Our Steering Group

Jo De Cock is the former CEO of INAMI-RIZIV. Prior to this, he was Deputy Director/Councillor for social affairs in the office of the Belgian Prime Minister (1985-1993) and then became adjunct general administrator of the National Social Security Office (1993-1995). Since its creation in 2019, Jo De Cock has been closely involved in the International Horizon Scanning Initiative, an independent entity legally registered at RIZIV/INAMI and a spin-off of the BeNeLuxAI initiative. Jo has driven forward a series of multi-stakeholder roundtables to consider use of RWE to ensure short term affordability, long-term sustainability and optimal patient care.

Francis Arickx is the Head of the directorate Reimbursement of Medicines and Pharmaceutical Policy within the Health Care Department at the National Institute for Health and Disability Insurance (RIZIV-INAMI) in Belgium. Francis is also the former Secretary General for the Commission for Reimbursement of Medicines and acts as representative/expert for RIZIV-INAMI and Belgium on a number of national and European platforms (NM CAPR, MEDEV, MoCA). He is one of the country coordinators for the BeNeLuxA Initiative. Francis graduated in pharmaceutical sciences from the University of Ghent, Belgium and teaches ‘Health Policy’ in the Pharmaceutical Sciences Department at the University of Antwerp.

Niklas Hedberg is the Chief Pharmacist at the Swedish national governmental authority, the Dental and Pharmaceuticals Benefits Agency (TLV). Niklas is the Chair of the Consortium Executive Board for EUnetHTA21. He was the Chair of the EUnetHTA Executive Board between 2018 and 2021. Niklas has been working with pricing and reimbursement since 2001. He has held positions as medical assessor and project leader; Head of the Department for New Submissions (between 2009 and 2014) and he is now the chief pharmacist. Niklas has a broad experience of different aspects of value-based evaluation and over time has seen the increasing importance for health technology assessment (HTA) both across health care systems and on local level to prepare accurate decision making. Among Niklas’ special interests have been the early development of joint scientific advice in 2009 an onward (pilots both nationally with MPA and on European level with EMA) and strategic discussions about RWD.

Piia Rannanheimo is a pharmacoeconomist at the Finnish Medicines Agency (Fimea). She joined Fimea’s HTA-team in 2010. With a background in Pharmaceutical Sciences, Rannanheimo has contributed to numerous national, Nordic and European HTAs and worked as a visiting researcher at CADTH and Center for Health Economics at University of York. She also serves as an expert for the Council for Choices in Health Care in Finland. She’s also been a member in several working groups led by the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health in Finland, covering rational use of medicines, HTA, RWD and data management. Currently, she’s working as a project manager in a work that that aim’s in the establishment of national medicinal product data repository.

Cláudia Furtado is the head of Health Technology Assessment, Pricing and Reimbursement Division (DATS) as well of the Information and Strategic Planning Division (DIPE) at INFARMED, the Portuguese National Authority of Medicines and Health Products. As head of DATS, she is responsible for HTA evaluation, pricing and reimbursement of medicines, medical devices and health products, and for managed entry agreements. As head of the DIPE, she oversees monitoring of health consumption and expenditure and the definition and evaluation of policy measures. In addition to her role at INFARMED, she is an assistant professor at the Portuguese National School of Public Health (Universidade NOVA de Lisboa).

Christian Dehlendorff is a biostatistical chief consultant at the Danish Medicines Council, where he has been working since September 2021. He has more than 15 years of experience working with real-world data and evidence primarily within register-based epidemiology and in recent years also experience in how real-world data can be used in health technology assessments.

Prior to his current position, he was employed at the Danish Cancer Society Research Center from 2011-2021 and was head of statistics from 2018. He was also employed as external associate professor at the Technical University of Denmark.

Christian has a master of science in engineering from the Technical University of Denmark with a focus on statistics and data analysis. He received his PhD from the Technical University of Denmark in 2010. He has authored 150+ scientific publications, in particular within pharmaco-(cancer)epidemiology. Christian also holds a position as an external associate professor at the University of Copenhagen.

Shaun Rowark has worked in UK healthcare informatics for over a decade, starting out as a data analyst in hospital trusts to now being an associate director overseeing NICE’s access to healthcare data sources and developing its burgeoning data analysis function.

