Pedro Alonso, M.D., M.S., Ph.D.
Director
Pedro
Alonso is a medical epidemiologist who has devoted most of his professional
life to Public Health in Africa, having lived and worked in The Gambia,
Tanzania and Mozambique. He currently heads the Center for International
Health at the Hospital Clinic and holds the UNESCO chair at the School of
Medicine of the University of Barcelona. He is also the Scientific Director
of the Manhiça Health Research Center (CISM) in Mozambique.
Most of the research he has carried out has been in the area of clinical epidemiology of priority health issues in Africa, including malaria, HIV, hepatitis, tuberculosis, human papiloma virus and respiratory syncytial virus. The cornerstone of his research activity has been and continues to be the development and testing of new control tools against malaria. He was involved in the first trials of insecticide treated bednets documenting an impact on mortality, the first phase IIb clinical trials in Africa of a malaria vaccine candidate, as well as the evaluation of new drugs and combinations of drugs to inform policy on first line treatment for clinical malaria.
Strengthening local human capacity, as well as research and development institutions in Africa is also at the centre of his professional activities. Both in Tanzania and Mozambique his group has run a strong training programme for local scientists based on a fellowship model leading to a PhD, as well as contributing to the development and support of two of the leading research and training institutions in sub Saharan Africa: the Ifakara Health Research and Development Center (Tanzania) and the CISM (Mozambique).
In the context of a partnership with the Ministry of Health of Mozambique and the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation, his team has led the establishment and development of the CISM, the first peripheral research center in rural Mozambique which aims to improve health and promote development through provision of healthcare, scientific and technical capacity strengthening and research into priority health problems.
He has published over 100 papers and is a member of a number of national and international committees, including the EU and WHO.
Jean Stéphenne
President and General Manager
Jean
Stéphenne joined GSK Bio 30 years ago when the company had one product
and US$3 million in annual sales. Today, he is President and General Manager
of the world’s largest vaccine company, with more than US$2 billion
in yearly revenues, 20 vaccines in clinical trials, and more than a quarter
of worldwide vaccine sales.
By emphasizing combination vaccines and investing large amounts of money in neglected diseases such as rotavirus, malaria, TB and HIV, Jean Stéphenne has revolutionised the vaccine industry and created a new paradigm of public-private partnerships. His focus on the global marketplace has consistently increased GSK Bio’s revenues and transformed GSK Bio into the world’s pre-eminent vaccine maker with a reputation for bold action and long-term strategic vision.
By positioning GSK Bio as “vaccine maker to the world,” Stéphenne had expanded the company’s efforts beyond the 10 million children born each year in Europe and the United States to the 120 million children born each year in the rest of the world. The results are tangible. In 2003, more than 850 million doses of GSK vaccines were delivered in 152 countries, of which 722 million doses went to 117 countries in the developing world.
Stéphenne, 55, joined GSK Bio as head of bacterial and viral vaccines in 1974. He has served as vaccine production director and vice president and general manger, and in 1998 was named president of GSK Bio. Stéphenne studied engineering, chemistry and bioindustries at the University of Gembloux in Belgium, and in 1972 earned a degree in management from the University of Louvain. He has received various honours from the European Union and the Belgian government, and in 2004 was named one of Business Week’s 25 Stars of European Business.
W. Ripley Ballou, MD
Vice President, Emerging Diseases, New Product Development
A
co-creator of the RTS,S malaria vaccine, Dr. W. Ripley Ballou spent 20 years
researching malaria at the US Army’s Walter Reed Army Institute of
Research and three years at a small biotechnology company before joining
GSK Bio in 2003 as Vice President of Emerging Diseases.
As both Principal Investigator and a volunteer for the infected-mosquito “challenge” of the world’s first recombinant malaria vaccine at Walter Reed in 1987, Ballou, 53, is now in charge of GSK Bio’s Emerging Diseases program that includes malaria, TB, HIV and cancer vaccine development efforts. Since 1983, Ballou has been involved creating and testing more than a dozen different versions of a malaria vaccine as part of Walter Reed’s collaboration with GSK Bio. He says he has maintained hope during two decades of failure because those trials that had protected at least one person provided a “tantalizing hint” of success.
The oldest of nine boys in a military family, Ballou moved 23 times before he went to college, attending high school in Mclean, Va. He studied applied biology at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and later attended Emory University’s School of Medicine in Atlanta, Ga, where he earned his MD in 1977. He subsequently entered the Army where he studied Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases.
As Chief of Immunology at Walter Reed, Ballou’s initial mandate from the US Army was to develop a short-term vaccine for travellers and soldiers. Following a series of promising trials with RTS,S in the mid 90’s, he cites the partnership with the Malaria Vaccine Initiative in 2000 as the spark that inspired the team to develop RTS,S as a paediatric malaria vaccine.
