Health Systems and Treatment Optimisation

Bengt Jönsson is Professor Emeritus of Health Economics, Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden. Before joining the SSE in 1990 he was professor at Linköping University, Department of Health and Society, 1982-1990. He was founding director of the Swedish Institute for Health Economics (IHE) in Lund from 1979 to 1982 and is now chair of IHE board. He is a member of the European Academy of Cancer Sciences, and was vice chair of EXPH, the EU Expert Panel on effective ways of Investing in health 2013-2016. He has been a member of the Karolinska University Hospital Board, of the National Social Insurance Board in Sweden, and of SBU (The Swedish Council on Technology Assessment in Health Care), Scientific Advisory Board 1988-2004. Professor Jönsson is a member of the editorial boards of several journals, including the Journal of Cancer Policy and International Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care. He is past president of SHEA, the Swedish Health Economics Association and of iHEA, the international Health Economists Association. He was the recipient of the 2014 ISPOR Avedis Donabedian Outcomes Research Lifetime Achievement Award.

Dr Benjamin Besse is Professor of Medical Oncology at Paris-Saclay University, Orsay, France and a full-time cancer specialist at Gustave Roussy Cancer Campus, Villejuif, France. Currently, Dr Besse is Head of the Cancer Medicine Department at Gustave Roussy Cancer Campus and Chair of the EORTC Lung Group. He coordinates the French network for thymic malignancies (www.ryhtmic.org). His main research interests are the application of molecular abnormalities to personalize treatment, circulating biomarkers, early drug development in thoracic tumors and thymic malignancies. He has authored/co-authored more than 250 peer-reviewed papers.

Jan Geissler is EU Cancer Mission Assembly Member and Member of the European Cancer Organisation's Patient Advisory Committee, he is the founder and CEO of Patvocates, a think tank, consultancy and social enterprise on patient advocacy, health policy and patient engagement in research. He was the Director of the European Patients Academy (EUPATI) from 2012-2017 and still leads the German EUPATI platform. Jan is a work package leader of the IMI2-funded EU project HARMONY on big data for better outcomes in hematology. A leukemia survivor since 2001, Jan co-founded the patient organisations LeukaNET/Leukaemie-Online.de in 2002, the European Cancer Patient Coalition in 2003, the CML Advocates Network in 2007, the Leukemia Patient Advocates Foundation in 2011, WECAN in 2015 and the Acute Leukemia Advocates Network in 2016. Jan represents patients on a number of advisory boards and committees, e.g. European Cancer Organisation, EHA, ISPOR, Berlin Institute of Health, EuroBloodNET, International CML Foundation, the EU Cancer Mission Assembly, the German National Decade Against Cancer and the Ethics Committee of the Bavarian Chamber of Physicians.

Lydie Meheus is Managing Director of the Anticancer Fund (ACF), a Belgian Research Foundation of Public Utility with an international scope, dedicated to the development of cancer treatments regardless of their commercial value. Lydie co-founded the Anticancer Fund in 2013 with entrepreneur and major funder Luc Verelst, after leading an alike Swiss organisation, Reliable Cancer Therapies, also initiated in 2009 by Luc Verelst. Lydie is still Executive Director of Reliable Cancer Therapies, today the collaborating partner of ACF for projects outside Europe. Lydie is a breast cancer patient, diagnosed in 2018 and successfully treated since then. In 2019, Lydie was appointed by the European Commission as alternate to represent patients for 3 years in the Committee for Advanced Therapies (CAT) one of the seven committees at the European Medicines Agency (EMA). Lydie is also member of the Scientific and Clinical Advisory Board of OvaCure, a Danish non-profit organisation that supports research for breakthrough treatments in ovarian cancer. She has published many international peer review manuscripts, lately on drug repurposing in cancer therapies. She obtained a PhD in Sciences at the University of Ghent (1986). She worked at Innogenetics (1987-2004) and as VP R&D at GENimmune (2005-2008), both Belgian biopharmaceutical companies.