Panel on How to Join/Explore Pharma

Organizers: Claude Petit, Glen Laird

Thursday, Aug 14th, 2025

Speaker: Mekhala Acharya, Director
Takeda Pharmaceuticals

Mekhala Acharya 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.

Abstract

TBD

Thursday, Aug 14th, 2025

Speaker: Lingyun Liu
Vertex Pharmaceuticals

Lingyun 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.

Abstract

TBD