For the 12th year in a row, Forum of International Research and Development Pharmaceutical Companies, EIG (FarmaForum) organized a strategic conference Value of Innovation, where we sought answers to current questions and offered insight into innovations in the field of pharmacy and healthcare.
At this year's conference we looked at directions towards resilient and responsive healthcare system adapted to the future needs. We need accessible, affordable, qualitative, and patient-centered healthcare system.
You can watch the conference here:
Bogi Eliasen, Director of Health at Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies
Eric Sutherland, leader of Digital Health at OECD
Ricardo Baptista Leite, MP MD, CEO of IDAIR, The International Digital Health and Artificial Intelligence Research Collaborative
international adviser
President of the Association Europa Donna Slovenia and President of the European Association for Breast Cancer - Europa Donna
head of the NIJZ Health Data Center
Center for Health Care NIJZ
MD
Head of the Department of Economics at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Ljubljana
Secretary general at Forum of International Research and Development Pharmaceutical Companies
Tjaša Burnik, M.Sc, is the vice president of the board of the Forum of Interntaional Research & Development Pharmaceutical Companies, EIG (FarmaForum) and Associate Director Policy & Communications at Merck Sharp & Dohme Slovenia.
Bogi Eliasen is Director of Health at the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies (CIFS).
Ricardo Baptista Leite MP, MD, is a Medical Doctor trained in Infectious Diseases.
Eric is a Senior Health Economist leading the OECD’s work in Digital Health, bringing together policy guidance for digital tools, integrated data, and analytics including artificial intelligence.
Senior doctor Dorijan Marušič, PhD was the expert director of the Izola General Hospital, state secretary at the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Slovenia, advisor to the general director of the Institute for Health Insurance of Slovenia and minister of health of the Republic of Slovenia.
Metka Zaletel is a mathematician with additional education and a master's degree in the United Kingdom on the topic of social data analysis.
Mircha Poldrugovac, MD, is a public health specialist employed at the Center for Health Care of the National Institute of Public Health, where he covers the areas of health system performance assessment and evidence-informed policy-making in health care.
Simon Rekanovič, PhD. med. is a doctor specializing in radiology, and since 2015 also an entrepreneur and innovator in the field of technological solutions in healthcare, where his work consists of medical data, their organization and analysis.
Ph.D Petra Došenović Bonča is an associate professor and head of the Department of Economics at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Ljubljana.
Tanja Španić is a Doctor of Science in Veterinary Medicine in the field of neuro-endocrinology and is a patient advocate and president of the Association Europa Donna Slovenia and president of the Europa Donna, the European Breast Cancer Coalition.
Barbara Stegel, MSc, has several years of experience in management and marketing.
Tjaša Burnik, M.Sc, is the vice president of the board of the Forum of Interntaional Research & Development Pharmaceutical Companies, EIG (FarmaForum) and Associate Director Policy & Communications at Merck Sharp & Dohme Slovenia. She graduated from the biotechnical faculty in Ljubljana and continued her studies in the USA at the University of California. In 1994, she joined the company Merck Sharp & Dohme Slovenia as general secretary of the general director for the Balkan region. She also worked in the company as a coordinator for public affairs and a manager of external affairs.
Bogi Eliasen is Director of Health at the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies (CIFS). He was born in the Faroe Islands and is educated in Political Science and International Law from the University of Aarhus, Denmark. He was previously employed by the Faroe Business Affairs and Ministry of Foreign Affairs and worked as an advisor over the last 25 years for politicians, the public sector and private companies in addition to build and steer initiatives as FarGen, Nordic Health 2030 and Movement Health 2030
Bogi was initiator of the first population genome project FarGen to sequence the genomes of the entire population of the Faroe Islands. As Director of Health at CIFS, Bogi sets the stage diving into topics such as the future of genomics, data, digital functions, and their integration with health. This is based on a holistic vision of shaping the future personalized health paradigm as a part of ambitious projects and networks around the world. He received the HIMSS Future 50 global award for his work in 2019. He initiated the Nordic Health 2030 process and has a key role in both the global Future Proofing Health Index and Movement Health 2030 that aspires to improve health by applying the new health paradigm. He is a co-chair Sciana Health Leader Network. In Movement Health 2030, Bogi has the responsibility for the necessary systemic shifts needed to apply and harvest the opportunities of data and digital functions. The work is partly based on the Nordic Health 2030 approach for a new data model and a new social contract with data as a core component. A new social contract for health is also the theme for his work in the Sciana Network of Health Leaders, where data governance is a key focus.
His next big focus is facilitating the shift and building bridges between the fields of personal and public health in order to work much more preventive, e.g. by reducing the avoidable disease burden with secondary prevention and building the data structures for that. Building fair models is at the heart of his work and Bogi is Danish chair of the World Chairs of Bioethics. He calls himself a knowledge broker whose expertise lies in combining various fields of knowledge.
Ricardo Baptista Leite MP, MD, is a Medical Doctor trained in Infectious Diseases. He is also a Member of the National Parliament of Portugal since 2011 and Vice-President of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) Parliamentary Board, responsible for the Health Parliamentary Committee on behalf of the Social Democratic Party (PSD). Ricardo is Founder and President of ‘UNITE Parliamentarians Network for Global Health’, a global platform of current and former members of parliaments, congresses and senates, present in more than 95 countries and an official partner of the World Health Organization. He is Vice Chair of the Parliamentary Network on the World BANK/IMF and Global Ambassador of the G20 Health & Development Partnership.
