Speakers at MITS
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Dr Resham Baruah
Dr Resham Baruah is Medical Affairs Lead for Cardiovascular, Renal and Metabolic medicine at AstraZeneca UK and a Consultant Cardiologist with nearly two decades’ experience working as a clinician within the NHS.
Resham is Medical Affairs Lead and responsible for driving practice change at scale within the cardiovascular, renal and metabolic medicine space particularly within secondary care. Prior to joining AZ in July 2023, she was a Consultant Cardiologist and Local HF lead at Chelsea and Westminster and Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Trusts. There, she was key in the local NHS TestBeds Programme looking to better manage unscheduled care in partnership with three separate tech companies. She was also Co-Chair of the Medicines Safety Committee for the Trust.
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She has a MSc in Health Economics and Management from the London School of Economics as well as a PhD in Heart Failure from the National Heart and Lung Institute and Imperial College and was the Specialist advisor to the NICE technical committee for the 2018 NICE Chronic Heart Failure Guideline (NG106) as well as a BMJ Best Practice cardiology expert. She is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and the Heart Failure association and has numerous publications including in the field of automation of echocardiography analysis. Her move to pharmaceutical medicine last year was prompted by a desire to impact population health and policy at a national level, to drive improvements in health outcomes throughout society but particularly in those at highest risk.
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Samana Brannigan
Head of Health Technologies, Innovate UK
I am the Head of Health Technologies at Innovate UK. My areas of focus include MedTech, biotech, diagnostics, emerging technologies, engineering biology and data & digital health industry sectors. I am responsible for developing and implementing the UK innovation strategy for wealth creation in these sectors and developing a partnership approach with key stakeholders within the ecosystem. I lead the Biomedical Catalyst Programme-the Innovate UK flagship grant funding programme for supporting UK health & life sciences SMEs. I also manage the Investor Relations portfolio within the Health and Medicine Sector and work with investors to leverage private investment into innovative and emerging UK SME’s within the life sciences sector through the Investment Partnership programme.
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I am passionate about the importance of a strong ecosystem for early stage disruptive and emerging innovative businesses in Life Sciences. I work in partnership with UK accelerator, incubators and investment communities to support the health-tech programme and sector growth.
Previously I worked at Invest NI where I managed a range of strategic R&D portfolios for Northern Ireland Life Sciences companies focusing on oncology biomarker development, digital pathology and targeted drug discovery for large, SME and spin-outs. I also managed academic-business collaborations in my role as a Business Alliance manager at Queen’s University Belfast.
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Prof. Joan Condell
Senior fellow of the Centre for Higher Education Research and Practice at Ulster, fellow of the Higher Education Academy
Professor Condell is based in the Intelligent Systems Research Centre at Ulster University. She is a senior fellow of the Centre for Higher Education Research and Practice at Ulster and a fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She was awarded a Distinguished Teaching and Learning Fellowship in 2011, regularly has External Examiner positions in UK and Ireland in teaching and research and is also a member of the Royal Irish Academy Engineering committee. She regularly sits on funding review panels for the UK Research Councils, the Irish Research Council, Innovate UK and UK Research and Innovation. She manages a team of PhD researchers and Research Associates.
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Professor Joan Condell has published over 250 papers and actively secured grants from external sources with a total project value over £31.2M. She was co-investigator on an EU FP7 project (I’m Clever) for €5.9M which successfully completed in 2013 and is currently principal investigator on 10 European projects (project funding value 22.5M Euros across EU partners). Her research areas include imaging and digital intelligent technologies in security, wearables, energy and associated application areas.
Professor Condell has patents filed in UK and US; and has completed trials with key industrial players in security product and wearables technologies; she has won Innovation and Enterprise awards for commercialisation work, for creativity and bio-entrepreneurship.
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Prof. Louise Dubras MBBS, BSc, DRCOG, FRCGP, MA(Ed), FAcadMEd, PFHEA
Professor Louise Dubras joined Ulster University as Foundation Dean of the School of Medicine in June 2018.
She is a GP working 1 day a week at an inner city practice in Derry-Londonderry alongside her role as a professor of medical education at Ulster University where she is the Foundation Dean of the School of Medicine. She had previously spent many years as a GP to homeless patients in Southampton.