He has managed several programmes of work including automated analysis and computable guidance, and is focused on how NICE can increase the use of real-world data in its products.

Shaun holds a masters degree in Health Informatics from University College London.

With over two decades of private, public and pan-Canadian experience, and a Master of Arts in Economics, Elena Lungu is a leader and an expert in real-world data, analytics and pharmaceutical policy in Canada. As the Director of Data Systems and Analytics with Canada’s Drug Agency (CDA-AMC) she spearheads initiatives to enhance data collection, analytics capacity, and collaborative partnerships to improve the pharmaceutical data ecosystem for better patient and health system outcomes. In her previous leadership roles, Elena has supported the guideline modernization efforts for the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board and has built the NPDUIS initiative into a recognized and respected powerhouse of data analytics in support of policy decisions for the federal, provincial and territorial governments. Since the start of her career in private consulting with Brogan Inc., Elena has fostered stakeholder engagement and has developed lasting relationships with domestic and international stakeholders.

Hans-Georg Eichler is the Consulting Physician of the Association of Austrian Social Insurance Institutions. He was the Senior Medical Officer of the European Medicines Agency for over 14 years, and Professor and Chair of clinical pharmacology at the Medical University of Vienna. In 2011, he was a Visiting Scholar at MIT, where he participated in the NEW Drug Development ParadIGmS Initiative (NEWDIGS), focused on enhancing the capacity of the global biomedical innovation system to sustainably deliver new, better, affordable therapeutics to the right patients faster. Dr. Eichler is also a lead co-author of a publication focused on the role of RWE in access and reimbursement decisions for personalized medicines, recently published in the Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (CP&T) Journal.

Matti Aapro is member of the Board of Directors of the Genolier Cancer Center, Genolier, Switzerland and Immediate Past-President of the European Cancer Organisation. Dr. Aapro is Executive Board member of All.Can and President of Sharing Progress in Cancer Care (SPCC), both not-for-profit associations. He serves the International Society for Geriatric Oncology (SIOG) as Executive Board Member. He is past-President of the Multinational Association for Supportive Care in Cancer (MASCC). He continues to collaborate with the European School of Oncology (ESO) where he an Executive member. He is member of the Board of the French-speaking Society for Supportive Care (AFSOS), as well as Advisor to the Japanese Association for Supportive Care in Cancer (JASCC). He has been member of the Board of the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) and of the Board of the European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO). He received his medical degree from the Faculty of Medicine, University of Geneva, Switzerland and was a fellow at the Arizona Cancer Center in Tucson, Arizona, USA. He was the founding chair of the Medical and Radiation Therapy Department at the European Institute of Oncology in Milan. His main interests are Breast Cancer, Cancer in the Elderly, Supportive care and access to treatment.

Doctor of Medicine (MD, PhD), Sami Pakarinen is a clinician–researcher and cardiologist currently serving as Chief Medical Officer for Clinical Auditing at Helsinki University Hospital (HUS). He has held senior leadership roles at HUS for over two decades, including Physician-in-Chief of Internal Medicine and Senior Consultant in Cardiology.
Dr. Pakarinen has played a key role in national and EU-funded initiatives advancing value-based healthcare, cost-effectiveness, and outcome-driven care, including leadership positions in the EU funded ONCOVALUE project and EU Recovery and Resilience Facility programs. He has long-standing expertise in cardiac rhythm management and rhythm device therapy.
In his current role, he promotes evidence-based practice, transparency, and continuous quality improvement. His responsibilities include real-time data production, analytics, and reporting on the cost-effectiveness of HUS specialized healthcare services and also participation in both hospital-level and national health technology assessment (HTA) processes. He also actively participates in EUHA and NUHA collaboration.

Chris Sotirelis, PhD, is a patient advocate representing the Thalassaemia community and Rare Diseases, active at national and international level over many years. In his capacity as EMA patient expert in the Committee for Advanced Therapies, he has been directly involved in developments of regulatory policy focusing on the new paradigms for ATMPs and PRIME. A long term supporter of the creation of new innovative frameworks for the collection of Real World Evidence for regulatory approval and access and reimbursement. As CAT member, he has participated in many ATMP Marketing Authorisation and PRIME eligibility evaluations, and a number of EMA guidelines on ATMPs, Orphan Similarity, Significant Benefit, GCP and GLP.

He has been directly involved, with HTA Parallel Scientific Advice sessions, in European payer led projects with MEDEV and the Mechanism of Coordinated Access (MOCA), as well as at the UK national level with MHRA, NICE and NHSE Specialised Commissioning. He has been part of RWE4Decisions from its inception, as well as its predecessor Trust4RD.

I am 64 years old, married, two children. I have a degree in business economics and auditing. I have worked at a big 4 audit firm for 40 years, of which I dedicated some 25 years to data analytics.
I was diagnosed with DLBCL in 2016 and achieved full remission after standard first line treatment. As of 2021, I joined Hematon (Dutch patient advocacy group for hematological diseases) as a patient advocate. Given my background in data analytics, I have worked on various project such as patient surveys and analysis of trends in treatments and related cost.
I have published several articles in the Dutch magazine for hematology, once on a patient survey into quality of life issues and another with respect to trends in treatments and add-on medicines and related expenses.
As of 1st October 2025, I work as an unpaid guest researcher for Leids Universitair Medisch Centrum. Through them I have gained secured access to insurance data on medical treatments and add-on medicines. I want to use this data to explore e.g. differences in medical practice (when do hospitals start with new treatment?), trends in treatments (by comparing cohorts per disease per year of diagnosis) and actual frequency and dose for add-on medicines (as compared to RCT data).
As such, I am building my expertise in using Real World Data to create more information.
I represent Hematon in the global Lymphoma Coalition, who attended me to your request for a patient advocate to join the Steering Committee of RWD4decisions. I am also a member of the HTA special interest group of Lymhpoma Coalition.
Through Hematon, we typically are involved in the process for approval of new innovative treatments which will be subject to European HTA going forward.

Eric is a Senior Health Economist leading the OECD’s work in Digital Health, bringing together policy guidance for digital tools, integrated data, and responsible analytics including artificial intelligence. In that role, he is accountable for measuring and evolving the OECD’s Recommendation on Health Data Governance (2017) and supporting digital health policy that provides data protection (e.g. security and privacy) and timely access to quality data to optimize the use of data for information, insights, and impact among individuals, health workers, policy makers, researchers, and innovators.

Prior to joining the OECD, Eric led the Secretariat for a pan-Canadian Health Data Strategy, bringing together experts and governmental leaders from across Canada to establish an integrated health data ecosystem that makes better use of data for health systems, public health, population health, research, and care. Eric authored the Pan-Canadian Heath Data and Information Governance Framework and Toolkit and has taught courses in data science, health data governance, and privacy.

Dr. Seamus Kent is an Assistant Professor at the Erasmus School of Health Policy & Management (ESHPM), Erasmus University Rotterdam, where he focuses on health technology assessment (HTA) and real-world data. Prior to this role, he served as Senior Adviser for HTA and Market Access at Flatiron Health, contributing to real-world evidence strategies in oncology. He also held multiple positions at the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), including Senior Adviser in Data & Analytics and Scientific Advisor, where he played a key role in integrating data-driven insights into healthcare policy and led the development of NICE’s Real-world evidence framework. Earlier in his career, Dr. Kent was a Senior Researcher at the University of Oxford and a Research Associate at the University of Glasgow. His work consistently bridges academic research, policy development, and practical implementation, with a strong emphasis on using real-world data to inform equitable and effective healthcare decisions.

Ashley Jaksa is Principal for Research Partnerships at Target RWE. She focuses on collaborating with decision-makers to enhance their use of RWE and setting methodological guidance for RWE generation. She also works with Aetion and biopharma companies on incorporating RWE in their global market access strategy. She is passionate about determining how to get the best therapies to the right patients at the right time through the use of the best evidence. Previously, she led analytic services at Context Matters where she consulted with biopharma clients on designing and executing analytic projects. She has presented her research at numerous international conferences including ISPOR, HTAi, and AMCP, and published her findings in various peer-reviewed publications. She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and a MPH from Yale University.

Dr. Alexander Natz is the Secretary General of the European Confederation of Pharmaceutical Entrepreneurs (EUCOPE), a position he holds since 2010. He also works as a lawyer for the law firm Novacos and advises pharmaceutical and biotech companies in regulatory and pricing & reimbursement decisions from a EU and German law perspective. From 2008 to 2013, he was the head of the Brussels office of the German Pharmaceutical Industry Association (BPI). Dr. Natz also worked in the field of competition law with the European Commission and in the pharmaceutical industry. He was a research assistant at Duke University (USA) where he dealt with international pharmaceutical law.

Jing Wang-Silvanto is Senior Director and Head of Value Evidence Excellence and Precision Medicine at Astellas, where she has been working since 2019. She is the co-lead of EFPIA Integrated Evidence Generation and Use (IEGU) group Health Technology Assessment (HTA) team, focusing on optimising value of real world evidence for decision makers; she is also a champion in applying artificial intelligence in healthcare. Prior to her current position, Jing has worked at BMS, GSK, Novartis, and Otsuka in health economics, real world evidence, and market access functions, leading global, European and UK teams. Jing has obtained a PhD in Health Economics and Health Sciences from University of York.

Lara Wolfson is an Associate Vice-President and Head of Health Technology Assessment (HTA) Statistics at MSD, where she has been working since 2015. She also co-leads the European Special Interest Group (HTA ESIG) of the European Federation of Statisticians in the Pharmaceutical Industry (EFSPI). Prior to her current position, Lara’s career spans roles at various pharmaceutical companies and the World Health Organisation, where she focused on biostatistics, health technology assesment, vaccines, epidemiology, and health economics. She also held a teaching position at Brigham Young University (US) and the University of Waterloo (Canada). Over the years, Lara has authored of numerous scientific papers, particularly focusing on vaccination and infectious diseases. Lara obtained a PhD in Statistics from Carnegie Mellon University, with an undergraduate background from Simon Fraser University.

Ansgar Hebborn is Roche Pharma’s Head of European Access Policy. In this role, he focuses on evidence development and HTA, pricing and reimbursement decision making frameworks and their impact on patient access and biopharmaceutical innovation. He has taken an active role as advisor and stakeholder representative in various HTA collaboration networks including EU HTA Network, EUnetHTA and the HTAi Policy Forum Committee, and also has been involved in the foundation of other initiatives in this field e.g. the Green Park Collaborative, the HTAi Asia Policy Forum and SwissHTA. In an earlier role as health economist and outcomes research specialist for Roche in the US, he has gathered extensive experience with real-world data research.

Andre Vidal Pinheiro is Takeda’s Head of Patient Value & Access for Europe and Canada. From informing Takeda’s product development plans that meet HTA-grade evidence requirements, to partnering with stakeholders for value-based healthcare solutions development, Andre and his team focus on accelerating and broaden access of Takeda’s innovative therapies to patients. Andre has been with Takeda since 2017 in multiple global and regional market access roles, and before that with Pricing & Market Access consultancy firms, giving him breadth of experience across several disease areas and therapy lifecycles. A scientist by training (and at heart), Andre holds a PhD in Biochemistry and a degree in Applied Chemistry. He is passionate about combining evidence-based decision-making, clinical development, public health & policy, the power of data, and pragmatism for the benefit of patients, caregivers and society as a whole.

Karen Facey worked as a statistician in the pharmaceutical sector and UK medicines regulation, before becoming founding Chief Executive of the first national HTA agency in Scotland. Since 2003, Karen has been an independent HTA consultant with special interests in RWD, rare diseases and patient involvement. She is passionate about holistic HTA to determine value and use of health service data to improve patient care. Karen also works with the University of Oxford as a Senior HTA Advisor in the IHI Guidelines for RWE Generation project and with Utrecht University in the SUSTAIN HTA Coordinating Support Action.

François joined the management team of HAS in 2005, leading the setup of the HTA Division across key areas like pharmaceuticals, medical devices, interventional and diagnostic procedures, and public health programs. He expanded HAS’s role in economic analysis within France’s HTA field. He then focused on international cooperation, serving on the HTAi Board for two terms, coordinating EUnetHTA activities, and representing HAS in projects including Post Launch Evidence Generation with HTA-EMA cooperation. Before joining HAS, François held management roles at the French Medicines Agency (now ANSM). He was active at the EMA, serving on the Committee for Orphan Medicinal Products.