Enhancing clinical trial diversity: Improving awareness, access, and trust

Judy Sewards is Vice President, Head of Clinical Trial Experience. In this role, Judy leads a team focused on understanding the end-to-end trial experience from the viewpoint of partners and participants, identifying new communications and services to provide ease and convenience, and launching these in partnership with the Volume 3 and medicine teams and GPD and Pfizer functional lines.

Judy was formerly Vice President, Digital Innovation in Pfizer Strategy & Commercial Operations (StratCo). In that role, she was responsible for setting and activating new digital and big data strategies helping Pfizer meet business and customer needs in the future health landscape. Prior to that, Judy held a number of leadership positions within Pfizer’s commercial organization, including team leader for the US Celebrex and Flector Patch businesses, head of the Primary Care US Marketing Incubator, and Consumer Lead for the Viagra brand.

Before joining Pfizer, Judy led insights, brand strategy and advertising for Merrill Lynch Global Wealth Management. Her other diverse experience ranges from tech start-up to advertising and management consulting.

Judy received her bachelor’s degree from Smith College, where she also served as a member of the Board of Trustees.

Jorge Hechavarria is the Senior Director, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in Clinical Trials (DEICT), part of the Patient & Portfolio Solutions (PPS), in Janssen. In this role, his primary responsibilities are to develop, deliver and continuously evolve the future vision for DEICT at Janssen and will lead a team that co-develops and delivers diversity and inclusion strategies related to DEICT across all Therapeutic Areas and regions. Jorge serves as an advisor to Therapeutic Area and Global Development leaders to partner to continuously design and scale DEICT capabilities to enable better clinical trial design, operational optimization across all Janssen clinical trials. In this role, Jorge will lead & support select business transformation projects in support of high-visibility global strategic initiatives in PMO Portfolio Management and other areas and has a team of highly talented individuals supporting various therapeutic areas.

Jorge most recently was from Celgene/Bristol Myers Squibb where he served as Head, US REMS Global Risk Management Quality Operations. He has significant executive experience in stakeholder management, vendor, CRO, contract and project management over the past 25 years. Across various roles in the industry, he has consistently driven diversity and inclusion efforts across business units. Jorge has also authored several publications, has been an active speaker at industry conferences and serves on various healthcare related councils and advisory boards.

Jorge received his Bachelor of Science in Organizational Management from NYACK College, his Masters of Business Administration from University of Phoenix and his PhD in Health and Medical Sciences Leadership from Seton Hall University. He resides in New Jersey with his wife and two daughters.

Neil Lesser is a Principal with Deloitte and he leads Deloitte’s Life Sciences Research & Development practice. In this role, he leads a team focused on the entire biopharma and medical technology R&D value chain, including capabilities and offerings that span from strategy through technology transformation.

Neil has been with Deloitte since 1998 and has extensive experience advising and partnering with biopharma R&D executives on portfolio and capability strategy, capital allocation choices, R&D productivity improvement initiatives, and large operating model and organization transformations.

Neil is a frequent writer and speaker on Life Sciences R&D strategy and productivity topics. He is a co-author of Deloitte’s annual study that measures Life Sciences R&D return on investment and productivity, which has been featured in The Economist, Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes and many other national and trade publications.

LaShell Robinson is the Director of Diversity & Inclusion in Clinical trials at Takeda Pharmaceutical Company, Ltd. Here she leads the company’s strategic vision for increasing the diversity of Takeda’s clinical trial programs by fostering partnerships & implementing strategies focused on education, awareness, and access.

LaShell brings her experience from Janssen Research & Development, a Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Company where she held the position of Clinical Operations Lead, Diversity & Inclusion in Clinical Trials (DICT). In this role, she supported the vision to ensure that all patients have access to innovative, high-quality care and the best possible health outcome regardless of race or ethnicity. LaShell was responsible for providing D&I strategic and tactical support to trials, including the COVID-19 vaccine and treatments trials.

LaShell’s previous roles centered on Patient Recruitment & Retention and Site supporting global clinical trial programs with disease-focused strategy to expedite trial enrollment. Her specializations included training clinical teams, facilitation of site & patient engagement workshops, managing small to large scale investigative site support programs all of which focused on highlighting the patient experience to enable a better clinical trial experience.

LaShell is a proud alumna of Tuskegee University where she obtained a Bachelor of Science in both Biology & Physics. Here she saw firsthand the impact history has on the patient perception of clinical research. This continues to fuel and influence her passion for educating others about clinical research and the diversity of the patient experience. LaShell has a Master of Science in Biomedical Engineering from the University of South Florida. LaShell and her family currently reside in Maryland.