2023 Fall Symposium - Speaker Bios
Symposium Sponsors
Speaker Biographies
Yasser Ali
Vice President, Commercial Operations and Business Analytics at BeiGene
Experienced business analytics and operations professional with extensive experience in pharmaceutical data, sales force size and structure, sales alignments, call planning and optimization, CRM, master data management, sales incentives, forecasting, market research, competitive intelligence, business development/investor relations support and delivering business insights to executives.
Ankit Chhabra
Principal, Data Sciences, CustomerInsights.AI, Inc.
Ankit Chhabra is a Principal within the Data Sciences group at CustomerInsights.AI. He brings 15+ years of broad experience within Life Sciences Commercial data sciences and analytics. He specializes in creating advanced, next-gen solutions by applying the latest in analytics techniques and technologies across Commercial functions within Life Sciences.
Arvind Dakhera
Senior Director, Data and Analytics, Indegene
Arvind Dakhera is a Senior Director at Indegene driving digital transformation and innovation through data-intensive and cloud-enabled analytical solutions that are built on data science, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. With over 15 years of experience, Arvind’s expertise covers all areas of the commercial analytics domain, including brand analytics, digital marketing and analytics, master data management, data governance, data platforms, and marketing automation.
Janani Gantal Damodaran
Principal Consultant, Trinity Life Sciences
Janani is an Analytics leader with over a decade of industry experience in the Life Sciences industry. Comes with extensive experience in successfully guiding digital transformations for BioPharma companies. She carries a fascination towards AI/NLP, and has contributed to developing advanced Lifesciences specific solutions such as enterprise search engine, auto-text classification tool, AI enabled conference sessions prioritization based on relevance, etc.
Arkojyoti Das
Data Science Manager, ZS Associates
I am a data scientist based out of India leading our product development of patient clustering and patient identification capabilities. I have >7 years of expertise in AI development, Deep Learning applications in healthcare and specialized in Real World Data and Insights.
Cindie Dilley
US Head of Business Anaytics and Insights and Global Head of Advanced Analytics
Cindie has been in the pharmaceutical industry for over 20 years with a wide range of responsibilities on both the analytics and brand management parts of the business. Most recently she was the global strategy/brand head for both Staccato Alprazolam (currently in phase 3 development) and Briviact. She has also served operationally as the US Mission Head of Integrated Care in Neurology. Analytically, she has lead US Neurology Analytics and Market Research and has held a number of roles in sales analytics, forecasting, pricing and market research.
Vardhan DVL
Senior Manager of Client Services at Indegene
Vardhan is a seasoned professional with extensive experience in Marketing and Sales, as well as Strategy. His expertise lies in collaborating with senior management to identify new business opportunities, formulate entry strategies, and develop robust business plans. Currently, Vardhan is making significant strides in the Healthcare and Life Science sector, where his primary objective is to expand Medical & Commercial solutions into unexplored avenues. In his previous role at an engineering and manufacturing firm, Vardhan made remarkable contributions to the company's success. He spearheaded the company's initiatives in the Solar segment, playing a pivotal role in establishing the company as the market leader for Solar Module Mounting Structures. Additionally, he served as a key member of the Strategy team, diligently identifying new business prospects in diverse sectors such as Pre-engineered Buildings, Balance of Plant Systems, Grain Silos, Water Treatment Plants, Hydraulic Cylinders, Aerospace, and Precision Tubes, among others.
Daniel Fisher
Managing Director and Practice Lead, Real Chemistry
Dan is the practice lead for IPM.ai - part of Real Chemistry. He has dedicated his professional career to identifying patients with high unmet needs and driving access to life-changing treatments. His team at IPM.ai harnesses the power of patient-level data and advanced analytics to deliver impact for life sciences clients. Dan's expertise spans therapeutic areas, with a concerted focus in oncology, metabolic, and rare neurological disorders.
Dan previously served as a managing consultant with ZS Associates where he supported biopharma organizations across North America and Europe. He oversaw sales and marketing solutions across 16 countries, with a core focus in applying analytics to designing and optimizing clinical stage and commercial tactics. He is a thought leader in the application of machine learning disciplines in rare disease populations, recently featured as a speaker at Fierce Pharma and Predictive Analytics World conferences. Dan holds an MBA from Vanderbilt University, and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Rochester.
