Meet Our Chief Executive Dr Samantha Atkinson

Meet Our Chief Executive Dr Samantha Atkinson
Join the Benelux IN group on 16 July to meet TOPRA’s new Chief Executive, Dr Samantha Atkinson in an online webinar. She will be in conversation with Frank Vandendriessche and Paula van Hennik (Chairs of the TOPRA IN Benelux group) discussing recent developments at TOPRA. You will then have the opportunity to ask Sam questions, which can be sent in advance to us by email to gloria.dwyer@topra.org. The webinar is open to anyone with an interest in regulatory affairs, so TOPRA members, regardless of being in a IN or SPIN group, as well as non-members are welcome.

Date: 16/07/2025
Time: 12:00 - 12:30

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. 






Frank Vandendriessche, Regulatory Affairs Consultant, Managing Director Ficaja Farma bv
 
Frank Vandendriessche is a Pharmacist with a PhD in Medicinal Chemistry. He has more than 25 years of experience in regulatory affairs that he gained in 3 major pharmaceutical companies (Pfizer Animal Health, GSK Biologicans and Merck 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 and many other European Agencies 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
When
16/07/2025 12:00 - 12:30
Where
ONLINE
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