2017 Symposium
6th Annual Pharmaceuticals Program Symposium
INNOVATIVE ACCESS: USING TECHNOLOGY TO IMPROVE QUALITY, DELIVERY, AND USE OF MEDICINES
Wednesday March 22nd
Click the speaker’s names to see their presentations from the Symposium:
James Coughlan
UPS Loaned Executive to Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria; Global Solutions Director
Dr. Muhammad Zaman
Professor, Biomedical Engineering and International Health, Boston University
Liz Proos
Director, Formulation Development, MicroChips Biotech
Dr. Selim Ünlü
Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Boston University
Featuring the following speakers:
James Coughlan,
UPS Loaned Executive to Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria; Global Solutions Director
Speaking about UPS’ partnership with Zipline and GAVI alliance on use of drones in Rwanda to deliver medicine and vaccines: http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/10/africa/blood-drones-rwanda-mpa/
More on being a loaned executive: https://www.ted.com/watch/ted-institute/ted-ups/kevin-etter-i-am-the-donation
James was a member of the UPS management team for over 30 years. During that tenure, he had responsibilities in Operations, Industrial Engineering, Network Planning, Special Projects, and Solutions. His assignments led him to New York, New Jersey, Texas, and Atlanta. The last 20 years were mostly in the Customer Solutions/Professional Services arena. As the Southwest Region Customer Solutions Director, James managed a team of resources in support of complex UPS customers in the High Tech & Retail industry verticals. As the Customer Solutions Vice President, he helped design and deploy the Global Accounts model for UPS’s most complex and international clients. Additional rotations included Program Management, Client Facing Solutions Management, and then became the Global President for Customer Solutions in 2011.
During the period of 2007-2010, he was involved in the design and development of a new strategy for the UPS Foundation. That strategy was an integrated approach- combing Solutions support and Strategic gift- giving for the Humanitarian Supply chain needs of selected strategic partners of the UPS Foundation. These partners included, the American Red Cross, UNICEF, CARE, and World Food Programme.
James retired from UPS in early 2014.
In early 2016, an opportunity was presented that combined this background and his personal goal of engaging the Humanitarian sector and providing support in some capacity. UPS had agreed to provide a loaned executive to the international aid agency, The Global Fund. This agency is based in Geneva, Switzerland and its mission is to eradicate the disease burdens of HIV, Tuberculosis, and Malaria.
Dr. Muhammad Zaman,
Professor, Biomedical Engineering and International Health, Boston University
Speaking on his device, PharmaChk, a portable device used to check medicine quality in low resource settings
https://venturewell.org/saving-lives-by-safeguarding-the-efficacy-of-pharmacopeia/
Dr.Zaman has been leading a team of biomedical engineers and public health researchers on a low-cost, portable, fast, and accurate detector of counterfeit and substandard medicines. The team has developed PharmaChk, which could improve the delivery of health services and consequently save countless lives in developing nations. The team was awarded a $2 million “transition-to-scale” grant from Saving Lives at Birth in order to scale up the device and its use. One of Professor Zaman’s major research focuses is on developing robust technologies for high-value healthcare problems in the developing world, particularly in the area of maternal and child health.
Liz Proos,
Director, Formulation Development, MicroChips Biotech
Speaking on MIT developed/spinoff implantable device that releases medicines over months and even years in the human body.
http://microchipsbiotech.com/
Liz Proos has over 18 years of experience in drug delivery, combination products and medical device development. Currently, she is Director of Formulation Development at Microchips Biotech leading design and integration of drug formulation programs for an implantable drug delivery technology platform. This platform is capable of storing hundreds of therapeutic drug doses that can be precisely released over months and years. Ms. Proos is also responsible for formulation strategy and development for partnered programs with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and TEVA Pharmaceuticals. In her role at Microchips, Ms. Proos is a key advisor to the executive management team to direct strategic and business decisions and provide technical expertise to define and shape the technology and organization. During her tenure at Microchips, she developed the candidate formulation and managed the clinical program advancing the company to its First-In-Human clinical study in 2011 with parathyroid hormone, a treatment for osteoporosis. Ms. Proos has also lead preclinical activities and worked closely with clinical and regulatory affairs as a technical expert to advance complex product development, including a role at Becton Dickenson where she worked in Medical Affairs as a technical liaison between R&D, clinical, and business development groups and conducted clinical studies for development of a novel continuous glucose monitoring product. Ms. Proos graduated from Wellesley College with a degree in Chemistry.
Dr. Selim Ünlü, Boston University
Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Speaking on SP-IRIS, a rapid, label-free, chip-scale photonic device that can provide affordable, simple, and accurate on-site detection. As this device could be used to diagnose Ebola and other hemorrhagic fever diseases in resource-limited countries, it has the ability to make treatments more effective if used in a timely matter. http://www.bu.edu/today/2014/containing-ebola-with-nanotechnology/
Dr. Ünlü is an expert on nanophotonics and optical resonators applied to biological sensing and imaging. He has also invented a technique (Interferometric Reflectance Imaging Sensor – IRIS) for label-free detection of biomolecular interactions for high-throughput microarray applications. Label-free, quantitative and real-time capability of IRIS allowed for direct detection of SNPs in a multiplexed format. Recently, his group demonstrated nanoparticle detection and sizing down to 40nm in diameter and detection and size characterization of individual viruses and extracellular vesicles (exosomes). Unlike discrete resonant devices, this platform (Single Particle IRIS) has sensitivity and response that are independent of the binding location on the sensor surface, making it easy to detect and size an individual particle bound anywhere on the entire sensor surface, effectively yielding 105 – 106 parallel sensing elements. They have applied the technology to the detection of various viruses including VSV psudotypes, Ebola, Marburg, Zika, and Vaccinia. Digital detection by IRIS have led to multiplexed protein detection with attomolar sensitivity in serum and unprocessed whole blood.
Moderated by Sandra Butler, MPH ‘11
Senior Manager, Global Business Strategy, Consortium for Affordable Medical Technology (CAMTech)
Sandra brings the Symposium a rich and varied background that combines global health, private sector health care, vaccine development, and technology acceleration.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandrajbutler
Sandra Butler is the Senior Manager of Global Business Strategy for the Consortium for Affordable Medical Technologies (CAMTech), a program within MGH Global Health that is focused on accelerating medical technology innovation to improve health outcomes in resource-limited settings. Prior to joining CAMTech, Sandra spent seven years working on USAID-funded programs, including two years living in Uganda working in zoonotic outbreak mitigation and response. Most recently, Sandra moved to the private sector and worked in medication adherence in the domestic healthcare space followed by pandemic preparedness and vaccine manufacturing. She is passionate about working at the intersection of business value and social value. Sandra holds her BA from Colgate University and her MPH from Boston University School of Public Health.
