2018 Speaking Faculty

Amal Agarwal, D.O., MBA, is a board-certified emergency room physician with clinical, entrepreneurial, administrative and operational experience. Dr. Agarwal’s mission is to help with the necessary transition from a fee-for-service model to a value-based-care model through patient and physician engagement. By merging both patient and health care provider data, he hopes to improve patient outcomes.

Dr. Agarwal is uniquely leveraged, having functioned as a chief medical officer for a health analytics platform, a pharmaceutical consultant for Navigant, health care consultant for Accenture and now as a medical director in the Executive Physician Immersion Program at Humana. After completing his Six Sigma green belt training, he is a firm believer that poor results are primarily attributed to process rather than people.

Outside of work, Dr. Agarwal advises several health care startups. He received his MBA from the University of Illinois, his medical degree from Des Moines University and his B.S. in finance and accounting from Washington University in St. Louis. He completed his residency in emergency medicine at the University of Florida.

John Alter is currently Vice President of Patient and Health Impact for Pfizer’s Essential Health business unit, which has worldwide sales of more than $20B from a portfolio of over 700 molecules including biosimilars, sterile injectables and solid oral dosage forms. The portfolio is the result of Pfizer’s research and development as well as acquisitions of Warner Lambert, Pharmacia and Upjohn, Wyeth and most recently Hospira. Pfizer is the world’s leading biosimilars company based on audited sales and its portfolio of biosimilar molecules is for the treatment of inflammation, oncology and supportive care.

Pfizer’s Patient and Health Impact team covers the functions of Pricing, Access, Reimbursement, Health Economics, Outcomes Research and Real World Data. John has been with Pfizer for over 18 years in multiple roles of increasing responsibilities, the last three years in his current role. He has presented at several biosimilars conferences on the topic of pricing and access and in 2016 was a guest lecturer on the subject of HEOR at Kings College London as part of the International Federation of Association of Pharmaceutical Physicians.

Penny Bemus joined Dohmen in 2012 and now serves as Senior Vice President, Business Development, helping orphan drug manufacturers commercialize products to small patient populations. Penny joined Dohmen when the company acquired Centric Health Resources, Inc., a St. Louis-based company where she helped develop and launch an innovative patient-centric business model which supports higher adherence and accelerates economic value.

Prior to Centric, Penny served as a managing partner and board member for Legacy Pharmaceutical Packaging, LLC, a contract pharmaceutical packaging company. Previously, she held a variety of executive roles for Huttig Building Products, Inc., directing various departments including: accounting, business planning, sales planning and analysis, and legal affairs. She began her career with GE in various financial roles. Penny holds an undergraduate degree from The Ohio State University, an MBA from Washington University in St. Louis, and a law degree from St. Louis University. She is an active member of the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association.

Kevin has over 25 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries focused primarily on the specialty market. At Archbow Consulting, Kevin leverages this experience for clients across the pharmaceutical industry.

Kevin co-founded Vivaleas, a startup with a focus on designing and implementing global patient centric services. Prior to Vivaleas, Kevin managed the integrated Pharma Business Development Team for the three main Pharma focused service offerings at Express Scripts: Accredo, CuraScript Specialty Distribution, and United BioSource Corporation. He was responsible for negotiating contracts for all new specialty products, including the design and development of patient support programs and varying supply chain solutions. These services typically fell into the following categories: Specialty Pharmacy, Specialty Distribution, Third Party Logistics, REMS Design and Support Programs, HealthCare Provider and Patient Reimbursement Services (HUBs), Patient Assistance Programs, Patient Centric Programs, Data Reporting Services, and Outsourced CRO/Pharmacovigilance Offerings.

