Meet Confirmed Speakers from the European Commission

We are honored to have them partner so closely with us, especially at such a momentous period for Europe. Learn more below about these leaders of today.

Nada Alkhayat,Policy Officer - Medical Devices, DG SANTE

Nada Alkhayat currently works for the European Commission as Policy Officer in DG SANTE. Previous experience includes a position as Regulations & Industrial Policy Officer at MedTech Europe and a Blue Book traineeship in the European Commission.
She has a degree in Pharmaceutical Law from the Università degli Studi di Parma and a Master’s Degree in Advanced European Law & Policies Studies.

Anna-Eva Ampelas, Head of Unit, B4 – Medical products: quality, safety, innovation, DG SANTE

Anna-Eva Ampelas is Head of Unit for Medical Products: quality, safety, innovation in Unit B4 in DG SANTE, European Commission. In this capacity, she manages files on medicinal products (falsified medicines, clinical trials, shortages, GMP etc); Health Technology Assessments (HTA) and substances of human origin (blood, tissues and cells, organs). She has more than ten years of experience working on health policy and legislation in the European Commission. Before joining the Unit for Medical Products, Anna-Eva headed the unit dealing with tobacco control and global health. She was Health Counsellor at the Permanent Representation of Sweden 2002-2006 before joining the European Commission. She has a Master of Laws from Uppsala University.

Szymon Bielecki, Unit H3 eHealth, Well-being and Ageing, DG CONNECT

Kristof Bonnarens, Policy Officer - Pharmaceuticals, Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety, DG SANTE

Fabio D'Atri, Policy Officer, Deputy Head of Unit B5 Directorate General for Health and Food Safey, European Commission

Fabio D’Atri is the Deputy Head of the Unit “Medicinal products - quality, safety and efficacy” in the Health and Food Safety Directorate General of the European Commission. He holds a degree in biology and a PhD in biochemistry from the University of Geneva. He also holds a master in management of biotech companies from the Grenoble School of Business.
After working for several years as university researcher and as a consultant both in the public and in the private sector, he joined the European Commission in 2004. In the Directorate General Health and Food Safety he has worked on several areas of the food legislation, from nutrition to food contact materials. Since 2011 he has joined the “Medicinal products - quality, safety and efficacy” Unit in the Health systems and products Directorate dealing in particular with implementation of the falsified medicines Directive and the negotiations for the adoptions of the new Regulation on clinical trials.

Jacques Demotes, Director General of the European Clinical Research Infrastructure Network (ECRIN), European Commission

Jacques Demotes is the director general of the European Clinical Research Infrastructure Network (ECRIN), which he founded in 2004. In this role, he is responsible for the strategy and overall management of the infrastructure with the support of the ECRIN Management Office (located in Paris, France), the ECRIN European Correspondents (located in each Member / Observer country), and ECRIN’s Scientific Partners (i.e., national networks of clinical trial units).
A neurologist and professor of cell biology, Demotes is an advisor to the biology and health research department at the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research. While at ECRIN, he has contributed to numerous initiatives and collaborative projects related to multinational clinical trials. In particular, he chaired the working group that drafted the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Council Recommendation on the Governance of Clinical Trials.
Prior to ECRIN, he worked as a clinical neurologist and basic neuroscientist, then as director of the clinical investigation centre in Bordeaux.
Demotes received his MD (with a specialisation in neurology), a PhD in neuroscience, a Master of Science (MS) in neuroscience, and a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in mathematics and computer science from the University of Bordeaux. He also received an MBA from IAE Paris, and completed a training course in science policy with the Institute of Advanced Studies in Science and Technology in Paris.

Flora Giorgio, Head of Sector, HTA, Directorate General Health and Food Safety, DG SANTE

Flora is a pharmacist by training. She is heading the team on Health Technology Assessment, at the European Commission, DG Health (SANTE), Unit "Medical products: quality, safety and innovation". The team is responsible for the recently adopted Proposal for a Regulation on HTA, for the Secretariat to the HTA Network, and it oversees the activities of the Joint Action EUnetHTA. Joined the EC in 2006 in (now) DG CNECT, she worked in the ICT for Health Unit. Before joining the EC she was Secretary General of the PGEU, the European Association of Community pharmacists and also worked in a community pharmacy.

