Panel on How to Join/Explore Pharma
Organizers: Claude Petit, Glen Laird
Thursday, Aug 14th, 2025
Panelist: Mekhala Acharya, Director
Takeda Pharmaceuticals
Mekhala Acharya, a seasoned leader in clinical trial programming with over 17 years of experience driving regulatory submissions and innovation in the pharmaceutical space. She currently serves as Director of Statistical Programming at Takeda Pharmaceuticals, where she leads global teams responsible for high-impact submissions to the FDA, EMA, and PMDA. Outside of her professional achievements, she’s a lifelong learning enthusiast constantly exploring topics in innovation and leadership strategy.
Thursday, Aug 14th, 2025
Panelist: Lingyun Liu
Vertex Pharmaceuticals
Dr Lingyun Liu got her Ph.D. in statistics from Northwestern University. She is currently a program lead at Vertex Pharmaceuticals. She is responsible for multiple programs ranging from preclinical to post approval lifecycle management. Prior to joining Vertex, she was a consulting statistician in the strategic consulting group at Cytel. She provided consultation to biotech and pharmaceutical companies on clinical development plan, innovative trial designs, regulatory interactions across different therapeutical areas including oncology, immuno-oncology, diabetes, CNS, infectious diseases, cardiovascular and rare disease and orphan drugs. She also provided technical inputs to the development of a few modules in the commercial software EAST, StatXact and provided training to statisticians in industry and regulatory on multiple modules including MCP, MEP, MAMS, MULTIARM, SEQUENTIAL, ADAPT, SURVADAPT. Her research interests include multiple comparison, innovative trial design, external control data borrowing, composite endpoints, and biomarker, rare diseases.
Thursday, Aug 14th, 2025
Panelist: Lei Wang
The Lotus Group
Lei Wang, President and Managing partner at The Lotus Group, the recruiting firm for biometric positions. Lei was a statistical analyst at Northwestern University and AbbVie before she became a recruiter. She has been recruiting in the pharmaceutical/biotech industry for the last 20 years. She became a member of the Women Presidents Organization in 2020 and led The Lotus Group to become one of the 50 fastest growing women-owned businesses in 2020. Her passion for career development has driven her own career life. She wants to use her expertise to help bring out the best in candidates, hiring managers and ultimately successful Biometrics groups for every biotech and pharmaceutical - whether it's a company of 100 or 100,000. She is also an invited speaker and panelist and has presented at conferences in the U.S. and internationally. In her spare time she enjoys travelling, reading, cooking and, most of all, eating!
Thursday, Aug 14th, 2025
Panelist: Eric Baron
Servier Pharmaceuticals
Eric Baron is a Senior Biostatistician at Servier Pharmaceuticals, specializing in early-phase clinical trials. He has contributed to studies in solid tumors, hematology, and glioma. Eric earned his PhD in statistics from the University of Connecticut. His research focuses on Bayesian modeling, adaptive Bayesian clinical trial designs, methods for incorporating real-world evidence, and Bayesian model assessment.