Prior to his tenure at Express Scripts, Kevin led the National Account and Specialty Trade Team for Serono USA, and prior to that, he held various Sales and Marketing roles at Ciba-Geigy. Kevin holds a Bachelor of Liberal Arts in Biology from Illinois Wesleyan University and a Master’s Degree in Botany from Oklahoma State University. His primary residence is in Windermere, Florida

Brian Davis is Vice President of Contracting and Payer Access for orphan drugs at Dohmen Life Science Services (DLSS). With 15 years of experience in managed care contracting, he has held roles leading both contracting and compliance departments. He’s also a pharmacist and has an extensive background in public policy and professional regulation.

Brian’s role is to ensure that DLSS has the right strategic relationships with payers and prioritize them to make sure clients and their patients get the support they need.

He has a Masters of Science in Pharmacy from the University of Florida as well as a bachelor’s degree in Pharmacy from St. Louis College.

Dr. Chris Guinther has worked on a variety of initiatives for pharmacies, health plans and pharmacy benefit managers, including plan design, formulary management, and medical to pharmacy benefit conversions. He currently serves as System Director of Managed Care Pharmacy Services for Mercy Health, the largest health system in Ohio. His recent initiatives include orphan/biologic drug pricing and modeling the effects on plan spending. Prior to joining Mercy Health, he served as a Senior Clinical Consultant for Express Scripts working primarily in the Medicare Advantage space. He has been active at the national and regional level with various pharmacy associations including the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy

Dr. Guinther received a Pharm.D. from the University of Florida and a B.S. of Pharmacy from the Ohio State University.

Christine McSherry founded Jett Foundation in 2001, when her son now 20-year old Jett was diagnosed with Duchenne. She has spent the past 15 years funding research and providing programs that fill an unmet need in the Duchenne community. Christine also co-founded the International Duchenne Alliance, a rapidly growing partnership of over 40 independent organizations dedicated to co-funding promising biomedical research in Duchenne, in 2009. To tackle Duchenne more aggressively, the Duchenne Alliance created a revolutionary funding tool called the Duchenne Dashboard. The Dashboard greatly enhances the funding process for scientists and foundations, and has funded nearly $15 million dollars in research to date.

After more than 15 years of steady progress in the fight against Duchenne, Christine has also become known as a fierce and educated advocate for rapid FDA approvals of safe and potentially efficacious Duchenne therapies. She has worked with the FDA, biotech companies, Congress, and Parliament of the United Kingdom to improve communication, clinical trial design, the approval processes, and transparency in drug development.

For the last four years, Christine has been advocating for the patient perspective to be considered and for flexibility to be applied by the FDA when reviewing safe and potentially effective treatments for Duchenne. In April of this year, Christine presented the Jett Foundation’s Patient Centered Outcomes report at the FDA’s meeting of the Peripheral and Central Nervous System Drugs Advisory Committee. She personally interviewed patients and families to gather data and testimonials for the report. At the Advisory Committee, Christine was part of a coalition who brought more than 1,000 families, patients and advocates to be there to support the fight for a cure for DMD.

Christine has been highlighted in the media for her firebrand form of patient advocacy, including the Boston Globe, Bloomberg Business Week, the Boston Business Journal, Fox News and Chronicle. She was also featured in the books Boston’s Most Inspirational Women and Darcy Olsen’s Right to Try.

Morgan Molloy currently serves as the Head of U.S. Commercial at Spark Therapeutics. Prior to Spark, Mr. Molloy most recently was Vice President, Global Disease Lead Fabray Disease at Genzyme Corporation. While at Genzyme, he served in a variety of commercial leadership roles in three of the legacy Genzyme business units. Prior to Genzyme, Mr. Molloy spent ten years at Biogen Idec Inc. in positions of increasing responsibility within the commercial organization

Linda Newberry-Ferguson is Senior Vice President, Clinical Navigation at Dohmen Life Science Services (DLSS). In this role, she represents clinical services across the enterprise, focusing on high standards in patient care, clinical and nursing, and aligning clinical navigation strategies with client goals. During this extraordinary time of innovation and change, she is working to help redefine healthcare with a more efficient, effective and easy to use approach that optimizes patient health and health care delivery.

