Battling COVID-19 with Data & Science

Amy P. Abernethy, MD, PhD is the President of Clinical Studies Platforms at Alphabet’s Verily, where she has responsibility for the company’s Baseline program and other initiatives to support clinical trials and real-world evidence (RWE) studies.Before joining Verily, Dr. Abernethy was Principal Deputy Commissioner and Acting Chief Information Officer of the US Food & Drug Administration. Prior roles include serving as CMO/CSO of Flatiron Health and multiple roles at Duke University, where she was Professor of Medicine.  Dr. Abernethy went to the University of Pennsylvania and then Duke University Medical School, and received her PhD from Flinders University in Australia.

"Francis deSouza was appointed President & CEO of Illumina in 2016 and is responsible for directing all aspects of company strategy, planning, and operations. He initially joined the company as President in 2013, and led Illumina’s business units and core functions responsible for envisioning, developing and producing the company’s products.Previously, deSouza served as President of Products and Services at Symantec Corporation, where he was responsible for driving the vision for the company’s market-leading portfolio and served in a variety of executive roles. He joined Symantec through the acquisition of IMlogic, where he was co-founder and CEO.Prior to joining IMlogic, deSouza was co-founder and CEO of Flash Communications, a provider of corporate instant messaging that was acquired by Microsoft. Following the acquisition, he joined Microsoft and led the team responsible for the development of the company’s enterprise real-time collaboration offerings. Currently, he is Chairman of the Board for MedHelp, the world’s largest online health community.Francis deSouza received a B.S. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology."

Meg Tirrell is CNBC’s senior health and science reporter. She also co-hosts the weekly biotech podcast The Readout Loud for STAT.Prior to joining CNBC, Tirrell covered the biotechnology industry for Bloomberg News, where she also contributed to Bloomberg Television and Bloomberg Businessweek.Tirrell holds a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University and a bachelor’s degree in English and music from Wellesley College.Follow her on Twitter @megtirrell.

Ruud Dobber was appointed President and EVP, BioPharmaceuticals Business Unit at AstraZeneca in January 2019 and is responsible for US and Global product strategy and commercial delivery for Cardiovascular, Renal & Metabolism and Respiratory diseases. Prior to this, Ruud held the role of EVP, North America since August 2016. Ruud joined Astra in 1997 and has held various senior commercial and leadership roles, including as EVP, Europe, Regional Vice-President of AstraZeneca’s European, Middle East and African division, Regional Vice-President for the Asia Pacific region and Interim Executive Vice-President, Global Product and Portfolio Strategy. Ruud was a member of the Board and Executive Committee of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) and was previously Chairman of the Asia division of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. Holding a doctorate in immunology from the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, Ruud began his career as a scientist, researching in the field of immunology and ageing.