Pharma Summit 2022

We are delighted to confirm that the PMI Annual Pharma Summit is returning on Thursday 19th May 2022.   The Annual Summit this year will be held in Fitzpatrick Castle Hotel, Killiney and will be a celebration of the innovators and trailblazers at the very heart of the healthcare industry. 

We’re really looking forward to welcoming all our members and guests to what promises to be a day packed with insights and information that you can bring back to your teams.   The agenda for the day will be broken into three sections: 

• Section 1: Trailblazers in Irish Health Care
• Section 2: Global Challenges: Local Solutions
• Section 3: From Vision to Delivery, 2022 Pharma Success Stories

Further details are below, you can download the latest agenda for the Pharma Summit here 

You can see our Exhibitors here

(in alphabetical order)

Dr Natalie Cole, Head of Innovation – Tallaght University Hospital 
Natalie is responsible for leading the establishment of an Innovation Centre in one of the largest academic teaching hospitals in Ireland. She joined TUH in July 2021 and has already played a pivotal role in developing an extensive pipeline of innovation projects.   Dr. Cole has over 20 years national & international experience in Health Research & Innovation. She initially pursued a career in academic research and was Assistant Professor of Neurogenetics at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Chicago.  On returning to Ireland she supported the development of the spin-out company Neuropath at Trinity College Dublin. She has extensive change and project management experience and was Change and Benefits lead for the Office of the CEO of the HSE and delivered large complex healthcare projects.  She has a passion for the translation of innovative projects for the benefit of patients and service users.

Cathal Divilly, Managing Director – Great Places to Work 

Cathal has spent the last twenty years helping orgs from all industries with their commitment to build a great culture. He has focused on building cultures that help attract and retain the best talent. He is currently CEO and owner of Great Place to Work and has a keen interest in way too many sports and is a coach for his GAA clubs U9 hurling and football team.

Dr Laurence Fitzhenry, Lecturer in Chemistry at the Department of Science, SETU and Principal Investigator of the Ocular Therapeutics Research Group (OTRG) – Pharmaceutical & Molecular Biotechnology Research Centre.

Dr Laurence Fitzhenry is the Principal Investigator of the Ocular Therapeutics Research Group (OTRG), within the PMBRC, and the coordinator of the EU-funded ORBITAL-ITN network. His research is focused primarily on the development and production of novel therapeutics to treat various chronic and acute diseases of the eye. This work focuses on developing new nano- and micro-formulations, investigating novel therapeutics and designing innovative drug delivery platforms to improve patient outcomes and quality of life issues for a range of ophthalmic conditions. He is also the co-founder of OcuDel, a spin out of the South East Technological University that develops advanced drug delivery technologies.  Laurence received a BSc (Hons) Degree in Applied Chemistry with Quality Management and a PhD in polymer and analytical chemistry from WIT in 2007 and 2011, respectively.

Dr Shane Gannon, Sector Lead for Pharma and Life Science Consulting – PwC Ireland

Shane is the sector lead for pharma and life science consulting in PwC Ireland and has led engagements in Europe, the US and Ireland focusing on M&A, strategy and large-scale transformational change.  Shane is a former research scientist and holds a Ph.D. in Pharmacology from University College Dublin and a B.Sc. in Biotechnology for Dublin City University. 

Jim Joyce, CEO & Co-Founder – HealthBeacon

Jim co-founded HealthBeacon with Kieran Daly in 2013.  Prior to HealthBeacon, Jim was the CEO of Point of Care Health Services which he established and sold to Uniphar plc.  Jim has held senior positions with Schering-Plough (now Merck & Co. Inc,) as General Manager of Ireland and Director of Finance for Europe, Middle East, Canada and the United States.  Prior to the pharmaceutical industry, Jim worked in financial services for investment firms of Smith Barney, Brown Brothers Harriman and AG-Edwards. Jim holds a BA in Economics from Fordham University and an MBA from University College Dublin.

Eamon Judge, Senior Director – Global Engineering with Eli Lilly 
Eamon is a Senior Director in Lilly’s  Global Engineering Function and has been responsible for strategic planning for over $1b of capital investments in Europe and Asia.   He represented Eli Lilly for many years on the Council of BioPharmaChem Ireland, the industry association representing the biopharma sector in Ireland. Up to 2021 he was President of the Ireland Affiliate of the International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering (ISPE) and led the lifesciences COVID Alliance response. 
Eamon holds a Bachelor’s degree (Hons) in Chemical Engineering from  UCD and an  EMBD at Purdue University Krannert School of Management in the US.  
Eamon has just celebrated his 42nd anniversary with Eli Lilly and Company, he enjoys  DIY and has a passion for working with young people – from being a Scout Leader to acting as a STEM coach in local schools for the past 20 years.