Ashwin Gopalakrishnan
Partner, Head of Healthcare & Life Sciences practice, TheMathCompany
Ashwin leads the Healthcare and Life Sciences practice at TheMathCompany. He has ~15 years of consulting and industry experience in Pharma. Prior to joining TheMathCompany, Ashwin spent 7+ years in AbbVie leading analytics teams, product launch, asset strategy and was involved in a team that scaled industry-first patient services capabilities at AbbVie.
Arvind Balaji Gunasekaran
Principal Consultant - Data Science, Trinity Life Sciences
Arvind has a decade of experience in Data science and analytics industry and experience delivering advanced analytical solutions to provide insights and implement action-oriented solutions to complex business problems. He has implemented multiple projects on Voice of Customer, Patient identification, Sales rep route optimization to maximize the sales rep efficiency in pharma.
Anisha Jagadesan
Senior Manager, Genpact
Data Science Consultant with 12+years of cross Industry experience in Commercial and Sales Analytics. Been a strategic consultant for major pharmaceutical giants. Skilled and solving complex muddy and fuzzy business problems with actionable recommendation. Data Whisperer with experience in leveraging data analytics, predictive modeling, NLP and statistical techniques in driving value for business teams
Jessica Jarvis
Digital Transformation and AI Lead at ZS
Jessica has over 23 years of experience consulting with the pharma/ biotech industry leveraging a foundation built upon creativity and analytics. She works with clients to co-create solutions that specifically meet their unique needs. Jessica’s transparent working style is recognized by clients as more effectively helping them achieve their goals.
Jessica has helped dozens of the top global pharmaceutical, biotech and healthcare companies develop and implement sales and marketing strategies, leverage digital health solutions, effectively use real-world data, and better connect technology applications to real business need across the enterprise (R&D, manufacturing, medical, and commercial).
Srivatsa Kanchibotla
Principal, Chief Data Scientist, TheMathCompany
Srivatsa is the Chief Data Scientist at TheMathCompany. He has 15+ years of experience in Data Science, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. He has led design and development of scalable AI products for businesses across industries. He has been involved in the research of Generative AI technologies since 2018.
Bijal Karande
Vice President, Partnerships and Pre-Sales, WhizAI
Bijal is a success-oriented, strategic business leader with 20+ years of experience in the biopharma and technology industries. Her domain experience in biopharma coupled with a technology background has helped her drive large scale digital and business transformations at Fortune 100 companies. Her strengths and interests are in leveraging Artificial Intelligence and data and analytics-driven capabilities to deliver innovation across a range of therapeutic areas from clinical development to approval and commercialization.
She has held varied leadership roles at Novartis Pharma, Cognizant and Mallinckrodt, defining and executing on digital strategies, enabling change management, managing large P&Ls, and building partnerships. She has proven ability in building and leading geographically diverse large teams and has lived and worked in the US, Switzerland, Egypt, South Africa and India. Bijal holds a master’s of engineering from North Carolina State University and an undergraduate degree in engineering from University of Mumbai in India. She enjoys spending time with her family, traveling and gardening.
Ankit Kohli
Managing Director, Analytics, Trinity Life Sciences
Ankit Kohli is a data science leader in the space of AI, Machine Learning and Big Data, helping global organizations to enable the application of Advanced Analytics. Ankit Kohli has been part of several successful journeys across multiple startups. He has played a critical role in biotech organizations by educating senior leadership, accelerating the adoption of innovative solutions to enhance a brand’s commercial effectiveness and helping the right information to reach HCPs for the best patient health outcomes.
Srikanth Konduri
Life Sciences and Health Care Analytics
Srikanth has 14+ years of experience leading outcomes-oriented data science engagements in Life Sciences and Health Care analytics. He is an SME in conceptualizing strategic KPIs & feature engineered datasets for in-line & pipeline product forecasting models leveraging a variety of epidemiology, analyst estimates, access & third-party real-world data sets. His most current engagements include collaboration with pioneering biopharma clients for decision enablement on Payer Contracting across the phases of pre-deal feasibility assessment, post-deal performance monitoring and proactive prediction of high propensity pull through HCP targets.
