Clinical Trials in the UK

Medical University, Pleven

Dr. Kirilov graduated medicine from the Medical University Sofia. He holds a bachelor’s degree in software engineering and a master's degree in bioinformatics from Sofia University St Kliment Ohridski. In 2020 he defended a phd thesis in Orthopedics and Traumatology and in 2021 he completed a master’s degree in public health and health management. Dr Kirilov has an extensive scientific knowledge in the field of medicine and the application of computer innovations such as computer vision and machine learning and has authored many publications. He participated as a study coordinator in over 10 clinical trials studying the treatment of musculoskeletal diseases in the last 10 years and he worked as an assistant-professor in computer science at Assen Zlatarov University, Burgas.

Head of the Clinical Trials Centre at the University Hospital Zurich

Studies of human medicine at University of Zurich (1999-2006).  Dissertation / thesis in Clinical Atherosclerosis Research in Zurich (2003-2006).  Specialization in Pharmaceutical Medicine, FMH Pharm. Med. (2007-2013). 

Director of Department for Inspections of Medicinal Products and Medical Devices of the Office for Registration of Medicinal Products, Medical Devices and Biocidal Products.

He graduated in pharmacy in 2000 and obtained his PhD in chemistry in 2008. He completed post-graduate studies “Methodology of clinical trials” in 2010.  He is a member of GCP Inspectors Working Group at the European Medicines Agency. He has participated in more than  150 inspections and audits in areas of GCP, GVP, GLP and ISO 9001. Since  2009 he has been working as a reporting and lead inspector for EMA coordinated inspections for clinical sites, sponsors, CROs and laboratories. He has authored and co-authored  around  30 articles in Polish and international journals. Dr. Gryz is also an experienced university teacher and trainer for GCP/PV inspectors. 

Dr Katrina Pollock is a Senior Clinical Research Fellow in Vaccinology and Honorary Consultant at Imperial College London. Katrina studied as an undergraduate in Medicine at Newnham College, University of Cambridge and Imperial College London, before qualifying as a junior doctor and undertaking specialist professional training in Genitourinary and HIV Medicine. 

Dr Pollock is the clinical Principle Investigator across the diverse portfolio of vaccine studies at the Imperial NIHR Clinical Research Facility. Working closely with Professor Robin Shattock in the Department of Infectious Disease, this work involves the crucial early-stage development of potential vaccines against pathogens such as HIV and chlamydia and includes first-in-man studies of potential vaccines. Katrina also works closely with the Oxford Vaccine Group and Jenner Institute developing vaccines against diverse infections including ebola and malaria.

Katrina holds a St. Mary’s Development Trust award for human vaccine research to investigate how T cells orchestrate the response to immunogens in the blood and secondary lymphoid tissue. This work is particularly important in helping to design sophisticated vaccines that can induce the broadly neutralising antibody response required to protect against difficult targets such as HIV.

In 2019, Dr Pollock was awarded the Margaret Johnson prize by the British HIV Association for work on influenza vaccine.

Vice President HEOR Science Parexel Europe

Driven by a passion for health economics, Katarzyna Kolasa has over 20 years of academic and industry experience in the healthcare sector. Her strength is identifying the patients’ unmet needs and developing value story for advanced medical technologies and generating relevant evidence in support of commercial objectives. She lead many pricing & reimbursement processes for global pharmaceutical and medical devices companies across the globe. Katarzyna recent research focus is the digital health. With her vision of the future role of medicine in human life, she strongly advocates for the greater empowerement of patients in the decision-making processes. That’s why her research is focus on the role of artificial intelligence in driving the digital revolution towards decentralized healthcare system. She also specializes in topics related to the post-COVID reality with digital solutions replacing human service model

Dr Karolina Nowak is a director of the Department of Innovation and Biotechnology Development in Medical Research Agency.  

She was a visiting scientist at Harvard Medical School, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. She received a prestigious scholarship at Stanford University and did an Internship at Stanford Biomaterials and Advanced Drug Delivery Laboratory. Doctor Nowak is a graduate of Executive MBA at ESG University of Quebec at Montreal and SGH. She is a patent inventor of new pharmaceutical drug formulation dedicated for patients with alveolar osteitis and she is an active scientist in the field of Pharmaceuticals, drug formulations and molecular biology.

She has participated in numerous national and international projects. Beside her scientific activities she has experience in managing  2 commercial projects in area of drug development.

Natalia Tomkiewicz currently holds a position of a Head of Study Delivery Management at GSK and is leader of a growing Global GSK R&D Hub in Warsaw. She led AbVie country clinical operations in the UK & Ireland and was a Country Head, Site Management & Monitoring in Astrazeneca, Ukraine. During more than 17 years of professional career, she managed teams across diverse organizations (top CRO and pharma companies) in multiple local and global positions. She gained broad experience in managing global registration trials in various therapeutic areas. Have been responsible for successful setup, change management and strategic planning related to clinical operations and CRO management. She created and provided various training programs and was a successful multiple times speaker at international congresses.