MEET THE PATVOCATES TEAM

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Danika Sharek, Head of Industry Services, Project Director at Patvocates, holds a PhD and Master’s in Applied Social Research from Trinity College Dublin in Ireland. Her research and programme management experience include a number of social arenas and cross-cutting thematic areas, such as mental health, disability, homelessness, capacity building, gender and sexuality, and family education and support. Danika’s previous work experiences includes leading on research programmes within the national health and social care system in Ireland, specifically aimed to enhance the person-centred approach of these systems.

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Alba Ubide is the Head of NGO Services at Patvocates, managing and overseeing all the projects and collaborations with patient organisations at global or European level. Alba graduated in Biomedical Sciences with a Master of Science in Molecular Biotechnology at the University of Barcelona and worked as a clinical research professional managing both clinical trial sites and clinical trial monitors across a different range of therapeutic areas.

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Mercè Cases works as Senior Research Manager at Patvocates, carrying out evidence generating projects for the community, led by NGOs or by industry. She holds a PhD on Biomedicine and a Master on Neuroscience from the University of Barcelona and has been mostly focused on performing basic research in different laboratories within Europe, Switzerland, Spain and Germany.

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Laura Geissler is a student in Munich. She is fluent in German, English and Spanish, with a passion for visual design and an eye for detail, helping Patvocates to simplify and sharpen our communication. With early exposure to patient  advocacy due to family members who are both patients and patient advocates, she combines a deep commitment to our projects with a fresh perspective how to communicate and visualise the issues we care about.

Ana Amariutei is a Patient Engagement & Research Director at Patvocates. She is a cancer survivor and after finishing her treatment, she decided to study biomedical science. She undertook her bachelor’s, master’s and PhD degrees at the University of Sheffield, and alongside her studies she acted as a patient advocate at Youth Cancer Europe for 9 years. After completing her PhD in July 2023 she joined us at the European Patient Advocacy Institute (EPAI), where she worked as a Research Manager until February 2024 and has been the engine of the Evidence-Based Advocacy and CancerSurvey programmes.

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Khullat Munir is a Patient Engagement Manager at Patvocates and focuses on diversity, equity and inclusion within healthcare, R&D and advocacy. She has an MSc in international health, and a BA in bioethics. Having worked in global health for 10 years, she has experience in evaluation, applied research and policy development. In parallel she has worked on several health initiatives with local migrant communities. Khullat lives in Frankfurt, Germany, but is from the US.

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Anastasia Naoum is a Senior Project Manager within the Industry Services team. She was employed as the Editorial Consultant and the Guidelines Project Manager at the European Hematology Association (EHA). Between 2014 and 2016 she served as Project Manager at the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) and later worked as a freelancer writer and researcher for over 5 years. Anastasia is passionate about patient advocacy and patient involvement. Anastasia’s internships at Epposi and Deloitte enriched her expertise in health technology assessment and economics. Anastasia holds an MSc in Health Informatics from the University of Sheffield and an MSc in Health Economics from Erasmus University Rotterdam.

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Blanca Poyo is a Senior Project Manager within the Industry Services team. Blanca holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology and two master’s degrees from the University of Oviedo, related to education and research. During her training, she helped in the diagnosis and support of children with learning difficulties in school counseling teams. Blanca has years of project management experience in the areas of patient engagement for non-interventional healthcare studies and real-world evidence (RWE) studies with AI.

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Eglys Gonzalez works as Senior Research Manager of scientific projects at Patvocates. She holds a PhD on Microbiology with research expertise in Parasitology and Tropical Diseases, and breast cancer immunotherapies. For many years she gained extensive experience in scientific research, clinical project coordination, and partnership management within the non-profit sector in Venezuela and the U.S. After moving to Germany, she worked as a laboratory manager in integrative oncology, and now is focused on patient advocacy and project management, emphasising patient-centred research and involvement.

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Olga Millán, Senior Research Manager at Patvocates, studied Biology at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Spain). She has a dual scientific and managerial profile, holding a PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and a Master’s in Leadership and Management of Science and Innovation.

