Date: 16/07/2025
Time: 12:00 - 13:00
Speakers

Dr Samantha Atkinson, Chief Executive Officer TOPRA
Sam joins TOPRA with almost 25 years' experience working across the life sciences sector. Sam enjoyed successful career at the UK MHRA for almost 16 years, undertaking a variety of different roles from the Inspectorate through to Board level. Before leaving Sam was Chief Quality and Access Officer with accountability for regulatory activities across the UK supply chain. Sam also gained extensive experience in crisis management, having led national and international scale incidents, and was the Executive lead for the MHRA’s response to the pandemic.
Sam moved to the UK Department of Health & Social Care (DHSC) where she was appointed as the Director of Social Care Reform leading the delivery of the multi-£bn Social Care Charging Reform programme across the UK. Sam left the UK Civil Service at the end of 2022 and moved to work for a consultancy, developing and driving business growth strategies in new geographical target markets. Sam is passionate about improving outcomes for patients and the public, delivering through innovative solutions and using systems thinking to achieve improvement and changes at scale. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vob5eeYXTIY

Frank Vandendriessche
Frank Vandendriessche is a Pharmacist with a PhD in Medicinal Chemistry. He has more than 25 years of experience that he gained in 3 major pharmaceutical companies (Pfizer Animal Health, GSK Biologicans and Merch Sharpe & Dohme).
Since 10 years he works as a Regulatory Affairs Consultant with specific expertise in quality aspects of biologicals and in the therapeutic areas of (immune)oncology and infectious diseases, more particularly on vaccines.
He is based in Belgium and has been interacting with the FAMHP for many years.

Paula van Hennik, Vice President, Clinical, Regulatory Sciences - Development.
Paula has a PhD in Haematology and has been active in the field of (clinical) regulatory affairs for 14 years with experience as a regulator (11 years at the Medicines Evaluation Board) and has been a consultant for the last two years working for ProPharma as Vice President.
PRICING
TOPRA Members: Free
Non-member: Free