With great pleasure, the Cancer Drug Development Forum (CDDF) announces the appointment of Dr. Christian Schneider, Dr. Fergus Sweeney, and Dr. Rosa Giuliani to its Board of Directors for a three-year term, effective 5 December, 2023.
We warmly welcome these new leaders, whose extensive expertise and diverse backgrounds will enable the CDDF to best achieve its mission to improve the development and delivery of cancer treatment for patients.
Dr. Christian Schneider
Dr. Schneider is Head of Biopharma Excellence and Chief Medical Officer (Biopharma) at PharmaLex. He was previously interim Chief Scientific Officer at the UK’s MHRA, where he was also Director of the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control (NIBSC) for five years. He has also held leading positions at the Danish Medicines Agency and at the Paul-Ehrlich-Institute, Germany’s Federal Agency for Vaccines and Biomedicines.
At EMA, he has chaired the Committee for Advanced Therapies (CAT) as well as the Biosimilar Medicinal Products Working Party (BMWP), and served as a member of the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP). He is one of the key architects of EMA’s advanced therapies and biosimilars framework. As a regulatory scientist, Christian has published 50+ articles in international, peer-reviewed journals.
Dr. Fergus Sweeney
Dr. Sweeney has a Degree in Physiology (Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, 1979), a Doctorat de Troisiéme Cycle in cancer biology (Université de Paris, 1982), and a PhD in Pharmacology (UCD, Ireland, 1986). He worked in industry from 1982 to 1999, covering phase I-IV clinical research, pharmacovigilance and laboratory activities, primarily in the field of quality assurance.
Prior to his retirement, in May 2022, he was Head of the Clinical Studies and Manufacturing Taskforce at the European Medicines Agency. He joined the Agency Inspection Sector in 1999, was Head of Sector, Compliance and Inspections from 2009, Head of Division Inspections and Human Medicines Pharmacovigilance from 2013 (and Scientific Committee Services from 2016). Whilst at EMA he served as chair or delegate in various working groups with experts from regulators, the pharmaceutical industry, academia, and civil society, including patients. Among these he has been the regulatory chair of three ICH Expert Working Groups involving the revision of ICH E8 -General Considerations on Clinical Trials and both revision 2 and revision 3 of ICH E6 Good Clinical Practice.
Dr. Rosa Giuliani
Dr. Giuliani is a consultant in medical oncology currently working at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust. She is currently a co-chair of the Healthcare Professional Working Party (HCPWP) at European Medicines Agency (EMA) and a Member of the EMA Cancer Medicines Forum. In the past, she was Director of Cancer Policy at the European Society for Medical Oncology from 2020 to 2022 and also a core member of the Scientific Advisory Group-Oncology (SAG-O) at the EMA for about 10 years.
She earned her medical degree from the University of Rome, La Sapienza, in 1996 and completed the specialty training in medical oncology in 2000. She dedicated several years specializing in the treatment of breast cancer at the MD Anderson Cancer Centre, Houston, TX (1999), at the Breast Unit of the Jules Bordet Institute in Brussels (2001-2003), at the Cancer Cell Biology Dept of Hammersmith Hospital (2005-2006) and at the Breast Unit of Charing Cross Hospital (2008) in London.
We recognise the hard work and commitment of CDDF leadership in supporting its mission and are confident of the excellence and knowledge the new board members will bring to CDDF to further its objectives.