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Paula Capparelli has a background in Social Communication (UNLP, Argentina), an MBA (Cantabria University, Spain), and training in entrepreneurship (Babson, USA), human-centered design (IDEO, USA), and digital transformation (EOI, Spain) that has allowed her to combine business smarts with out-of-the-box thinking. At 23, she co-founded a company in Buenos Aires, breathing life into a 64 full-color pages magazine. In the past as the head of MarComms for a non-profit entrepreneurship center, she has boosted successful multi-channel campaigns, designed to empower entrepreneurs and spread the message of innovation. She has also led a health-tech innovation project, using Artificial Intelligence to revolutionise oral pathologies diagnosis.

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Maria Gómez lives in Barcelona and holds a BSc in Biochemistry and an MSc in Molecular Biotechnology from the University of Barcelona. She completed a PhD in Molecular Medicine at the University of Edinburgh and pursued a Postdoctoral fellowship in Cancer Biology and Signaling at the University of Gdańsk. Maria has been actively involved in initiatives supporting hospitalised patients and enhancing public engagement by disseminating scientific knowledge to families and children. She brings extensive experience from both academia and hospital settings, collaborating with a diverse range of professionals across Europe.

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Inés Cañada works at NGO Services team as Senior Project Manager. Before joining Patvocates, Inés worked as an International Project Manager in healthcare, liaising with CROs and patients to deliver successful projects. She holds a bachelor’s dual degree in Sociology and International Relations, as well as training in development and sustainability.

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Rebeca Castiñeira is a Senior Project Manager within the NGO Services team. She has a degree in Journalism and a master’s in teaching. Rebeca jumped into the pharma industry a few years ago by helping patients have their voice heard and it has been a challenging but very rewarding path so far.

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Gina Ubide lives in Barcelona and has a linguistic background with a Master in Translation. She previously worked at different higher education institutions managing student departments. In Patvocates, she has been working as Junior Project Manager in NGO projects and has been mostly focused on delivering events and logistics management for patient organisations.

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Maria Perez is Senior Finance Officer at Patvocates and works on financial strategy, operations, and HR-related issues. She has over 16 years of work experience in financial departments in Spain, UK and Australia. Her expertise includes reporting, auditing, systems implementation and process improvement.

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Michi Geissler holds a diploma in business studies and has been working in cancer patient advocacy since 2005. Michi has a strong business background, specifically in the areas of communication and marketing, organizational development and IT. From 1999 to 2005, she worked for the e-business sector of Bertelsmann. She got involved in patient advocacy in 2001 on a voluntary basis and focused her professional life on it in 2005. She provided project management services to the patient organisations LeukaNET, European Cancer Patient Coalition, Sarcoma Patients EuroNet, Leukemia Patient Advocates Foundation, CML Advocates Network, Das Lebenshaus, Myeloma Patients Europe and others.

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Angie Stiassni is a Finance Officer at Patvocates, she is a bilingual professional with broad experience in administration and operations, with a focus on HR and performance management. She has a strong background in finance, operations, and employee engagement. Recognised for creative problem-solving, innovative thinking, and driving organisational success. She graduated in Business Administration with a diploma in Management & Globalization.

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Anastasia Mityagina is an Executive Assistant to the CEO at Patvocates. She has a background in education, communications, project and event management.

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Anjula Weeranayake and text comes here

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Linda Silva is an Event Manager with over 12 years of experience creating standout summits, congresses, and special events across Europe, particularly for the pharmaceutical and technology sectors. With a background in journalism and international cultural studies, Linda brings a creative flair to event management, always focused on delivering the best possible experience.

Currently, at Patvocates, she oversees all logistics for in-person events and meetings, ensuring every detail aligns with client and participants’ needs. Linda’s expertise includes developing strategic plans for face-to-face events, event R&D, coordination of onsite teams. She has also crafted experiential marketing campaigns and managed boutique events across industries like F&B, technology, music and pharmacy. In addition to her event management work, Linda lectures and writes about event experience and digital culture at CETT University in Barcelona.