Linda is a successful business and community leader with many years of executive-level healthcare leadership experience. As a nurse who focused on the critically ill and medically complex patient population, Linda has spent the majority of her career in leadership in the acute, post-acute and rehabilitation hospital sector. Linda spent a good deal of that time working with a FORTUNE 500 healthcare services company and the nation’s largest provider of post-acute care, as a facility CEO running specialty hospitals. Prior to that, Linda served as COO and Chief Nursing Officer for a multi-hospital system, providing clinical and leadership expertise.

Linda has been, and continues to be, a high-impact influence on the community scene serving as a Director of the Board for a multi-state mutual insurance company, as well as several charitable and association boards.

Dr. Pezalla in a leading innovator and consultant on payer strategy for pharmaceutical and device manufacturers. He focuses on unlocking the value of new products by developing industry-leading approaches to incorporating payer requirements into development programs, technology assessment plans, and value frameworks. He works with a variety of policy and industry groups on cutting edge coverage policy, innovations in value-based payments, and adaptive regulatory and market entry pathways. He is currently a Scholar-in-Residence at the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy in Washington.

Dr. Pezalla is the former Vice President for Pharmaceutical Policy and Strategy in the Office of the Chief Medical Officer at Aetna. In this position Dr. Pezalla developed and coordinated strategy for pharmaceutical evaluation and coverage across both the medical and pharmacy benefit, created Aetna’s framework for innovative contracts, and developed Aetna’s public policy positions on drug and device coverage.

Dr. Pezalla holds both BS and MD degrees from Georgetown University and an MPH from the University of California at Berkeley. He is a board certified pediatrician and was a Health Services Research Fellow at the University of Michigan.

As Chief Counsel to the Rare Disease Group in Pfizer Innovative Health (PIH), Jenny leads a team of attorneys providing legal and strategic counseling on development and commercialization of 7 globally-marketed orphan medicines as well as a portfolio growing from a deep pipeline and ongoing business development.

In addition, Jenny leads legal support for PIH's Emerging Markets Region, covering Latin America, Africa/Middle East, and Asia Pacific. In that capacity, Jenny works closely with the EM Regional President and Leadership Team as well as lawyers and other colleagues working in the markets.

In prior roles at Pfizer, Jenny managed a team of lawyers supporting Pfizer's innovative cardiovascular portfolio, its Women's Health Franchise, as well as a number of regional brands. She built her Pfizer knowledge and experience as the Global Product Counsel for blockbuster innovative medicines Eliquis and Viagra. Before coming to Pfizer, Jenny spent 10 years in private practice with a large international law firm in New York and Washington DC practicing complex commercial litigation with a healthcare law focus.

Jenny is passionate about women's leadership and professional development and is a member of the Pfizer Legal Division's Women's Network. She lives in Scarsdale, New York with her family.

Grace-Marie Turner is president of the Galen Institute, a public policy research organization that she founded in 1995 to promote an informed debate over free-market ideas for health reform.

She has been instrumental in developing and promoting ideas for reform to transfer power over health care decisions to doctors and patients. She speaks and writes extensively about incentives to promote a more competitive, patient-centered marketplace in the health sector.

• She testifies regularly before Congress and advises senior government officials, governors, and state legislators on health policy.
• She was named by the Speaker of the House in 2013 to serve as a member of the Long Term Care Commission.
• Previously, Grace-Marie served for a three-year term on the National Advisory Board for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and she served as a member of the Medicaid Commission, making recommendations to modernize and improve Medicaid.

She has been published in hundreds of major newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and USA Today, and has appeared on ABC’s 20/20 and on hundreds of radio and television programs. She is a co-author of Why ObamaCare Is Wrong for America, published by HarperCollins in 2011, and editor of Empowering Health Care Consumers through Tax Reform. Grace-Marie speaks extensively in the U.S. and abroad, including at the London School of Economics, Oxford University, and the Gregorian University at the Vatican.

