Speakers
Pooja Phogat, PHD
Founder and Co-CEO, Krystelis Ltd., India
Pooja Phogat holds a PhD in Microbiology and has over 20 years of pharmaceutical industry experience. For the past 18 years, she has specialized in medical writing, clinical trial disclosure, and data transparency, including Board-level leadership and regulatory consulting. As Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Krystelis, she leads global medical writing, communications, and trial transparency services. A recognized thought leader, she chairs the DIA India Medical Writing Community and co-chairs multiple DIA and EMWA working groups. She is also a member of ISMPP and ISCR and has presented at global conferences, authoring peer-reviewed publications and earning national awards.
Hetal Shah, Ph.D
Founder - Director, MeWriT Healthcare Consulting, India
Dr Hetal Shah, PhD Pharmacologist & SME-Medical Writing, is the founder & business owner at ‘MeWriT®’ – a niche MSME offering Medical Writing & Training Services. A recognized MW expert with 20+ years of experience; gold medalist with 70+ publications, ‘Woman Entrepreneur in Pharma & Healthcare’ Awardee (2019) by AIC-LMCP, ISCR’s Hall-of-Fame Awardee (2021-2023), and certified for ‘Do your Venture: Entrepreneurship for Everyone’ by IIMB's NSRCEL WSP. DIA’s active member, Mentor for DIA’s global Mentorship Program, and SME and Speaker at various DIA forums. ISCR’s life-member, MW council ex co-chair (Sep 2024-Mar 2025), and Section Editor-MW for PICR Journal.
Annie Jose
Associate Director, Medical Writing, GSK, Bengaluru, India
Annie brings over 18 years of expertise in medical writing, with a specialization in a wide range of regulatory documents. In her current role as Associate Director at GSK, she leads a team of experienced medical writers, managing the development of complex regulatory documents, including submission documents. Annie is a recognized subject matter expert in clinical study reports and is highly regarded for her coaching, mentorship of medical writers, guiding on various documents, processes and regulatory guidelines. She holds a Master’s degree in Biotechnology and Diploma in Clinical Research from University of Pune. She’s an active member of the DIA Medical Writing Group and has presented on several topics at various medical writing forums.
Sherin Babykutty
Associate Director – Scientific Writing, Global Scientific Communications, Eli Lilly and Company, India
Sherin has over 11 years of experience in medical writing, including regulatory writing and medical communications. She holds a Master of Pharmacy degree in Pharmacology from Manipal University. In her current role as an Associate Director at Lilly Bengaluru, she leads a team of regulatory writers, manages few assets, and actively coaches writers to develop their submission expertise. Sherin is skilled in the development and management of regulatory documents for global submissions. She specializes in crafting content strategies for submissions. Additionally, she is a certified structured authoring trainer and has served as a program committee chair for DIA and as a panelist and speaker at multiple ISCR conferences and workshops.
Sam Thomarayil Mathew, Ph.D
Director, Medical Delivery, AstraZeneca India Pvt Ltd, India
Sam is a medical communications professional and GCC leader with 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry. He has held roles across both pharma and services organizations, including Novartis, Accenture, Biocon, GSK, Cactus Life Sciences, and AstraZeneca. He has built CoE in medical communications and medical writing for multiple organizations, leveraging process excellence, AI, and automation. He currently leads the Medical Delivery team within AstraZeneca GBS.He serves on executive committees of several editorial bodies, including as a Director of the Asian Council of Science Editors and the Asia-Pacific Association of Medical Journal Editors (WHO - IMSEAR), and holds editorial board positions with international journals.
Pinki Rajeev, Ph.D
Sr. Director Medical Communications, Parexel International, India
Pinki has over 20 years of experience in strategic medical communications (MedCom) at global pharmaceutical organizations and MedCom agencies. She holds a PhD in Biochemistry and business management degree from IIM Bangalore. At Novartis and Parexel, she established and led multiple MedCom functions, ensuring delivery excellence to medical affairs globally (US, UK, Europe, Japan, APAC) across multiple products and therapy areas. She has managed publications and medical education programs from early- to late-phase drug development. Currently at Parexel, she is spearheading the MedCom APAC region and driving the India MedCom center of excellence. She is passionate about people and business management.
Priyanka Tiwari
Associate Director, Global Medical Writing, Thermofisher Scientific, India
Priyanka Tiwari has more than 19 yrs of experience in clinical research and the pharmaceutical industry. She is currently an Associate Director, Medical Writing at PPD, part of Thermo Fisher Scientific, where she leads medical writing teams and oversees complex regulatory and clinical documentation projects. Her role includes delivering high-quality documents within timelines, supporting document development, training, and mentoring talent to drive performance excellence. She contributes to regional budget management, business development initiatives, and the expansion of medical writing capabilities. She has extensive experience authoring a wide range of clinical, regulatory documents and is recognized for her strong scientific foundation.