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Lis Puga, a Senior Project Manager within the Patvocates NGO services team, holds a PhD in Biochemistry. She managed basic research projects in cell biology and biophysics since the age of 17 at the University of Buenos Aires (Argentina). Driven by her commitment to patient care, she later led two pilot clinical studies at Washington University in St. Louis (USA) as a postdoctoral researcher. She has also worked as a pharmacovigilance expert, ensuring patient safety in the pharmaceutical industry. Additionally, she has served as a healthcare professional in hospitals and underserved communities in her home country, as well as in a laboratory clinic in Germany. Her professional aspiration is to make a large-scale positive impact on patients’ lives.

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Burhan Omar is a Senior Communications Manager at Patvocates. He is a communications expert that has worked with leading international organisations in various industries for more than a decade. His experience encompasses a range of areas including corporate communications, public relations (PR), stakeholder engagement, issues and crisis management, diversity and social inclusion initiatives, and social responsibility activities, amongst others. A graduate in Communication Studies (MA) from the University of Montana, United States, Burhan speaks English and Malay but is also now learning Spanish and Catalan since relocating to Barcelona, Spain in 2023.

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Marieke Heisen, Director of Research & Patient Evidence at Patvocates, holds both an M.Sc. and PhD degree in Biomedical Engineering, obtained from the Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands. Her PhD in the field of radiology concerned quantitative techniques to detect and characterise breast cancer based on contrast-enhanced MRI data. Thereafter, she pursued a career in Market Access and Health Economics & Outcomes Research (MA & HEOR) consultancy. She worked for Pharmerit/OPEN Health for over 12 years. She started in the Modelling & Meta-Analysis team, covering health economic modelling, reimbursement submissions, evidence generation strategies for health-related quality of life, and meta-analyses ad became the Global Lead of Preference Research and Senior Director of the PCO team, supervising research projects covering patient preferences, patient experiences, and PROs strategies for HTA purposes. Early 2024, Marieke decided to explore new avenues to work more closely with, and more directly for, the benefit of the patient community.

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Lilly Judd is a Senior Project Manager within the NGO Services team, based in Munich. She has a degree in Biological Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge and 6-years experience working as an account manager in pharmaceutical & healthcare communications across a range of therapeutic areas.

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Francisco Mena holds a Master’s degree in Law (Universitat de Barcelona, 2009) and a LL.M in European Law (Université libre de Bruxelles, 2010). Between 2010 and 2015, he was a PhD researcher in human rights and European law at Vrije Universiteit Brussel and Université libre de Bruxelles, where he was also a teaching assistant. Francisco was a Visiting Graduate Student at St. John’s College, University of Oxford, for the academic year 2013-14. He has published several peer-reviewed journal articles, as well as academic book chapters in the field of human rights law, European law and legal theory.

After a long professional break due to health issues, Francisco joined the team in February 2024. He is based in Brussels and speaks English, French, Spanish and Catalan.

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Alfonso Aguarón studied Technical Engineering in Computing Management at the University of Burgos. He developed most of his professional career in the R&D automotive field until 2009. He was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in 2008. Due to this circumstance, he decided to become involved in patient advocacy, first as a volunteer in his home town, then as a professional in 2009. Between 2009 and 2013 he worked at the Spanish Group for Lymphoma, Myeloma and Leukaemia Association and for the Spanish Group for Cancer Patients. In 2014, he joined the executive office of Myeloma Patients Europe. Alfonso was involved in the establishment of WECAN. From September 2018, he worked for Lung Cancer Europe (LuCE) as project manager and then policy officer. Throughout his professional career, he has been involved in several multistakeholder workgroups and advisory boards, both at a national and international level, and has a huge track record in public speaking, moderation of workshops, and making things happen.

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Mariel Thottam is a Senior Project Manager within the Industry Services team. Most recently, Mariel led multiple teams in patient engagement, meeting facilitation and policy/regulation at Yale University’s Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation (CORE) as a health outcome researcher. During her nearly three years working on federal contracts for Yale, she focused on incorporating patient input into the development of quality measures for Medicare/Medicaid programs targeting various topics such as diabetes, cardiopathy, cancer, social determinants of health, and patient safety. Prior to Yale, Mariel managed private/public partnerships and led technical task work and stakeholder engagement activities towards quality measure development within the behavioural health field.

