Keynote Speakers

Greg Simon is a noted leader in Health and Science Policy, Former Adivsor to Vice President Al Gore from 1993 to 1997, Co-Founder and former President of FasterCures, a Center of the Milken Institute

Steve Street joined Pfizer in 1985 and held a variety of roles within the Chemistry Department in Sandwich UK, before being appointed Head of Chemistry for Sandwich Discovery in 2001.  Three years later, at the start of 2004, Steve moved to establish and lead the Chemistry discipline across Worldwide Discovery.  Steve held this role through to early 2007 when he was delighted to be asked to take on a new role as Head of the Research Centers of Emphasis, covering a range of activities supporting Worldwide Research including External Research, BioImaging, Computational Sciences and High Throughput Screening.  In April 2008, Steve was asked to become Head of Continuous Improvement across all of Pfizer Worldwide Research and Development where his focus was uniquely on improving project and portfolio survival and cycle times.

Outside of his work, Steve enjoys time with his family, risking life and limb on his roller blades, and cutting his hands to shreds looking after his rose garden.

Joseph J. DeGeorge was hired by Merck in 2004 as Vice President of Global Safety Assessment.  Since his appointment, he has increased responsibility and has been named Global Head of Safety Assessment and Laboratory Animal Resources for Merck Research Laboratories as of September 2010 with global responsibility for non-clinical safety testing.  At Merck, he has served on or chaired committees on drug discovery, drug candidate selection, early and late development, and post marketing safety.  In addition to his position with Merck, he also serves as the PhRMA Coordinator for ICH Safety Topics and has participated in development of numerous ICH Safety Guidance's as a chair or member of Safety and Multidisciplinary ICH Expert Working Groups. 

Before working at Merck, he served as Vice President of Preclinical Safety Evaluation at Novartis Pharmaceuticals and as the Global Chair for the   Research and Development Safety Assessment Committee, with responsibility for first in human studies.  Prior to Novartis, he worked at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from 1989-2002, where he was the Associate Director for Pharmacology and Toxicology in the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) from1996-2002 and was responsible for pharmacology and toxicology policy development and implementation.  During his tenure at FDA he served on numerous policy and technical committees: Chair for CDER's Carcinogenicity Assessment Committee, CDER's Pharmacology and Toxicology Coordination Committee, the preclinical lead for the FDA Genomics and Proteomics Task Force,  as a member of the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI) Risk Science Institute Thresholds Assessment Committee, the ILSI-Health and Environmental Sciences (HESI) Alternatives to Carcinogenicity Testing Committee and the ILSI-HESI Emerging Issues Committee, as CDER’s technical representative to the Presidential Commission on Risk Assessment and CDER’s lead to the NIEHS-National Toxicology Program Academia, Industry, and Government Partnership for the Evaluation and Validation of Transgenic Models for Carcinogenicity Testing, and as CDER's ICH Safety Coordinator and lead for many Safety Expert Working Groups.  

Prior to joining FDA, Dr. DeGeorge was a Senior Staff Fellow at the National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Aging, Laboratory of Neurosciences, where he worked on development of in vivo functional and structural brain imaging probe.  He completed his postdoctoral training as a Fellow at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC with a joint appointment at Burroughs Wellcome Research Institute, Research Triangle Park, NC, where he focused on neural cell to cell signaling and second messenger systems.  Dr. DeGeorge received his Ph.D. in Pharmacology from the State University of New York/Upstate Medical Center,

Dr. DeGeorge's broad experience prepares him for contributions to the FDA Science Board in topics of pharmacology, toxicology, multidisciplinary drug development issues and safety.

Kate Bingham joined SVLS in 1991. Kate currently serves or has served on the boards of companies in the UK, US, Ireland, Sweden and Germany. She has been responsible for past investments in Alantos, Auxilium, ESBATech, Hexagen, Kinetix, KuDOS, Leukosite, Mednova, Micromet, PowderMed, RespiVert and current investments including Bicycle, EUSA Convergence and Autifony.

Prior to joining SVLS, Kate worked in business development for Vertex Pharmaceuticals, a biotechnology company in Cambridge, MA and at Monitor Company, a strategy consulting firm.

Kate has a first class degree in Biochemistry from Oxford University and graduated from Harvard Business School with an MBA.

Dr. Smith is the Director of Regulatory Affairs for Chorus, at Eli Lilly and Company, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. He brings over 12 years of pharmaceutical research experience working across the industry.  Dr. Smith joined Lilly in 2000, where for the past six years he has served two roles, 1) full accountability for all aspects of Chorus regulatory affairs and 2) the responsible project manager of several development programs for new assets at Chorus.  Prior to working in Chorus, Dr. Smith was a Regulatory Scientist responsible for international registrations of several marketed products.  Dr. Smith holds a doctor of pharmacy degree (PharmD) from the University of Maryland, Baltimore and an MBA from the University of Baltimore.  Dr. Smith is certified in Regulatory Affairs for US and EU by the Regulatory Affairs Professional Society.