Mayank Misra
Managing Partner, Charles River Healthcare Partners, and interim Vice President, New Product Planning, Analytics & Operations, PharmaEssentia USA
Mayank is a transformative leader and innovator with over 20 years of experience in biopharma. He specializes in pharmaceutical analytics, digital product development, and has held senior executive positions at Takeda Oncology, Melinta Therapeutics, and Pfizer. Currently, he serves as interim VP at PharmaEssentia and Managing Partner at Charles River Healthcare Partners. Mayank has successfully led pharmaceutical product launches, biotech business development due diligence, co-commercialization alliances, and organization-wide transformation initiatives. He holds an M.S. in Data Sciences and Machine Learning from Columbia University, an MBA from Johnson & Wales University, and a Bachelor of Science from Kanpur University.
Ayush Mundhra
Regional Head of Client Services, CustomerInsights.AI
Ayush is a commercial strategy and analytics leader who has more than 12 years of experience advising biopharma executives on a broad range of commcerial issues. Ayush holds an MBA from The Wharton School, and a B.Tech in Electrical & Electronics Engineering from NITK Surathkal, India.
Mario Nagathota
Director, Advanced Analytics – Omnichannel COE, Otsuka America Pharmaceutical Inc
Mario Nagathota is the Director of Advanced Analytics - Omnichannel COE at Otsuka America Pharmaceutical Inc., bringing in over 15 years of experience. He is currently developing an enterprise-wide capability that complements customer engagement by leveraging data, analytics, and technology to better serve HCP and patient needs and drive patient outcomes through a cross-functional and personalized engagement approach.
Sambit Nandi
Data Science Manager, ZS Associates
Sambit is a Data Science Manager in ZS San Francisco office and has been with ZS for 9 years. Sambit is a leader in AI and Real World Data space and works with pharmaceutical clients in the Bay Area helping organizations transform commercial models using AI and RWD capabilities. Sambit has deep experience with Deep Learning, Computer Vision, Generative models and Clustering techniques and specializes in contextualizing latest technologies to transform business functions. Over the last several years Sambit has led the development of several ZS products in the space of Patient Event Prediction, Patient Pathway Clustering and Network analysis.
Andrew Pilecki
Associate Director, KMK Consulting Inc.
I hold a Ph.D. in social psychology and have spent nearly two decades working as a social scientist and market researcher. My experience covers quantitative and qualitative methodologies, and I specialize in applying behavioral science principles when designing primary market research for my clients.
Nitin Raizada
Vice President of Enterprise Commercial Solutions at Indegene
Nitin brings close to 21+ years of experience across the healthcare & life sciences sector with technology depth ranging from enterprise applications to the new age digital, artificial intelligence, big data, and advanced analytics paradigms. He brings in expertise around a large spectrum of life sciences business challenges ranging from patient engagement platforms, digital health and medicine solutions, drug launch and commercialization, real world-evidence, digital trials, smart supply chain solutions combining deep subject matter knowledge, digital acumen, partner ecosystems, organization leadership, and team-building capabilities. Nitin leads Indegene's commercial innovation through a variety of transformative digital solutions & enabled services around emerging commercial models in life sciences. He is focused on helping clients chart the next generation of HCP and patients engagement through a merge of deep domain expertise, content capabilities, technology, operations, and analytics.
Vineet Rathi
Principal, Axtria
Vineet has more than 20 years of experience leading large-scale commercial consulting and operations engagements across top ten global life sciences companies. Vineet brings deep focus on innovation and consulting. He has facilitated several senior stakeholder workshops, conducted thought leadership webinars, conference presentations, and has performed industry benchmarking studies and commercial process assessments. Vineet’s functional experience includes omnichannel sales force effectiveness, alignment design, call planning, targeting, quota setting, and incentive compensation across top life sciences companies.