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Before coming to Ulster, Louise worked at the University of Southampton and King’s College London. Her educational leadership has spanned a range of initiatives including the development of student assessments, the introduction of Quality Improvement education for medical students, and a range of education on alcohol, addiction, homelessness and social exclusion.
.Clinical practice has always been the foundation from which Louise has undertaken her educational work; with a commitment to achieving good outcomes for patients on multiple levels.
Louise is a past director of the Association for the Study of Medical Education, current member of Council of the Academy of Medical Educators, FRCGP and Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
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Emma Fox
Programme Manager, Francis Crick Institute
Emma is a Programme Manager at the Francis Crick Institute, a biomedical research institute based in London. Emma manages entrepreneurial training activities delivered by the Crick, in particular KQ Labs, an accelerator programme for UK based start-ups using data as a core part of their business model to improve human health.
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Prior to the Crick, Emma coordinated clinical trials focused around health literacy and medication adherence at Northwestern University in Chicago. Emma also has experience designing and facilitating workshops around healthcare improvement and human centred design.
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Mitchell O’Gorman
CEO of xWave Technologies
Mitchell O’Gorman is the CEO of xWave Technologies who are on a mission to save lives by ensuring that patients get the best test first. Mitchell has over 15-years’ experience as a digital transformation leader, with experience across fast-paced start-ups and large, complex multinationals.
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Prior to joining xWave Technologies, Mitchell was the Managing Director for Kantar Ireland, a global leader in research and data, and Head of Innovation for Independent News and Media.
Title of Talk: Tackling Radiology Backlogs With Clinical Decision Support And Smart Design
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Dr Robert Grundy
Founder of Anglezarke Life Sciences and Vice President for Business Development with Nottingham based Intelligent OMICS.
Dr Robert Grundy is the founder of Anglezarke Life Sciences and Vice President for Business Development with Nottingham based Intelligent OMICS. Rob was previously CEO of CIGA Healthcare Ltd and Director of Commercial Development and Licensing at Almac Discovery.
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Rob’s focus is on the commercial development of differentiating innovation across science and technology. Rob also holds the position of Honorary Lecturer in the School of Medicine Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences at Queen’s University Belfast.
Title of Talk: Tackling Radiology Backlogs With Clinical Decision Support And Smart Design
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Cathy Harrison
Chief Pharmaceutical Officer, Department of Health
Cathy Harrison is the Chief Pharmaceutical Officer for Northern Ireland, working at the Department of Health. In this role Cathy is the head of the pharmacy profession in Northern Ireland and the most senior professional advisor to the Minister of Health on pharmaceutical and medicines issues.
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Cathy is a qualified pharmacist and undertook her pharmacy undergraduate degree at Liverpool John Moore’s University and postgraduate degree at Queen’s University, Belfast. After graduation in 1989 she worked in community pharmacy in England and Northern Ireland before joining the Department of Health in 2005 as Principal Pharmaceutical Officer. She was later promoted to Deputy Chief Pharmaceutical Officer before being appointed as Chief Pharmaceutical Officer in January 2020.
Cathy leads a wide-ranging work programme involving pharmacy and medicines policy and legislation, including leading the Department of Health’s response to EU transition and the Northern Ireland pharmacy response to COVID-19 and HSC rebuilding. She also leads the implementation of a strategy to improve the safety and benefits of medicines titled ‘The Medicines Optimisation Quality Framework (MOQF)’, supported by a Medicines Optimisation Innovation Centre (MOIC). This involves collaborative working with stakeholders from academia, industry, community development and health and social care, across four reform programmes encompassing, pharmacy workforce, medicines safety, efficiency and innovation.
Cathy has an interest in the integration of multi-skilled pharmacy teams across health and social care sectors, combining professional and technical skills with redesigned services and new technologies.
Cathy is committed to realising pharmacy’s greater contribution to better health outcomes for patients and more effective utilisation of health resources.
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Andy Haywood
Channel 3 Consulting
Former public sector leader, who has successfully delivered change and critical live services throughout his career. Andy joined Channel 3 from the Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust (WAST), where he was CIO and a member of the board, with responsibility for all digital services covering 111, 999, emergency medical services and patient transport nationally for 3.1 million people.