Grace-Marie is founder and facilitator of the Health Policy Consensus Group which serves as a forum for analysts from market-oriented think tanks around the country to analyze and develop policy recommendations.

She received the 2007 Outstanding Achievement Award for Promotion of Consumer Driven Health Care from Consumer Health World. In the mid-1990s, Grace-Marie served as executive director of the National Commission on Economic Growth and Tax Reform. For 12 years, she was president of Arnett & Co., a health policy analysis and communications firm. Her early career was in politics and journalism where she received numerous awards for her writings on politics and economics.

Reg Waldeck is an Oncology Market Access Strategy Leader at Bayer Pharmaceuticals in the US, where he leads Market Access and related activities for Bayer's prostate cancer franchise and development pipeline. Reg was formerly head of Market Access, Pricing, Health Economics at Celldex Therapeutics Inc., a biotechnology company developing targeted therapeutics in (immuno)-oncology. Prior to this, he was with Bristol-Myers Squibb for 15 years in various functions spanning Marketing, Access, Pricing, and HEOR. Dr. Waldeck has a PhD in Biophysical Chemistry from the University of Sydney, and completed a postdoc in Biophysics at Caltech (Pasadena, CA), as well as post-graduate certificates in Health Economics (Monash University, Australia) and Marketing (University of Connecticut, USA).

Amber Walker, Director, Specialty Pharmacy Development. Amber is responsible for the development and ongoing management of Walgreens pharmacy programs, with a focus in the rare and orphan disease products and programs. In this position, she monitors the FDA pipeline of new products for specialty disease states to identify the unique needs of these products and determine how to best service the patients who receive them.

Amber joined Walgreens in 2009. She has provided superior customer service in her positions as a Referral Program Specialist, Physician Sales Representative, and National Account Manager over the course of her 13 years of experience in the specialty pharmacy field. Amber’s diligence, organizational skills and broad knowledge of specialty pharmacy is a valuable asset …

John Alter is currently Vice President of Patient and Health Impact for Pfizer’s Essential Health business unit, which has worldwide sales of more than $20B from a portfolio of over 700 molecules including biosimilars, sterile injectables and solid oral dosage forms. The portfolio is the result of Pfizer’s research and development as well as acquisitions of Warner Lambert, Pharmacia and Upjohn, Wyeth and most recently Hospira. Pfizer is the world’s leading biosimilars company based on audited sales and its portfolio of biosimilar molecules is for the treatment of inflammation, oncology and supportive care.

Pfizer’s Patient and Health Impact team covers the functions of Pricing, Access, Reimbursement, Health Economics, Outcomes Research and Real World Data. John has been with Pfizer for over 18 years in multiple roles of increasing responsibilities, the last three years in his current role. He has presented at several biosimilars conferences on the topic of pricing and access and in 2016 was a guest lecturer on the subject of HEOR at Kings College London as part of the International Federation of Association of Pharmaceutical Physicians.

Jim Wu is a Senior Health Economist in the Health Technology Assessment Center of Excellence (HTA CoE), Global Health Economics (GHE) at Amgen, Inc., where for the past 3½ years he has led multiple launch and mature products in the oncology (including one orphan drug), cardiovascular, and inflammation therapeutic areas, providing strategy and direction for HTA submissions for Amgen’s global affiliates.

In 2013, Jim was appointed an inaugural member to the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute’s Rare Disease Advisory Panel (PCORI RDAP) representing industry, and he was re-appointed in 2015 for another three years. For the past five years, he has also served as a grants reviewer for the PCORI Improving Methods Program, and for the past three years on the National Patient-Centered Clinical Research Network (PCORnet) Industry Working Group.

Before joining Amgen in 2014, Jim worked for Hyperion Therapeutics, Abbott Vascular, Elan and Genentech, holding various roles in global health economics, market access/reimbursement, contracting/pricing, and commercial operations. Prior to industry, Jim worked at Brown & Toland Medical Group (one of the original Medicare Pioneer ACOs in San Francisco, CA), where he developed his background in managed care contracting, claims and benefit operations, and expertise in electronic health records, data warehousing, and provider reporting/auditing.

