What is your current role in EPAD?
I am a member of the Executive committee, the CDEx clinical Mitterrand and balancing committee.

 

What did you do prior to joining EPAD?
I have been working in neuroscience drug development for nearly 16 years, at Merck and at Janssen.   

 

Tell us a bit about the institution/company/organisation you work for.
The Janssen Neuroscience therapeutic area in which I work is highly committed to develop treatments for devastating neuropsychological disorders, such has as mood disorders, schizophrenia, chronic pain and neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease. As a team we bring a diverse group together with multiple talents and experience.

 

What are your expectations from the EPAD project?
My expectation is that EPAD will eventually become a self-sustaining platform trial with which companies will test proof of concept for compounds that target Alzheimer’s disease. These are still early days and there are many challenges to be met before we realize this goal.  The first deliverable will be the Longitudinal Cohort Study which will provide well characterized , trial-ready participants for the EPAD PoC trial. The second EPAD deliverable will be the collection of longitudinal data from the LCS and PoC trial which together will provide a learning engine which will provide important data that will help identify predictors of clinical response. The third deliverable will be to use those predictive biomarkers of clinical response to conduct highly efficient PoC trials that enable shorter, faster and more predictive PoC trials. And this will accelerate drug development for Alzheimer’s disease.