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He was WAST’s first digital executive and oversaw the rollout of personal tablets to paramedics, a new 111 website, the rollout of Office 365 and the journey off paper, with a new nationally available electronic patient record. All whilst responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Prior to WAST Andy worked in large acute trusts and NHS Digital, delivering complex programmes, cyber-security and policy roles. Prior to his NHS career, he was an officer in the Royal Navy for 12 years, specialising in air traffic control in a role that saw him command a team of 70 controllers across 4 airfields and multiple appointments at sea, including talking jets down to the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal.
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Dr Jennifer Hill
Programme Lead for the Accelerated Access Collaborative (AAC), based at NHS England.
The AAC brings together industry, government, regulators, patients and the NHS to remove barriers and accelerate the introduction of ground-breaking new treatments and diagnostics to transform care. Jennifer leads the development of the new NHS Innovation Service which is set to provide a step-change in the experience for innovators hoping to access the NHS, allowing them to access support and guidance.
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The NHS Innovation service will bring improved efficiency for health system organisations supporting these innovators encouraging collaboration and cross organisational working.
Prior to working for NHS England, Jennifer worked at the Royal College of Physicians and was responsible for developing NICE clinical guidelines, leading on 16 different guideline topics. Jennifer has a background in Medical Physics and Audiology.
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Dr Andrew Jones BSC. MB BS MSC. (IS) MRCGP
Head of Clinical Innovation Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Andrew is Head of Clinical Innovation at Amazon Web Services and also the Director of Innovation at the UCL Centre for Digital Innovation powered by AWS. He is a physician by background with 20 years’ experience of working in the NHS.
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Over the past 15 years he has worked in a variety of Health Technology roles including on the UK National Programme for IT, BMJ, Hearst Health and DXC Technology. He helps healthcare organisations progress at all stages of their digital transformation journey. In his current role, he supports customers and partners to build healthcare solutions using AWS’ cloud services to improve patient experience and clinical outcomes.
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Peter Keeling
Chief Executive Officer of Diaceutics
As Chief Executive Officer of Diaceutics, Peter recognized early on that Personalized Medicine would be an increasingly large part of the drug development paradigm, representing a shift in how the pharmaceutical industry operates. With over thirty years of experience in international healthcare, Peter is a thought leader in Personalized Medicine commercialisation.
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Under his leadership, Diaceutics has grown significantly since its inception in 2005 and now works with 39 pharma companies, including the 10 biggest global pharma companies.
Peter has driven Diaceutics to become a leader in innovative solutions that enable pharma to leverage diagnostic testing globally. In October 2020 the company launched DXRX – The Diagnostic Network® – the world’s first diagnostic commercialization platform for Precision Medicine.
In just a year of its launch, DXRX delivered 57% of total group revenues. Diaceutics listed on AIM in March 2019, and has grown significantly with 25%+ annual growth year-on-year. Diaceutics continues to invest in the development and commercialisation of the DXRX platform and has raised approximately $50m in funding.
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Dr Susan Kelly
CEO and Founder, Aflo
Susan brings over fifteen years experience in Market Access/ Managed Entry for new medicines in the UK healthcare sector. Prior to forming Respiratory Analytics in 2019, to develop aflo™, she held a series of roles focused on the development of digital respiratory solutions.
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Susan brings over fifteen years experience in Market Access/ Managed Entry for new medicines in the UK healthcare sector. Prior to forming Respiratory Analytics in 2019, to develop aflo™, she held a series of roles focused on the development of digital respiratory solutions.
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Prof. Richard Kennedy
Global Vice President and Medical Director, Almac Diagnostic Services
Professor Richard Kennedy is the Global Vice President and Medical Director at Almac Diagnostic Services. He graduated in medicine from Queen’s University Belfast in 1995. As a post-graduate he trained as a medical oncologist and received a PhD in Molecular Biology in 2004. From 2004-2007 he worked as an Instructor in Oncology at Harvard Medical School, USA, where he identified novel biomarkers and drug targets for cancer treatment.
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This work was published in several high impact journals and the associated patents were in-licensed by a Boston-based start-up company in 2007. In August 2007 he joined Almac Diagnostic Services, part of the Almac Group, an international contract research and manufacturing organisation. In this role he has been involved in the design and international delivery of over 100 precision medicine clinical trials on behalf of multiple large pharmaceutical companies.
