Who We Are

James Wright
MSc

Senior Director Operations / COO

James Wright is Senior Director of Operations/ COO at Valid Insight and leads the global consulting teams. James has a wealth of experience in global operations, commercial strategy and business performance. His focus is in developing business relationships alongside team development and he has a central role in overseeing and implementing company strategy.

James has over 20 years’ experience in healthcare and consulting, starting with working in the UK NHS, then later in international pharmaceutical consultancy firms. He spent 13 years at Quintiles (IQVIA) in the commercial consulting group, prior to joining Valid Insight in 2017, quickly taking on roles in leadership and senior management. James has worked with most of the top 30 pharmaceutical companies and has extensive experience in market access optimisation, evaluation of strategic pricing and market access implications for new launches, and product/portfolio lifecycle optimisation.

James has been instrumental in building and managing the international multidisciplinary team along with diversified client solutions that have supported company growth.

James has an MSc in Health Economics and Pharmacoeconomics from Universitat Pompeu Fabra and joined Valid Insight after 13 years at IQVIA.

Frank Cousins
BSc (Hons.)

Senior Director Commercial Strategy/ CCO

Frank Cousins is Senior Director and CCO at Valid Insight with nearly 25 years of experience as a consultant to the pharmaceutical industry. Frank leads our commercial strategy and business development, and as a seasoned professional, works in close partnership with our clients to help define and solve their challenges as they seek to optimal access and commercial success.

Before joining Valid Insight, Frank’s career started with over 12 years in healthcare and medical communications, both educational and commercial, followed by 10 years with Quintiles Consulting/IQVIA working in a range of senior commercial consulting positions. His experience is end-to-end from evidence generation and clinical trial optimisation projects through to launch and eventual loss of exclusivity. He has worked across multiple therapy areas and with the majority of top 25 global biopharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.

Frank has always been a strong advocate of collaboration, working closely with client teams and harnessing their own experience which has delivered exceptional results for our customers and ensuring high levels of repeat engagements. Having previously gained extensive consulting experience through leading complex multifaceted programs, he now focusses on supporting clients identify and resolve key strategic business questions and helping our teams deliver the highest standards in solution design by providing insight to ensure practical and pragmatic recommendations.  This leadership approach, has delivered real commercial success for both our clients and our business, but importantly, also ensures that our teams are always learning and developing new approaches to the market access challenges our clients face.

During his career, Frank has led a diverse mix of management, commercial and clinical consulting projects that have included organisational design, alliance and partnership evaluation, market evaluation, payer and pricing strategies and eHealth initiatives. Frank’s interests include the integration of regulatory strategy, evidence generation (including clinical studies, real world evidence, and patient centric and PRO data), and market access for optimal launch and commercial planning. He has developed a high level of expertise in early regulatory approval and its implications for HTA, market access, and pricing and reimbursement. He also focuses on the nuances of successful differentiation in tendering and contracting, supporting companies maintain price and position during the life-cycle.

Frank has a BSc (Hons) in Biology from St Andrews University and joined Valid insight in 2018 after 4 years at Parexel and 10 years with IQVIA.

Stephen Hall
BSc, MRes, PhD

Consultant

Stephen is a Consultant at Valid Insight. He began his career working as a postdoctoral researcher in Neuroscience, and worked for 2 years at Newcastle University, before working for 7 years as a Wellcome trust researcher at the University of York. Stephen’s work examined the underlying disease pathologies in a wide range of neurological conditions, including epilepsy, Alzheimer’s disease, autism, schizophrenia and encephalopathies. He has published 8 research articles in high impact journals, has presented at numerous conferences and won several awards for his research.

More recently, Stephen worked as the Knowledge Exchange Associate at the NIHR Innovation Observatory, the UK’s national horizon scanning centre. Here he prepared documentation for health technology submissions to NICE, which initiate the technology appraisal process in the UK. He has also worked closely with the NICE topic selection group to communicate the in-depth details underpinning health technology assessments in the UK. This has involved leading online webinars and delivering presentations at a wide range of international conferences.

Stephen has a BSc in Pharmacology from Sunderland University, a MRes in Medical and Molecular Biosciences from Newcastle University and a PhD in Neuropharmacology from Newcastle University.

Laura Kelly
BA, MSc, DPhil

Consultant

Laura is a Consultant at Valid Insight. Prior to joining she worked as a Research Officer at the University of Oxford and comes with ten years of experience of working in applied health research, particularly in the area of Patient Reported Outcome (PRO) measurement.

She is highly experienced in essential research techniques including systematic reviews, real-time surveys and secondary qualitative data analysis. Laura’s work in PRO design development and validation has been extensively published.