Saurabh Sarker
Director, Axtria
Saurabh is a Director at Axtria. He has over a decade and a half of experience in the pharmaceutical and manufacturing industries. He has worked with pharma companies of all sizes and types across commercial operations, managed markets, insights and analytics, and artificial intelligence/machine learning. He has served as a trusted advisor to C-suite stakeholders, supported launches, led large-scale reorganization initiatives at a large pharma company, and served as a subject matter expert across a diverse range of engagements.
Atharv Sharma
Advanced Data Science Manager, ZS Associates
Atharv Sharma is a Advanced Data Science Manager with ZS Associates, based in Philadelphia. Atharv has over nine years of experience in applying machine-learning solutions in healthcare, and primarily helping the commercial pharma industry realize the impact of real-world data leveraging advanced analytics and ML-based techniques.
Nellai Srinivasan
Senior Manager, Data and Analytics, Indegene
Nellai is a Senior Manager of Advanced Analytics at Indegene. He brings over 12 years of industry experience and leverages AI/ML to uncover data-driven business insights and recommendations for pharmaceutical organizations. His expertise spans multiple data and advanced analytics areas including salesforce, omnichannel, APLD, payer, and patient support analytics.
Daniel Stewart
Senior Director, Axtria
Daniel Stewart is a Senior Director at Axtria with 12+ years of experience in sales operations and strategy. He leads the Incentive Compensation Design COE at Axtria, where IC industry trends are tracked, best practices are synthesized, and innovative ideas are conceptualized. Daniel has partnered on IC strategy with over 25 organizations, including 6 of the top 10 pharma organizations, and has helped clients win awards such as Stevie Excellence in Transforming Business and TGaS Incentive Compensation Excellence. He is focused on sharing thought leadership to the life sciences industry, including webinars and conference presentations with organizations such as WorldatWork, PMSA, and the Sales Management Association.
Ryan Sun
Sr. Director of Analytics, Claritas Rx
As the Sr. Director of Analytics at Claritas Rx, Ryan leads the Advanced Analytics team that builds innovative, scalable Data Science/ML solutions on patient journey and service. He pioneered developing and applying diverse, real-time patient data to predict patient adherence risk, empowering drug manufacturers to perform patient interventions timely. In addition, he and his team also developed Competitive Insights solutions that leverage specialty pharmacy market data to benchmark brand performance, which supports manufacturers with data-driven market planning and strategy. Before joining Claritas Rx, Ryan worked in commercial analytics and strategy functions at Genentech and Sanofi. Ryan has an M.S. in Advanced Analytics from North Carolina State University and a B.A. in Mathematics and Computer Science from Lawrence University, Wisconsin.
Jean-Patrick Tsang
Founder and President of Bayser
Jean-Patrick Tsang is the Founder and President of Bayser, a Chicago-based consulting firm dedicated to sales and marketing for pharmaceutical companies. JP is an expert in data strategy and advanced analytics. JP has published 25+ papers, given 80+ talks at conferences, and completed 250+ projects. In a previous life, JP deployed Artificial Intelligence to automate the design of payloads for satellites. JP earned a Ph.D. in Artificial Intelligence from Grenoble University, advised 2 PhD students, and earned an MBA from INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France. He was the recipient of the 2015 PMSA Lifetime Achievement Award.
Vikash Verma
Director - Data Science, Optum Lifesciences - UGH
Vikash is director in Optum Rx and has more than 15 years of experience in forecasting, HEOR, managed market analytics, portfolio/data strategy, sales force excellence, and KOL management. Currently, he leads the Optum Life Sciences India team, comprising consultants, doctors, data scientists, and data engineers to support projects on healthcare commercial effectiveness and real-world insights solutions. He has more than 50 posters/publication in international conference in the area AI/ML and RWE area.
Vikash has worked with companies like TCS, GSK Knowledge Centre (WNS), and Pharmarc. He received his BS degree in pharmaceutical science from Manipal College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, an MBA (marketing) from Manipal Institute of Management, and an Executive program in business analytics from IIM Calcutta. Currently is pursuing the Senior Executive Development CXO Programme - in Driving Growth from XLRI.