In 2011 he also established a research group at Queen’s University of Belfast focussed on various aspects of precision medicine. He currently sits on the MATRIX NI Government science advisory panel and Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine Oncology expert group. He was involved in the response to COVID-19 as a committee member of the NI COVID-19 Testing Consortium and completed his tenure as a member of the Cancer Research UK new agents committee last year.
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Prof. Mark Lawler PhD, FRCPath
Associate Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Professor of Digital Health Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Sciences
Chair in Translational Cancer Genomics Patrick G Johnston Centre for Cancer Research Queen’s University Belfast
Co-Lead, All-Island Cancer Research Institute (AICRI)
Chair, International Cancer Benchmarking Partnership
Scientific Director, DATA-CAN, The UK’s Health Data Research Hub for Cancer
Associate Director, Health Data Research Northern Ireland
Prof Mark Lawler is Associate Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Professor of Digital Health and Chair in Translational Cancer Genomics at Queen’s University Belfast. He is Co-lead of the All Island Cancer Research Institute and co-leads a number of research programmes within the Institute. Mark is Scientific Director of DATA-CAN, the UK’s Health Data Research Hub for Cancer. He is Chair of the International Cancer Benchmarking Partnership which sets a benchmark for cancer outcomes globally.
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He was Chair of the recently published Lancet Oncology European Groundshot Commission on Cancer Research, which reimagines cancer research and its implementation in Europe. He has a strong commitment to patient-centred research and to addressing cancer inequalities. He was architect of the European Cancer Patient’s Bill of Rights, launched in the European Parliament (World Cancer Day).
He received the 2018 European Health Award, a prestigious award for partnerships that yield real health impact in Europe. His work on Covid-19 received the Royal College of Physicians Excellence in Patient Care Award and the prestigious European Communique Award. In 2021, Mark received the Irish Association for Cancer Research’s Outstanding Contribution to cancer research award, for his pioneering work on cancer research and care on the island of Ireland. He and his team won the prestigious Health Data Research Impact of the Year Award for their work on providing the crucial intelligence to inform a change in policy for treating colorectal cancer.
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Professor Justin Magee
Research Director for Belfast School of Art
Professor Justin Magee is Research Director for Belfast School of Art (Since 2017), leading their REF2021 submission where 100% of their Research Impact and their Research Environment were judged to be World Leading or Internationally Excellent.
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Previously he was the Interim Associate Dean for Research & Impact (2021-2022) and the Director for Academic Enterprise (2006-2011) for the Faculty of Arts Humanities & Social Sciences. He has secured £8,831,769 across 25 external research funding awards (11 around Design for Health), including principal investigator for Ulster’s AHRC Impact Acceleration Account.
As a practicing product designer, he has worked for corporate giants, SME’s and entrepreneurs on >85 commercial projects (e.g., Randox, HSCNI, Smart MCC, Mercedes & LEGO Systems) delivering 30 design consultancy projects, through Innovation Ulster Ltd. He is a reviewer for the Taylor & Francis Design for Health journal and served on the Office for Research Ethics Committee (2017-2019). His industry-led research has received recognition through Ulster’s Research Impact Excellence Awards for Research Business Partnership of the year (2020), Knowledge Exchange (2017) and previously awardee of the Distinguished Business Fellowship (2007).
His most recent KTP’s were graded ‘outstanding’ by Innovate UK (CDE Global, 2017; Axial3D, 2020). The CDE national case study (NCUB 2018) was finalist for THE Leadership Management Awards KE Initiative of the Year (2018). The Axial3D KTP was finalist in the Innovate UK Business Impact & Transformation award 2022..
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Eddie Ritson
Programme Director, Centre for Connected Health and Social Care
Eddie is Programme Director of the Centre for Connected Health and Social Care (part of the Northern Ireland Public Health Agency) and a member of the senior leadership team within Digital Health & Care Northern Ireland (DHCNI). His current work involves the development and implementation of Technology Enabled Care services within the NI Health & Social Care (HSC) system and the leadership of the digital innovation function within DHCNI including the development of the Digital Eco-system.
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Eddie has extensive experience in health & social care gained over 40 years work both in the NHS and in the HSC. He has managed services operationally, has led numerous change programmes across primary, secondary and tertiary care and has experience in the development and implementation of policy & strategy. His experience has included working with other public sector bodies, industry and academia and he has also worked on international projects with partners in Europe and the USA.