She is a Board-Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA) and holds extensive experience delivering therapeutic services for children and adolescents on the autism spectrum, and as a researcher co-leading on projects relating to adolescent mental health and cognitive psychology. She is passionate towards applied, person-centered research and uses her experience working directly with clinicians, patients and families to inform and produce meaningful stakeholder engagement and impactful work in the healthcare space.

Mariel holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s degree in developmental psychology. She is currently based in Madrid, Spain.

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Daniel Clemente is a Community Platform Engineer at Patvocates. He graduated in Computer Engineering with a specialisation in Software Engineering from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. With a strong background in technological development, he has worked as a mobile app developer and as a cross-platform software developer for a healthcare company. He is a Software Engineer who supports all technological development tasks.

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Daniel Delmás is a Senior Community and Event Manager within Patvocates’ Patient Engagement team, where he is mainly responsible for building and bringing communities together. Serving as a key element and bridge between the patient engagement team and the events team, he collaborates closely with both. Currently based in Valencia, Daniel previously worked at the European Hematology Association (EHA), where he managed education projects involving events (both face-to-face and virtual) and community engagement.

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Maeve O’Sullivan, Head of Secretariats for the NGO Services team, has built a dynamic career in health and advocacy. She began her journey qualifying as a nurse specialist and has since become an experienced team leader with a strong background in business development, strategic planning and patient advocacy. With a proven track record in implementing organisational structures and identifying opportunities for growth, she has successfully led teams and projects to deliver impactful results while fostering collaborative partnerships across the healthcare ecosystem. Before joining Patvocates, she previously coordinated the day-to-day work of Lung Cancer Europe as executive officer.

A skilled coach and mentor, Maeve is dedicated to patient empowerment and education, ensuring individuals have the knowledge, skills and confidence to advocate for their own health or for those they represent. Through effective leadership in project delivery, she cultivates a culture of teamwork and collaboration to drive meaningful change within healthcare and advocacy. Passionate about developing efficient, patient-centred solutions, Maeve combines strategic thinking with hands-on leadership to build sustainable, value-driven systems that support stakeholders and the communities they serve. Maeve is based in Ireland.

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Sharrie McIntosh, Project Director within the Industry Services Team, has extensive experience in the healthcare sector. She has held leadership and management positions at a healthcare and human services consulting company, at health-focused foundations and at a school of medicine/academic medical center.  Before joining Patvocates, she worked as a freelance consultant where she specialised in strategies for delivering patient-centred care, patient advocacy and engagement, co-production and shared decision making, improving the patient experience, healthcare system redesign, addressing health disparities and promoting health equity. Sharrie also specialises in strategic consultancy, stakeholder engagement and focus group moderation/facilitation.

As a consultant, she has managed and consulted on projects for various sectors, including patient organisations, pharmaceutical and medical technology companies, healthcare institutions, health professional organisations, government agencies and policymakers. 

She is committed to elevating the voice of patients and ensuring that the delivery of healthcare services, the formulation of health policy, and the development of medicines and health technology is driven by patient insights, needs and preferences, and prioritises what matters to patients and what they value. Sharrie holds a master’s degree in Health Administration from Pennsylvania State University in the United States and a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of Virginia. Sharrie is currently based in Granada, Spain.

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Nirohshah Trialonis-Suthakharan, Senior Research Manager at Patvocates, completed her Bachelor’s degree in European Public Health and her Master’s degree in Global Health at Maastricht University, the Netherlands. Afterwards, she worked as a research associate at Maastricht University and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Beijing, China, focusing on disease outbreak management.

From 2017 to 2024, she was a research associate and research lead at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf in Germany in several international projects. Her expertise lies in the development and validation of patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs), patient engagement, health services research, and epidemiology.

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Eva García, Senior Project Manager at Patvocates, has 3 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry and a solid background in managing complex projects within healthcare market research, working alongside top-tier CROs, patients and healthcare professionals to deliver successful non-interventional projects across diverse regions, including the US, EU, LATAM, APAC, and MENA. Holding a degree in Geology and a Master’s in Remote Sensing and GIS, along with experience as a Senior Research Technician on water engineering at the University of Valencia, Eva ventured into the pharma industry by chance but quickly recognised the crucial role of incorporating patient insights into research. She is passionate about ensuring that patient needs, priorities and questions are addressed, driving meaningful impact in healthcare research.