Sinead Keogh – Head of Sectors and Director Medtech & Engineering at Ibec Head of Sectors and Director Medtech & Engineering at Ibec
As an Ibec Strategic Business Lead, Sinead is responsible for heading up a designated Strategic Business Unit within Ibec, providing support, development and leadership across an SBU. Her role is to support Ibec the business, in delivering its strategic goals and priorities.  She also leads the Ibec Medtech & Engineering Sector Group which represents the interests of a range of sectors across medtech and engineering. A number of Government Funded Skills Networks; Skillnets, Apprenticeship and Springboard+ fall under her remit.
Sinead currently sits the Advisory Industry Board for Enterprise Ireland funded BioInnovate Ireland and the Governance Board for Science Foundation Ireland funded Irish Photonic Integration Centre (IPIC), and the EU National Associations Committee at Medtech Europe. Prior to Ibec Sinead held technical roles at 3Com Technologies and Ericsson LMI and lectured part time at DIT Kevin St for 6 years. She holds a Ph.D. in the Physics of Molecular Materials/Nanotechnology and B.Sc. (Hons.) in Applied Physics, DIT Kevin St

Conor McGinn, Chief Executive – Akara Robotics 

Conor is the CEO and co-founder at Akara. He is a renowned robotics expert, with accolades including being named on the JCI Ireland Ten Outstanding Young Persons Awards (TOYP), MIT Technology Review on its Next Generation of 35 Innovators Under 35 list, and receiving the Engineers Ireland Excellence Award for Innovation. His work has been featured in Forbes and on the cover of Time magazine. Conor has been working on developing robots since he was a teenager, and in 2019 he co-founded Akara to pursue his vision to empower frontline workers and modernise public health through data-driven automation. Conor earned Bachelors and PhD degrees from Trinity College Dublin, before becoming the University’s first Robotics Professor and establishing the Robotics and Innovation Lab.

Ross McManus, Human Resource Manager – AbbVie 

Ross has been part of the AbbVie team since 2015, supporting both sites in Sligo as HR Manager, firstly the Ballytivnan site as they moved through their expansion into Biologics and Combined Medical Devices and currently the company’s Manorhamilton Road site. He is the company’s all-Ireland wellbeing project lead and is also a member of the team responsible for managing AbbVie Ireland’s Great Place to Work (GPTW) journey.

Dr James O’Byrne MB BCh BAO, BA mod (Biochem), PhD, MRCPI, Cert Med Gen (UK Path)

Dr O’Byrne is a Metabolic Physician and Clinical Geneticist based in the National Centre of Inherited Metabolic Disorders at the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital (MMUH).  Dr O’Byrne has clinics where genomic and precision medicine is applied to patients and families with inherited metabolic conditions.  He also supports the development of clinical genetic services across specialties including ophthalmology, cardiology, neurology and gastrointestinal cancer.
Dr O’Byrne has worked for substantial lengths in Sweden, where he completed his PhD in the Karolinska Institute, and Canada where he completed a fellowship in treatable genetic disorders that in Intellectual Disability.   He is an executive board member of the European Board of Medical Genetics and is the director of the recently delivered 1^st European Society of Human Genetics: A focus on Clinical Utility, a course which was attended by delegates from 47 countries/ 5 continents.
Two recent paper he co-authored are entitled:

• The future of genomics in Ireland – focus on genomics for health (2020) PMID: 33855271

• The Role of the European Society of Human Genetics in Delivering Genomic Education (2021) PMID: 34539735

Andrew Phelan, Chief Operating Officer – Beats Medical 

Andrew is the Chief Operating Officer at Beats Medical, an industry leader in Digital Therapeutics, providing remote assessments and therapeutics to help change the lives of adults and children with CNS or rare genetic conditions.
Andrew’s background is in industry, having previously worked with Intel before joining Beats Medical over 6 years ago, leading the commercialisation of their Parkinson’s and Dyspraxia Digital Therapeutic deployments.

Dr Frank O’Donnell, Public Sector Lead with Microsoft 
Frank leads the Public Sector business for Microsoft Ireland focusing on Health, Education and Government sectors across the island of Ireland. Frank joined Microsoft from senior roles in Management Consulting to focus on transforming the Public Sector business to drive more strategic engagement with customers and partners, and to secure a position as a trusted partner in Digital Transformation.
He has over 20 years’ experience across the education and skills, health and economic development areas in Ireland, the UK and the Middle East working within the public sector as a senior director and partner in a number of high-profile management consulting firms. Throughout his career, Frank’s work has been focused on the development of strategy and policy for the transformation of government and public services using technology.  Frank holds a PhD in Engineering from the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, as well as an MSc and BTech Degree. 

MC for the day will be Dr Ciara Kelly, General Practitioner, TV – Radio Broadcaster and Columnist

Dr Ciara Kelly is a GP, is an Award Winning Columnist with LIFE Magazine in the Sunday Independent and award winning Broadcaster on Newstalk Radio. She is also former Assistant Director of GP training in UCD.
​​She was previously the Medical Expert on the nation’s leading health show, Operation Transformation on RTÉ for seven series and she regularly contributes and presents on both RTE and Virgin television.
She currently presents Newstalk Breakfast weekdays from  7am – 9am and has won National Speech Broadcaster of the year for the past two years. Both her breakfast and previous lunch time radio shows were the highest rated shows in their slots on the history of the station.

Pharma Summit 2022 is proudly sponsored by: