There is an urgent need to address challenges in health equity for women, including gaps in biopharma product development for women’s health. Women are under-represented in research and clinical trials. They do not always receive optimal treatments due to lack of access and/or knowledge, and there is a lack of funding for women’s health companies and women-founded companies in general.
Join us for a dynamic discussion on what can be done to close this gap in women’s health equity. Speakers Dr. Elizabeth Garner, Chief Medical Officer, ObsEva; Linda Greub, Co-founder of Avestria Ventures; and Alanna Kaplan Muñoz, Principal at Metaplan, will also share their career journeys.
Note: This event is open to the general public (a BIO pass is not required to attend). It may be recorded. If so, there is a possibility your image and or voice may be a part of that recording. If you do not wish for your image to be included, please turn off your camera.
Speaker Bios
Dr. Elizabeth Garner is a women’s health physician with a career-long focus on addressing unsolved issues and conditions that affect women’s physical health and quality of life. She is currently Chief Medical Officer of ObsEva, a Swiss-based women’s health company.
With well over a decade of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, Dr. Garner brings wide expertise in drug development and medical affairs. From 2014 to 2019, she was Chief Medical Officer of Agile Therapeutics, where she led the Phase 3 clinical development of Twirla®, Agile’s now FDA-approved low-dose contraceptive patch. Prior to Agile, Dr. Garner was VP of Medical Affairs at Myriad Genetics, where she supported the launch of the myRisk® hereditary cancer test. Earlier in her career she was Senior Director of Clinical Research at Abbott Laboratories, where she oversaw the clinical aspects of the global Phase 3 endometriosis development program for elagolix (Orilissa®), which was FDA approved in 2018. From 2007 to 2011, Dr. Garner was Associate Director, then Director of Clinical Research at Merck Research Laboratories, where she was chair of the Gardasil®9 HPV vaccine program Product Development Team.
Dr. Garner’s current corporate board positions include Kezar Life Sciences, Sermonix Pharmaceuticals, and Pharm-Olam International. She is also on the board of the Drug Information Association (DIA), serves on the Executive Committee as Treasurer of the American Medical Women’s Association (AMWA), and is a board member of CorStone (a global non-profit focused on resilience in girls).
Dr. Garner received joint MD and MPH degrees from Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health. She was trained in obstetrics and gynecology at Brigham and Women’s/Massachusetts General Hospitals and completed a fellowship in gynecologic oncology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. She was a 2019 awardee of the PharmaVoice 100 most inspiring individuals in the life-sciences industry.
For over 30+ years, Linda has invested in public and private life science companies as an institutional investor, a corporate M&A executive, a hedge fund analyst, and a private venture investor.
She invested over $3.2 billion of equity capital at Tudor Investments and Essex Investment Management, built a profitable equity research franchise in healthcare at Banc of America Securities and Pacific Growth Equities, and led M&A at both Novartis Diagnostics and Applied Biosystems, including the $5.1 billion cash and stock sale of ABI to Life Technologies Corp. in 2008. She has also held corporate development and finance roles at a number of venture-backed life science companies, including VitaPath Genetics, Singulex, Raindance Technologies (sold to Bio-Rad), and Linkage Biosciences (sold to Thermo Fisher).
In addition to finance, operations, and M&A, Linda’s expertise extends to the life sciences, specifically in diagnostics, genomics, healthcare services, and life science tools. In 2019, Linda co-founded Avestria Ventures, which invests in early-stage women’s health and female-led life science ventures.
As Principal at Metaplan, Alanna Kaplan Muñoz has worked with a broad range of Metaplan clients to generate alignment, buy-in, and consensus. The Metaplan methodology uses facilitation and moderation processes to generate collective insights and aligned strategies in organizations. The Metaplan process works well for complex issues requiring cross-functional alignment and consensus. Alanna uses this “consulting from within” approach to create new insights and strategies based on the client group’s collective knowledge.
Alanna’s areas of focus are strategic and brand planning, launch and competitive readiness, and cross-functional and leadership team alignment. She supports senior leadership and cross-functional teams with a focus on consensus-based decision-making. Her clients value her ability to lead teams to strategic directions and decisions by synthesizing insights and driving collective action.
Prior to joining Metaplan in 2003, Alanna worked in marketing with consumer packaged goods companies including Nabisco and Gerber, with a focus on new products. Alanna also worked in the technology arena, as an investment banker with Broadview Associates and as a member of the management team at IPHighway. Alanna has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a Bachelor of Arts from Yale University. She lives in New Jersey with her husband and two daughters.
Pricing Information
- Members: Free
- Non-Members*: $30
- Optional Donations: $25/$50/$75
*To access the Member rate, please click here to purchase a WIB membership. Please enter the code Becomeamemberandsave to save $10 off membership. This code is valid through July 31, 2021.
Registration Deadline
June 13, 2021
Maximum Capacity
500