracow and an executive MBA from Kozminski University of Business and Management in Warsaw. She has published over 70 articles. She is a co-author of various books: “Pricing: pharmaceuticals’ prices, negotiations and risk sharing agreements”, “Health Insurance Policy and Benefit Baskets: overview of the solutions” and reports: “Indirect costs in HTA: methods and recommendations”, “Risk Sharing Agreements in Poland”

Richard J. Willke, PhD is chief science officer of ISPOR, the leading global professional society for health economics and outcomes research. Dr Willke has more than 25 years of experience in the life sciences arena and has specialized in outcomes research in a succession of group leadership roles with Pfizer and its legacy companies.

At ISPOR, Dr Willke is responsible for designing and implementing strategic initiatives related to scientific research and content priorities that will advance the Society’s mission of promoting health economics and outcomes research excellence to improve decision making for health globally.

Previously, Dr Willke was vice president, Outcomes and Evidence Cluster Lead at Pfizer for its Global Health and Value division. He has also served in a number of leadership roles with affiliated organizations, including the Chair of ISPOR Institutional Council (2010), ISPOR Board of Directors (2007-2009), and Chair of the PhRMA Health Outcomes Committee (2002-2004).

Prior to joining industry, Dr Willke served as department director in the Center of Health Policy Research at the American Medical Association and held research and teaching positions at The Ohio State University.

Dr Willke earned a PhD and MA in economics from Johns Hopkins University. He has authored more than 80 scholarly publications that examine the science and methodologies of health economics and outcomes research.