Interview with Sammy Danso
What is your current role in EPAD?
As a Janssen employee, I support the EPAD team from an operational perspective. I hope to bring my experience and can help building the EPAD POC platform so that it’s ready to welcome the first Intervention Owners in 2018 and beyond!
What did you do prior to joining EPAD?
At Janssen, I have been the Global Operational Program Lead for the phase 2b/3 trials with a BACE inhibitor in Alzheimer’s Disease. My team and I initiated 2 pivotal trials: the global EARLY trial in asymptomatic subjects at risk of sporadic Alzheimer’s Dementia (i.e. pre-clinical subjects) and Janssen’s participation in the DIAN trial in autosomal dominant AD. In the collaboration with DIAN-TU, Janssen was the third company to bring in a compound.
Tell us a bit about the institution/company/organisation you work for.
This is my second life at Janssen. I started my career in clinical trials at Janssen in the Clinical Pharmacology unit, where we performed many phase-1 trials across therapeutic areas. I left Janssen to become co-founder of a Phase 1 Unit, where I coordinated the operational and executional aspects of all phase-1 trials. After many years in early Development, I joined Quintiles as a Project Manager and led a global Oncology phase 3 trial for several years.
I returned to Janssen to become the Clinical Program Lead for Neuroscience Early Development programs in both AD and Mood. Since the BACE inhibitor was in my portfolio from first-in-human onwards, I agreed to become the Global Operational Program Lead when the compound moved into Late Development.
What are your expectations from the EPAD project?
I am thrilled to witness EPAD becoming a success in 2018!! EPAD is a very complex and innovative initiative and I am amazed to see how various experienced partners bring together their expertise and eventually move forward as one team.
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