Laura has much experience of supporting pharmaceutical companies by designing and conducting qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods projects including experience of in-depth interviews, focus groups, cognitive interviews, plus desk-based research and working across multiple value communication projects, including payer value story creation for a range of products.

Her research experience covers a broad range of therapeutic areas including dermatology, diabetes, neurology, orthopaedics, women’s health, urology and epilepsy.

Laura has a DPhil in PROs and MSc in Applied Social Research.

Julen Zabala Mancebo
MSc, PhD

Consultant

Julen is passionate about the pharmaceutical industry and loves being challenged by new projects. He has experience in pricing and market access strategy, value communications, and payer landscaping across various therapeutic areas, including orphan diseases, respiratory, oncology, and arthritis.

Julen supports the wider implementation of market access projects, engaging with key stakeholders and analysing market conditions to ensure successful market access. His experience spans a range of projects supporting global brands and local affiliates across all stages of strategy development, including market opportunity mapping, payer value research, evaluation of PRA potential, and the generation of value arguments and evidence.

Prior to joining Valid Insight, Julen held similar roles in established global consultancies. Julen holds a PhD in regenerative medicine from the University of Manchester. His background in biomedical engineering, in addition to the MSc in Health economics that he is currently pursuing, provides him with a strong analytical mind and deep technical knowledge. ​

Julen is a native Spanish speaker.​

Rita Conceição
MPharm

Associate Consultant

Rita Conceição is an Associate Consultant at Valid Insight. Prior to joining Valid Insight, Rita worked at GlaxoSmithKline in the PH Market Access and External Affairs department. Her role enabled her to be involved in a range of projects including pricing and reimbursement submissions, market dynamics activities, global value dossiers and stakeholder reports and communications.

Rita holds a Master of Pharmacy (MPharm) from the University of Lisbon, with complementary courses in HTA and Pharmacoeconomics, and her Master thesis research project took place in Italy, at the University of Pisa.

As part of her pharmaceutical sciences training, Rita had multiple experiences across community pharmacy, immunology and pharmacology research, healthcare IT consulting and pharmaceutical industry, providing her with a broad exposure to the pharmaceutical environment.

Rita is proficient in Portuguese and English and has a good understanding of Spanish and Italian.

Paula Martin
DVM, PhD, DACVIM (Neurology)

Senior Consultant

Paula is a Senior Consultant at Valid Insight.

Paula holds a Degree in Veterinary Medicine and a PhD in Comparative and Veterinary Medicine. She is also a Diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine in the specialty of Neurology. Paula worked for 10 years as a companion animal veterinarian, specialising in neurology and neurosurgery. During her veterinary career she was also involved in research and teaching. During this time, she presented her research at various veterinary meetings, published multiple papers in peer-reviewed veterinary and human medicine journals and acted as reviewer for several veterinary journals.

In 2016 she switched careers and became a Senior Medical Writer. She has worked at two award-winning, global Medical Communication and Advertising agencies and as a freelance Senior Medical Writer. Paula has been the Lead Medical Writer for a range of accounts at a national and global level for a variety of pharmaceutical drugs covering multiple therapy areas, including Dermatology, Rheumatology, Neurology, Vaccines, Respiratory, Rare Diseases or Veterinary Medicine, among others. Her work has covered Medical Advertising, Medical Education and publications. She has vast experience developing key value messages from scientific literature to produce story flows which are tailored to different audiences and convey messages effectively.

Paula is a native Spanish speaker and is proficient in English.

Giulia Pasini
MPharm

Associate Consultant

Giulia is an Associate Consultant at Valid Insight. Giulia graduated with a second-level master’s degree in International Healthcare Management, Economics, and Policy in 2021 at SDA Bocconi School of Management, after a first-level master’s degree in Pharmacy at the University of Parma.

She worked for seven years as a scientific researcher on prions and neurodegenerative diseases. She has substantial experience in Parkinson, Alzheimer, Creutzfeldt- Jakob disease, and Spinal Muscular Atrophy. She worked both in Italy at Policlinic of Verona, at the NIT in Turin and in the US for the NIH/NIAID Rocky Mountain Laboratories.

During these years, she wrote papers and grant proposals, had speeches and poster presentations about her works during national and international meetings. She also worked as a Professor of “Methods for Scientific Research” and “Biomedical Imaging” at ICOM, Turin.

Before joining Valid Insight, she worked as a global market access analyst in consultancy, dealing primarily with foreign companies for Italian market access activities, value communications, and payer landscaping. She also performed a 3-months cost-benefit analysis on MEA (Managed Entry Agreements), focusing on off-label drugs with CERGAS, Bocconi and collaborated as a healthcare consultant for an innovative tech start-up.

These experiences have trained her with a solid scientific background in neuroscience, pharmaceutical chemistry, health economics and market access.

Giulia is proficient in Italian and English, with a good understanding of Spanish and French.