Webinar - The COVID-19 Vaccine Supply Chain: Overcoming the challenges and complexities

François Meurice: Vaccines Ambassador, Scientific Affairs & Public Health Director, GlaxoSmithKline

François Meurice is a Scientific Affairs & Public Health Director at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) Vaccines, representing the Company in these two areas towards external experts and bodies, such as the SAGE Advisors to WHO and Supranational Medical Associations. His 25 + year-experience in GSK Vaccines encompasses Clinical Development including interactions with Regulatory Authorities, Project Management, Medical Affairs at Global and Regional levels, Medical Education and Grants Governance.

He graduated as a Medical Doctor from the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium in 1981 before specialising in Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium.

François spent the early years of his medical career practicing medicine in African countries, including Burkina Faso, Chad, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Upon returning from Africa, he obtained his diploma in Public Health at the Catholic University of Louvain, and in 1991 joined GSK Vaccines as Clinical Development Manager. He spent a few years in the GSK Philadelphia office as Director of Vaccines Clinical R&D and Medical Affairs, North America, where he led the clinical development of a vaccine against Lyme disease. In 1996, he returned to Belgium and held several managerial positions of increasing responsibility in the GSK Vaccines Headquarters and as Clinical & Medical Head of the European Region.

Dr Meurice has authored or co-authored about twenty papers in peer-reviewed journals, including a large-scale efficacy trial of vaccination against Lyme disease in the US, papers on hepatitis B, rotavirus, acellular pertussis and varicella vaccines, and on the booster formulation of a tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis (dTPa) vaccine. He has also published several scientific papers related to tropical medicine and public health in Africa. Recently, he became more involved in general vaccination issues, including about reinforcing the confidence in vaccination.

Toby Peters: Professor in Cold Economy, Engineering and Physical Sciences, University of Birmingham

Professor Toby Peters is an award-winning technology developer and industrial academic with more than 14 years of experience in energy storage /energy systems (incl. policy and regulatory environments); clean cooling/the “cold economy” and the environmental, societal and economic impacts of cooling; novel technologies for refrigeration and cooling and their development and system integration.  He was the joint-academic lead for the Doing Cold Smarter Policy Commission (October 2015).

Building on work pioneering the development of the cold economy and clean cold technologies, he has now broadened this out to accelerate transformational innovation to market and improve innovation performance to help meet the world’s big social and economic challenges within the limits of our natural resources and time deadlines.

Christopher Green: Consultant in Infectious Diseases & General (Internal) Medicine, University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust Senior Clinical Lecturer in Infectious Diseases, Institute of Microbiology & Infection, University of Birmingham Clinical Research Specialty Lead for Infection & Immunology, NIHR West Midlands

Christopher Green works as both a practicing Infectious Diseases physician in the NHS and an academic researcher within the IMI. His NHS work takes him to the front line of acute care and his speciality medicine work focusses on the diagnosis and management of complex infection (such as drug-resistant infections, post-surgical infection), infection in immune compromised patients (such as HIV and transplant recipients) and infections imported from overseas (such as TB and malaria). During his clinical training he was fortunate to be seconded to the University of Oxford to further develop his interests in research and vaccinology.

His ongoing research interests include the development of new and novel vaccines through clinical trials, understanding the host immune response to infection/vaccination, investigating faecal microbiota transplantation, and in using technology to mitigate the increasing problem of drug-resistant bacterial infections in clinical care.

Pat Maughan: Managing Director, Zanotti Group

Pat Maughan is the current Group Managing Director of the Zanotti Group.

Zanotti headquartered in Mantova, Italy has five separate business entities and three manufacturing sites in Italy, Spain and the UK. Since 2016 Zanotti has been part of Daikin industries Ltd operating in the refrigeration SBU.

Prior to stepping up the group MD’s role, Pat was MD of Hubbard products – the Zanotti affiliate in the UK for 12 years. Hubbard throughout their 50 year history has provided goods and services to the entire cold chain, and are an innovator in decarbonising the cold chain, witnessed by being the first refrigeration company to have a product listed on the Carbon Trusts ETL list. Pat whilst in the UK was an active member of the IMechE process industry food and beverage committee. Hubbard, Zanotti and Daikin refrigeration supply goods and services to the life sciences and pharmaceutical sectors in a range of applications with working temperatures to ultra-low and cryogenic range. These can be combined with Daikin Group competencies in controlled atmosphere and critical precision filtration.

Diana Connett: Energy Specialist, Southeast Asia Department, Asian Development Bank

Diana has been working in energy and infrastructure development for 12+ years with companies, utilities, NGOs, and policymakers. Her work focuses on sustainable and practical solutions to multidimensional challenges in poverty, energy access, affordability, and market incentives for clean energy. She has a background in corporate and operational management in the oil and gas industry, international finance, corporate risk management, and performance quantification. She holds two Masters degrees from Yale University – one in Environmental Management and one in International and Development Economics. Diana has been with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for 5 years. Her current work in Southeast Asia includes projects to improve energy access and reliability, community-scale renewables, and smart efficiency. She has recently been tasked to lead the ADB’s Southeast Asia energy team’s cold chain reliability inputs to support ADB’s developing member countries on their strategies to procure and distribute COVID-19 vaccines.

Tim Fox: Chair, Process Industries Division, Institution of Mechanical Engineers