Regarding his academic affiliations, Ricardo is Chair of the ‘Centre for Global Health’ at the NOVA Information Management and Data Science School - NOVA IMS -, and Guest Lecturer at Nova Medical School, both at NOVA University.
For many years, Ricardo has been an advocate, public speaker and author on several matters of health policy, public and global health, global and local governance and digital transformation. In May 2023 he became CEO of IDAIR, The International Digital Health and Artificial Intelligence Research Collaborative, based in Geneva.
Eric is a Senior Health Economist leading the OECD’s work in Digital Health, bringing together policy guidance for digital tools, integrated data, and 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.
He continues to recover from 20 years at a major financial institution, with various roles leading data, business, and technology strategy across finance, treasury, and risk.
Senior doctor Dorijan Marušič, PhD was the expert director of the Izola General Hospital, state secretary at the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Slovenia, advisor to the general director of the Institute for Health Insurance of Slovenia and minister of health of the Republic of Slovenia. He established himself internationally as a member of the committee of experts on effective ways of investing in health at DG SANCO. At the Faculty of Social Sciences, he obtained his master's degree on the topic "Measuring the outcomes of health care services". He participated in numerous national and international projects regarding the health care system and health insurance, payment methods, quality improvement, national data standardization and health informatics. He is widely published and cited in recognized scientific journals and proceedings. He is currently lecturing at the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Primorska.
Metka Zaletel is a mathematician with additional education and a master's degree in the United Kingdom on the topic of social data analysis. After almost two decades of work at the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia, where she dealt with survey methodology, data quality and led several projects, she joined the National Institute of Public Health (NIJZ) in 2010, where she has been heading the Health Data Center for more than a decade.
During her tenure, the NIJZ opened its data to users in various platforms and developed into a leading institution in the field of health and health care surveys. She actively participates in many international projects in the field of health information and registers. Among other things, she has led or co-organized several work packages in joint actions of the European Union. Her work in the framework of these projects has contributed to the exchange of knowledge in the field of health information between countries, data openness, and she is currently most involved in establishing a network of national health information points in Europe.
Mircha Poldrugovac, MD, is a public health specialist employed at the Center for Health Care of the National Institute of Public Health, where he covers the areas of health system performance assessment and evidence-informed policy-making in health care. In the past, he worked as an advisor at the Ministry of Health, where he focused on quality and safety. At the Amsterdam University Medical Center in the Netherlands, he was a PhD fellow focusing on performance indicators in long-term care.
Simon Rekanovič, PhD. med. is a doctor specializing in radiology, and since 2015 also an entrepreneur and innovator in the field of technological solutions in healthcare, where his work consists of medical data, their organization and analysis. He broadened his experience by working in the USA, London, Berlin and Estonia, and in addition to Slovenia, he studied business in Sweden, Spain, Portugal and Hungary.
He is the director and founder of the Viverius Institute, which deals with development in the field of digitization in health care, and is involved in many Slovenian and international projects for the transformation of health care and management of health organizations. Recently, he and his team have been researching and developing improvements to standardized medical data storage systems and ways to use artificial intelligence to reduce the administrative burden in order to put the patient at the center of treatment.
Ph.D Petra Došenović Bonča is an associate professor and head of the Department of Economics at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Ljubljana. Her research areas are public sector economics and health economics. She is a member of the Health Council of the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia and also a member of the scientific organization The Operational Research Society. She has published articles in which she analyzes and studies various aspects of the Slovenian healthcare system and reforms and policies in this sector. She also participates in consulting projects in the field of healthcare in Slovenia. At the Faculty of Economics, she actively participated in the development of the master's degree in Management and Economics in Health Care. Since 2017, he has also been the head of this program, and she lectures in the subjects Basics of Health Care Economics, Economic Analysis in Health Care, Health Insurance and Health Care and Health Systems.
Tanja Španić is a Doctor of Science in Veterinary Medicine in the field of neuro-endocrinology and is a patient advocate and president of the Association Europa Donna Slovenia and president of the Europa Donna, the European Breast Cancer Coalition.
She was diagnosed with breast cancer when she was 26 years old. A good year after her diagnosis, she joined the Slovenian Association Europa Donna and has been an active member and advocate for cancer patients ever since. From 2010 to 2014, she led the section of young patients, which is intended for women who were diagnosed with breast cancer before the age of 40. At that time, that was one of the few such groups in Europe. From 2014 to 2017 she was the general secretary of the association, and since April 2017, she has been its president. Her work is directed at both national and international levels. In 2018, she became a member of the executive board of the European association Europa Donna, and since 2020 she is also its president. She is the leader of the working group of patient advocates at the professional association ESMO and a member of the organizational committee of the clinical study POSITIV and OlympiA. In 2018, she completed professional training for EUPATI patient advocates. Since 2020, she has been a member of the Health Council at the Ministry of Health and the Ethics Commission at the Oncology Institute.
Barbara Stegel, MSc, has several years of experience in management and marketing. At the beginning of her career, she collaborated with major Slovenian companies, where she worked as the head of marketing departments, consultant and director of corporate communication and human resources. Between 2010 and 2011, she advised to Minister and professional associates at the Slovenian Ministry of Health on the healthcare reform. The following year, she took over the position of Secretary General of the Forum of International Research and Development Pharmaceutical Companies, EIG, where she is still employed. Under her leadership, she coordinates the work and manages the projects of Forum, communicates with the stakeholders of the national health system and with the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) on all essential topics in the healthcare system. In 2016, she took over the coordination of the National Medicines Verification Organization – Zavod ZAPAZ, in which she still actively participates.
