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Francesca Domenech Wuttke, Ph.D. is the Chief Digital Officer of Almirall where she is developing and executing an end-to-end companywide digital transformation. She is responsible for finding use cases across R&D, commercial, manufacturing, finance, legal and HR to apply digital solutions and services to bring efficiencies in terms of time and cost and to open up new business channels for Almirall. Dr. Wuttke brings with her broad drug development and healthcare expertise in both the US and Europe, with over 20 years of clinical, commercial, strategic and transactional experience. She has worked with diverse organizations including start-ups, consulting, large and specialty pharma as well as academia. Most recently, she led European investments as Managing Director for the MSD Global Health Innovation Fund, LLC. Previously Dr. Wuttke led Almirall´s Corporate Development Strategy team to transact on both med device and pharma M&A opportunities with a new and targeted focus for the company. Before that Dr. Wuttke worked at Novartis where she was responsible for two Cell and Gene therapy opportunities that were successfully brought into the organization as well as managing the strategy and commercialization for the existing portfolio of cell therapy assets. Dr. Wuttke holds a Ph.D. in Pharmacology from Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences and a BA from Cornell University College of Arts and Sciences.

As Vice President, Customer and Digital Strategy, EMEA at The Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson, Maria Raad has overall responsibility for the Janssen EMEA functions of business intelligence, advanced analytics, digital acceleration, Patients Healthcare solutions, capability development and business transformation.

In this capacity, Maria provides thought leadership and drives the ongoing Digital and Insights transformation journey in EMEA. Together with her team, she oversees all initiatives dedicated to innovating for patients and customers, enabling business transformation and further developing Janssen’s capabilities for continued growth in the region.

Maria has a 16-year track record of successful leadership in Business Technology in various roles and in diverse cultures, from the Middle East to Emerging Markets. Most recently, as Global VP and CIO of Actelion, she led Actelion’s Technology organization globally and was a member of the Actelion leadership team in Basel, Switzerland.

In this previous role, Maria was responsible for the end-to-end Technology strategy for Actelion across the value chain. She partnered closely with Actelion’s R&D and commercial leadership to set the digital, data science and advanced analytics agenda that enabled Actelion to build a world-class digital capability and culture. She led the transition of the Actelion Technology organization, with a strong focus on cultivating an inclusive Credo-based and customer-centric culture, as well as fostering agile learning and an innovative mindset.

Maria is also actively engaged with life science professionals from across the industry, academia and regulators as a committee member of the Digital Health Program for the Drug Information Association in Europe (DIA). In this capacity, she deals with topics such as insights generation, data ethics and governance, siteless trials and other technology trends in healthcare.

Maria holds a Master of Telecommunication and Computer Engineering degree from the Lebanese University of Engineering and the École Nationale Supérieure de Techniques Avancées – ENSTA, Paris.