Eddie’s previous posts include Executive Director of Primary Care with the Southern Health & Social Services Board and Chief Executive of a Primary Care Group in the south of England. Academically, Eddie has an MSc in Digital Health Leadership (Imperial College London) and a PGDip in Public Administration (University of Ulster).
Outside of work, Eddie is a keen sailor, golfer and cyclist.
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Lorna Ross
Future Human Design, Leadership in healthcare transformation, wearable tech and human-machine compatibility
Lorna is an Unreasonable Mentor. Lorna has participated in 2 programs, including Unreasonable Impact UK & Europe 2022 (Feb – Apr), and has advised over 14 Unreasonable companies.
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Lorna’s design career spans 30 years, with stops in the world of fashion, wearable technology, robotics, and most recently, health care. She is a futurist at heart, recognized for her ability to anticipate shifts in the social, cultural and economic context for design. She was one of the pioneering researchers to focus on wearable technologies in the early ‘90s and built a reputation for research activity in this arena. She later identified the theme of health as an emerging arena for design to thrive.
She founded and led the Human Wellbeing Group at the MIT Media Lab. Her vision was to employ human centered design principles to address the biggest challenges facing the healthcare industry. She subsequently built and led the design group at Mayo Clinic’s Center for Innovation from 2009-2017 before returned to her native Ireland to take up the Group Director position at the Fjord design studio inside Accenture’s global R&D center The Dock.
While with Accenture, she founded and led the Human Insights Lab in collaboration with Trinity College before returning to healthcare with VHI Health & Wellness Group as their Chief innovation Officer. She leads out on clinical service transformation and digital health and also the design of a proprietary digital medicine syllabus with their education partner Royal College of Surgeons.
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Trevor Vaugh
Academic Director Dept. of Design Innovation & Assistant Professor of Strategic Design, Maynooth University, Department of Design Innovation
Trevor Vaugh is an expert in human-centred innovation, strategy and design thinking and assistant professor of strategic design at Maynooth University. He is the founder and director of the Maynooth University Innovation Lab (Mi:Lab). Trevor regularly works with and advises public and private organisations on the critical role design now plays as an agent of discovery and a mediator between humanity and technology. Trevor currently sits on Ireland’s public service innovation advisory board and is co-chair of the ‘design in Government’ expert working group, where he recently led the development of “Design Principles for Government in Ireland”.
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In 2021, his co-authored book, ‘ARRIVE: A Design Innovation Framework to Deliver Breakthrough Services, Products and Experiences’ was published by Routledge. Trevor appeared as an expert on the critically acclaimed RTÉ series ‘The Big Life Fix’ and presented Science Foundation Ireland’s ‘Science to the Rescue’ documentary. Prior to entering academia, Trevor developed a number of disruptive healthcare innovations, accumulating a portfolio of over 50 patents and winning numerous innovation awards, including a place in the prestigious Cleveland clinic’s top 10 innovations of 2009.
Through both his academic and his consulting work, Trevor merges the theory and practice of Design, Anthropology, and Strategy, to help organisations navigate uncertainty, innovate and grow through human insight, creative thinking, experimentation and capability building.
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Rebecca Walsh
Award-winning service designer, engineer, and digital health expert
Rebecca is an award-winning service designer, engineer, and digital health expert. A Chartered Mechanical Engineer (IMechE), Rebecca holds an MEng (Hons) in Aerospace Engineering from Queen’s University Belfast and brings nearly 15 years of experience in user-centred design and service innovation to her role as Service Design Director at Big Motive.
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Rebecca is responsible for the delivery of high-quality experience health design projects for a range of Big Motive’s clients, spanning private health technology startups to large public sector health systems. As a teacher and advisor, Rebecca is a board member of Matrix, Northern Ireland’s Science Industry Panel and delivers an interactive design-led module for the MBA programme at Queen’s University. She is also a STEM ambassador and current Chair of the ‘Service Design Network’ in Ireland.
Rebecca led Big Motive’s multi-disciplined design team in Northern Ireland’s award-winning digital response to the pandemic, delivering a variety of digital services that helped promote better health outcomes, for the population of Northern Ireland.
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