Advisory Board
Pharmaceutical Sciences –
Drug Development and Regulatory Affairs

Mario Riesner in his role as General Manager and chairperson of the board of Sandoz GmbH holds full executive responsibility of the registered business. In addition, he operationally is responsible for the Biologics Drug Product manufacturing in Austria. Starting his career as an apprentice in an early age of 15, he meanwhile looks back to 30 years of professional experience in the pharmaceutical industry. His career covers a broad range of roles, like R&D, Quality- and Compliance Assurance, Pharmaceutical Engineering- and Investment Management, Drug Substance and Drug Product Manufacturing as well as the Management of Pharmaceutical Entities with all commercial, financial and legal aspects. Before his current assignment, he led the Novartis Biologics Drug Substance Site in Slovenia. Mario is a strong believer in combining scientific excellence with an entrepreneurial industry spirit.

Georg Singewald is Head of Global MSAT & Engineering at Roche based in Basel, Switzerland. Georg’s career has spanned the globe providing him operational experiences in Europe, Asia-Pacific and the US and exposing him to many different regulatory jurisdictions, pharmaceutical modalities & technologies as well as a variety of working cultures. In his current role, Georg is focusing on innovation and technological readiness (incl sustainability and compliance) of the Roche manufacturing network for the innovation medicines and devices portfolio. Georg is actively engaging in working groups of industry associations (PhRMA, EFPIA) and his expertise has been called upon for regulator training on GMP topics. Currently he is also a member of the International Board of Directors from ISPE (International Society of Pharmaceutical Engineering).

Andrea Laslop joined the Austrian Medicines and Medical Devices Agency, a business unit of the Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety (AGES), in 2006. She is heading there the Scientific Office, which constitutes the link to the European Medicines Agency (EMA), with a focus on the different types of centralised European procedures during drug development, marketing authorisation and life-cycle management. Since 2003 she is a member of the EMA Scientific Advice Working Party and since 2007 of the Committee for Human Medicinal Products at the EMA. Prior to her regulatory engagement Andrea Laslop worked as an associate professor of pharmacology and toxicology at the Medical University of Innsbruck, Austria, where she earned her MD and later on specialised as a pharmacologist. Her professional career included several sojourns for joint research projects at the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York and the Clinical Research Institute of Montreal.

Stefan Kähler is Head of QPPV Function and QPPV EU & UK at Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) based in this international role in Vienna, Austria. In more than 20 years in Biopharmaceutical Industry Stefan’s career has spanned from local, regional to international positions providing him experiences in Europe, Middle East Africa, South Africa, Asia-Pacific, Canada, and Latin America and exposing him to many different scientific medicinal product development global responsibilities like as Lead Medical Safety Assessment Physician/Scientist for break through CAR T cell therapies beside others in pre- as well post-marketing settings. In his current role, Stefan is focusing on new innovative therapies regarding the benefit-risk balance of medicinal products across the BMS portfolio. Stefan is actively engaging in working groups of industry associations (EFPIA, EUCOPE) and was also Representative at EMA industry stakeholder meetings. Since 2011 he is Chairperson of the Standing Committee for Clinical Development/Research at Pharmig in Austria. Beside multiple scientific publications he was also Book Author of “Das schlaue Büchlein” (österr. Arzneimitteltherapie im Taschenformat) with 8 Editions. Currently he is a member of the CIOMS XI working Group on patient involvement in the development and safe use of medicines as Chapter Lead and Chapter Co-Lead. The Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS) was founded in 1949 by WHO and UNESCO.

Michael Ahlijanian, Ph.D., is currently the Chief Scientific Officer of Pinteon Therapeutics and Orthogonal Neurosciences, two virtual, venture-backed neuroscience biotech companies. Previously, he was the director of genetically defined disease biology and head of clinical biomarkers at Bristol-Myers Squibb. In this role, he led scientific discovery teams that produced large and small molecule clinical candidates for neurologic and muscle-wasting diseases. He also led the preclinical and clinical implementation and analysis of translational biomarkers for these assets. Michael also held previous senior management roles as Head of Neuroscience at FORMA Therapeutics, Vice President of Research at EnVivo Pharmaceuticals and Executive Director of Neuroscience Operations at Pfizer. He is a recognized leader in the development of novel therapeutics for central nervous system diseases and consults for several organizations including Target ALS, the Michael J Fox Foundation and the Harrington Discovery Institute as well as other small and large companies. Michael received his Ph.D. in 1985 from the University of Minnesota Department of Pharmacology and a bachelor’s degree in pharmacy with distinction at the University of Rhode Island.