Jim holds a Master of Science degree in Immunology from Brown University (Providence, RI), a Master of Public Health in Medical Informatics / Public Policy from New York Medical College (Valhalla, NY), and a Bachelor of Science in Cellular Biology, Molecular Biology, and Biochemistry from the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI).

Mr. Zweigenhaft is key industry thought leader and accomplished executive in the specialty-biotech pharmaceutical and oncology cancer care ecosystems.

Today Mr. Zweigenhaft is President of the National Association of Specialty Pharmacy, representing the industry on National Policy, Specialty Pharmacy Education and Government Relations based in Washington, DC. Mr. Zweigenhaft is also the Managing Partner of BioPharma Partners, LLC. a New York based Private Equity Company focused on incubating new healthcare delivery services, specialty bio-pharmaceuticals, genomics, precision medicine and digital health technologies into healthcare ecosystems. Mr. Zweigenhaft guidance has supported several key drug launch market strategies with industry leaders the likes of Genzyme, Pharmacyclics, Gilead, Janssen, Pfizer, Alexion, Bayer, GSK, Seattle Genetics, Monogram Science, Roche, Genentech, CureVax and Genomic Health.

Additionally Mr. Zweigenhaft is consultant and senior advisor to the shareholder group of Cancer Treatment Centers of America. In his role with the shareholders he is responsible for incubating growth and enterprise wide opportunities in the cancer care marketplace.

Previously Mr. Zweigenhaft held the office of CEO and Vice Chairman of Onco360 a national oncology pharmacy care management provider with corporate offices in New York City. The Onco360 model provided the full continuum of oncology pharmacy service solutions to over 3,000 community based Hematologists and Oncologists, Hospital Based Cancer Centers of Excellence in coordination with managed care providers insuring over 45 million people. Under Burt’s vision and leadership Onco360 created, developed and implemented the industry best practice oncology pharmacy model by incorporating the strengths of Board Certified Oncology Pharmacists and Oncology Patient Advocates to support the prospective and concurrent patient centered oncology medical home model. In 2014 PharMerica acquired controlling interest in Onco360 and relocated the company in 2015 to Louisville, KY.

Mr. Zweigenhaft previously served as Senior Vice President of Managed Care Sales and Marketing, Government Programs, Trade Relations and Business Development Strategies for Priority Healthcare Corporation, a publicly traded company in the specialty pharmacy sector with $2.3 billion in specialty drug revenues before being acquired by Express Scripts in 2005.

Prior to 2002, Mr. Zweigenhaft spent several years serving as a specialty pharmacy consultant to Medco, CuraScript, BioScrip and several Regional National Blue Cross Blue Shield and National Managed Care Payer programs.

Mr. Zweigenhaft holds a Bachelor of Science in Management and Economics from the University of Buffalo School of Management, where he also serves on the Dean’s Advisory Committee and remains active with the University of Buffalo schools of Pharmacy and Medicine including the Center of Excellence for Bioinformatics and Health Sciences. Mr. Zweigenhaft is a member of AMCP (American Managed Care Pharmacy), HOPA (Hematology Oncology Pharmacists Association) and ASCO (American Society of Consulting Oncologists). Mr. Zweigenhaft also serves on the Editorial Boards of several industry publications and is Editor and Chief of the Journal for Value Based Cancer Care. Mr. Zweigenhaft is also Co-Chairman and Co-Founder of the AVBCC (Association for Value Based Cancer Care) and serves as a Board Member of and President of NASP (National Association of Specialty Pharmacy) in Washington, DC.

Philanthropically Mr. Zweigenhaft serves on the National Board of Swim Across America for Cancer; a NFP organization that has raised $90 million to date to support cancer research laboratories. In 2015 Mr. Zweigenhaft was honored to be the recipient of the CancerCare “Help and Hope Award�.