Joe Cohen, Ph.D.
Director of R & D, Vaccines for Emerging Diseases, HIV and Therapeutic
Vaccines
Dr.
Joe Cohen, one of the inventors and original patent holder of the RTS,S/AS02A
malaria vaccine, joined GSK Bio in 1984 and took over the leadership of
the company’s malaria vaccine program three years later. Cohen quickly
became enthralled with his research and has spent 17 years working to expand
upon the “fundamental insight” he and his GSK colleagues had
in 1987 – that combining the recombinant technology in GSK’s
Hepatitis B vaccine with pieces of the malaria pathogen and adequately formulating
the resulting hybrid protein could produce a successful malaria vaccine.
Cohen spent 11 years working on various vaccine formulations in GSK Bio’s molecular biology department, and in 1995 he became the department’s director. In 1999, Cohen helped to create GSK Bio’s new program for vaccines for emerging diseases. He has published 32 articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals, and is currently the director of R&D for GSK Bio’s vaccines foe emerging diseases, HIV, and therapeutics programme.
After nearly two decades working with partners, first at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, and more recently with the Malaria Vaccine Initiative, Cohen says he was “extraordinarily happy” and “beyond words” at the recent unblinding of the clinical trial in Mozambique that demonstrated the proof of concept of the RTS,S/AS02A vaccine in children. Cohen calls GSK Bio’s joint effort with WRAIR and the Malaria Vaccine Initiative “a public-private partnership before its time” and says he hopes others will have the courage to pursue unconventional partnerships to tackle neglected diseases.
Cohen earned his Ph.D. from the City University of New York’s Brooklyn College in 1979. He completed his post-doctoral studies at New York’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine and later taught there before joining GSK Bio.
Melinda Moree, Ph.D.
Director
Dr.
Moree develops and directs the overall strategy and implementation of MVI.
Leading the team in advancing malaria vaccine development, she ensures adequate
funding to fulfill MVI’s mission, the highest quality for all program
activities, continued commitment to existing relationships, and the forging
of new, focused partnerships.
Dr. Moree previously led business development for MVI and helped define the financial and non-financial basis for public-private development efforts. An earlier association with PATH included two years as an international health consultant and liaison between PATH and USAID. Dr. Moree has both public and private sector experience in product development and technology transfer. Prior to joining PATH, she was Manager of Advanced Research at EKOS Corporation. She received her Ph.D. in medical microbiology from the University of Maryland at Baltimore.
Filip Dubovsky, M.D., M.P.H., F.A.A.P
Scientific Director
A pediatrician, infectious disease specialist, and vaccinologist by training,
Dr. Dubovsky directs portfolio management, technology assessment, and project
development for MVI. He also provides scientific oversight to all MVI product
development teams.
Dr. Dubovsky received his Doctor of Medicine from the University of Alabama-Birmingham, and completed his pediatric residency and chief residency at Stanford University. At the Center for Vaccine Development, he specialized in molecular biology, studying molecular pathogenesis of diseases that primarily affect developing countries, while being certified in Pediatric Infectious Diseases at the University of Maryland at Baltimore. He received his Master of Public Health degree and certification in Vaccine Science and Policy from the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health. Dr. Dubovsky has served on NIH study section, participated as a WHO expert on ethics of Pediatric Clinical trials, and served as technical consultant to US and European biotechnology companies. He is currently a member of the WHO Advisory Committee on Malaria Vaccines.
Regina Rabinovich, MD, MPH
Director, Infectious Diseases, Global Health Program
Dr.
Regina Rabinovich directs the foundation's Infectious Diseases program.
Previously, Rabinovich served as director of the Malaria Vaccine Initiative
where she advanced efforts to develop promising malaria vaccine candidates
and ensure their availability and accessibility in developing world settings.
Rabinovich spent 11 years at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) where she most recently served as chief of the Clinical and Regulatory Affairs Branch of the Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, which oversees the regulatory affairs for the division. At NIAID, Rabinovich managed a network of U.S. vaccine and treatment evaluation units and pilot production projects. During her tenure as branch chief, the units completed large multi-center trials of pertussis and influenza vaccines, as well as a number of phase I trials of platform technologies such as edible vaccines.
Rabinovich has served on a variety of national and international committees for the Institute of Medicine, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Vaccine Program Office, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the World Health Organization. Rabinovich received the National Institutes for Health (NIH) Merit Award in 1993 for her contribution to NIH's vaccine research program. In 1995, she was given the NIH Director's Award for successful advocacy for vaccine research. Rabinovich has received training in pediatrics, epidemiology, maternal and child health and preventive medicine.
Rabinovich received her B.A. from the University of Iowa, her M.D. from
Southern Illinois University, and M.P.H. from the University of North Carolina,
Chapel Hill.
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