Helen Lee, Health and Food Safety Directorate-General - Unit B5 - Medicines: policy, authorisation and monitoring, European Commission

Helen is an administrator in the European Commission working in the Directorate General for Health and Food Safety, Unit B5 - Medicines: policy, authorisation and monitoring. She coordinates the work of the European Commission Expert Group on Safe and Timely Access to Medicines for Patients. She joined the unit dealing with the pharmaceutical legislation and the European Medicines Agency in 2012 prior to which she had worked on food and nutrition related issues in the European Commission and the UK administration.

Irene Norstedt, Director of the People Directorate within DG Research and Innovation

Irene Norstedt is the Director of the People Directorate within DG Research and Innovation. She has been at the European Commission since 1996 and was instrumental in the creation of the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) in 2008. She served as Acting Executive Director of IMI from December 2014 to September 2015.

Velina Pendolovska, Deputy Head of Unit of the Health Security Unit of Directorate-General Health and Food Safety, DG SANTE

Velina is the Deputy Head of Unit of the Health Security Unit of Directorate-General Health and Food Safety (DG SANTE) of the European Commission. After studying international relations and politics at the University of Plymouth in the United Kingdom, Velina obtained her Masters in international relations, law and economics at the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna. Velina joined the European Commission in 2009 working in Directorate-General Eurostat and Directorate-General Climate action as a policy officer dealing with energy, environment and greenhouse gas emissions monitoring. Velina joined the Commission’s public health department in 2015, working on diverse files related to serious cross-border health threats, communicable disease, preparedness, health security, risk communication and antimicrobial resistance.

Philipp Wolfgang, Deputy Head, European Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority, European Commission

Wolfgang Philipp is the Deputy Head of Unit for crisis management and preparedness in health in the Public Health, Country Knowledge, Crisis Management Directorate of the European Commission. His unit is dealing with activities contributing to preparedness and crisis management related to cross-border health threats, vaccination policy, antimicrobial resistance, HIV, tuberculosis, hepatitis policy, joint procurement of medical countermeasures, global health security and other files. He holds a PhD in microbiology of the University of Paris, France, and has been working in tuberculosis research at the Institut Pasteur, and at the Universities of Bern and Basel, Switzerland. He was a Member of the Basel Institute of Immunology before joining the European Commission in 2001.

Andrzej Rys, Director of Health Systems and Product, European Commission

Medical Doctor (radiology and public health) graduated from Jagiellonian University (JU) Krakow (PL). 1991-97 School of Public Health Director at the JU. 1997-99 Krakow’s city Health Department Director. 1999-02 Health Deputy Minister (PL). 2003 Center for Innovation and Technology Transfer Director at JU. 2006 joined the EC as Public Health and Risk Assessment Director (DG for Health and Consumers, LUX). 2011 appointed Health Systems and Products Director (DG for Health and Consumers, BE).

Florian Schmidt, Deputy Head of Unit B5 – Medicines: Policy, Authorisation and Monitoring, DG SANTE

Florian Schmidt is the Deputy Head of unit of the Commission’s pharmaceutical unit B.5 in the Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety (DG SANTE). He is a lawyer by training and joined the Commission in 2004. For several years he followed the paediatric legislation and participated in meetings of the Paediatric Committee at EMA. He was involved in the drafting of the 2013 Commission Report on the Paediatric Regulation and the subsequent 2017 report, which was published end of 2017.

Olga Solomon, Head of Unit B5 – Medicines: policy, authorisation and monitoring, DG SANTE

Olga Solomon studied Chemistry at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece and holds an MSc in Food Science from the Gothenburg University, Sweden. Before joining the European Commission she worked for 5 years for a beverage producing company in Greece. Solomon joined DG SANCO in 2000 and worked for 10 years in the field of Food Safety in particular dealing with legislation on Food Contact Materials, Food Additives and Enzymes. In 2010, she moved to the Directorate 'Health Systems and Products' where she worked in the field of substances of human origin before taking up a post in the pharmaceutical sector in 2011. She is currently the Head of the DG SANTE Unit responsible for Medicines: policy, authorisation and monitoring.

Tobias Wiesenthal, Head of Sector ‘Research and Innovation’ in the unit responsible for eHealth, Well-Being and Ageing at DG CONNECT.

Tobias Wiesenthal previously worked as a Project Leader in the unit JRC.C.6 'Economics of Climate Change, Energy and Transport' in the area of quantitative energy policy analysis and energy modelling. In his earlier career he worked for the European Environment Agency in his capacity as Project Manager for Energy and Environment, and for the German Advisory Council on the Environment.

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