Sonia Philipose, Ph.D
Medical Communications and Content Solutions Lead- Vaccines, Pfizer Inc, India
With over 15 years of experience in drug discovery and scientific communications, I am a seasoned scientist committed to advancing science through clear, impactful communication. Following doctoral training at the Medical University of Graz, Austria, and bench research in oncology and inflammation, I transitioned into scientific communications. I have expertise in contextualizing pre-clinical and clinical data across therapeutic areas including anti-infectives, neurosciences, metabolic diseases, and vaccines. A key career highlight has been establishing an in-house publication writing team, covering recruitment, training, operations, quality oversight, and mentoring writers to deliver compliant, high-impact outputs.
Ashok Kumar Swain, MD
General Manager & Executive Director, DIA, India
Ashok serves as General Manager & Executive Director, DIA India, leading strategy, operations, and partnerships across the country. A pharmaceutical physician with 29 years of experience spanning the Indian Army, academia, and leading global pharmaceutical companies, he brings deep expertise in clinical development, medical affairs, regulatory affairs, and drug safety. Prior to joining DIA, Ashok held senior leadership roles at Novartis, Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, and Themis Medicare, leading complex development programs and cross-functional teams. He holds an MBBS and MD in Pharmacology, with executive education from IIM Calcutta and certification in Pharmaceutical Medicine from the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine, UK.
Vidhi Vashisht, MS
Vice President, Head of Plain Language Services, Krystelis Ltd, India
Vidhi believes that success and wisdom doesn't always come with age and experience, but with an open mind and willingness to take action. While working as a medical writer, she developed passion for understanding and applying the timeless principles of success and saw the positive impact of these principles in her career and personal life. She now wants to share her learning with others so that more and more people a life of success and fulfillment.
Asees Bajwa, MPH
Manager, Pfizer Products India Private Limited, India
Deepali Chaku, MSC
Regulatory writer, Novartis, India
Shalini Dwivedi, MPHARM
VP, Krystelis Ltd, India
Shalini is a Clinical Research Scientist who has expertise in regulatory and publication writing, and training clinical research professionals in various aspects of Clinical Research including Drug Development, Project Management, Publication Ethics, and Regulatory and Commercialization writing. Shalini completed Masters in Pharmacy from Jamia Hamdard, a prestigious university in Delhi, India. She has almost 18 years of academic and clinical research experience. Currently Shalini is working in Trial Transparency domain and she oversees medical writing projects, including redaction and anonymization projects for EMA Policy 0070 and Health Canada PRCI. Shalini is an avid reader and Indian classical music enthusiast.
Ubhayabharathi Gurunath, MS
Senior Manager, Astrazeneca India Private Limited, India
Neha Tickoo, MPHARM
Associate Director, Syneos Health, India
Pooja Srivastava Banerjee, MPHARM
Senior Director , Krystelis Ltd, India
With 18+ years of experience, Pooja holds a Master's degree in pharmaceutical chemistry and a postgraduate diploma in health communications. She currently leads Medical Communications at Krystelis, managing publications, medico-marketing, and medical education. Pooja specializes in strategic communication for pharma and biotechnology, having worked on public health campaigns, advisory boards, RWEs, and developing consensus statements and clinical guidelines. She has worked with top pharma clients, and other healthcare stakeholders. Pooja is also a published author, having received the PRS Global Open "Best International Collaboration-Gold Award" in 2020. Actively involved as a faculty member in workshops and conferences.
Alap Chavda, PHD
Principal Publications Writer, GSK, India
Nalin Taneja, MSC
Senior Manager Patient Safety Medical Writing, Parexel International, India
Piyush Upadhyay, MPHARM
Senior Manager, Medical Writing, Thermofisher, India
Sonali Parmar, MPHARM
Director, Medical Writing, Syneos Health Company, India
Raina Agarwal, MPHARM
Associate Director, Geninvo, India
Raina Agarwal holds 15+ years of experience in Clinical Trial Transparency and Disclosure Domain. She is working as Associate Director, Transparency, at MMS holdings and specializes in anonymization of regulatory packages for EU-CTR, EMA P0070 and HC-PRCI submissions. Raina is hands-on with disclosure regulations for US, EU, and several international registries. Raina has continuously involved in developing and reviewing standard operating procedures, work-instructions, quality checklists for transparency, templates for clinical documents, deploying of automated technology platforms for anonymization of documents. Raina is a strong advocate of cross-functional integration for successful implementation of transparency requirements.
Pallavi Dasgupta, PHD, MSC
Manager, Medical Communications and Content Solutions - Vaccines, Pfizer, India
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