Michelle Xiong has led Fosun Pharma’s antimalarial pipeline since 2023. She joined the company in 2007 as a marketing manager for Africa and product manager for antimalarials. Over the past decade, Michelle has managed Fosun Pharma’s collaboration with academia on antimalarial drug research and the development of new antimalarial products. With 18 years of experience in the African pharmaceutical market, she is well-versed in the entire value chain required to introduce a pharmaceutical product to Africa, including product development, registration, distribution, and sales and marketing. Michelle is dedicated to bringing innovative and affordable medicines and healthcare products.

Anna Laura Ross is the Head of Emerging Technologies, Research Prioritization and Support at WHO's Science Division. She oversees activities related to new and emerging technologies to maximize the benefits for global health, and anticipate and mitigate biorisks. She also leads efforts to optimize research and development for health products. With over 15 years of experience in global health, her interests include HIV biomedical research, scientific programme management, implementation research, and global health policy. She previously served at ANRS in Paris and conducted research at the UK Medical Research Council and Institut Pasteur.

Dr. Sarah Charnaud is a Technical Officer at WHO, where she works to optimize research and development processes to enhance global health outcomes. She focuses on improving health product conception, development, and delivery to meet public health needs. Collaborating with stakeholders, she aligns research priorities with public health goals, sets strategic agendas, identifies health information gaps, and promotes equitable access to research outcomes. With a PhD in malaria biology from Melbourne, she has worked on malaria drug discovery at LSHTM and trained in molecular biology in Southampton. Born in South Africa, she has worked globally to improve health.

Mercedes Perez Gonzalez serves as a Technical Officer in the Science Division of WHO, focusing on optimizing WHO's R&D activities, including the development of target product profiles for health products and coordinating WHO's scientific advice for product developers of medicines, vaccines, and diagnostics which provides crucial guidance on generating robust evidence for WHO policy recommendations and prequalification status. Previously, she was the technical lead for the Essential Diagnostics List Secretariat and served on the Prequalification Team for Diagnostics Assessment, focusing on molecular technologies for blood-borne diseases.