Who We Are

OUR MARKET ACCESS CONSULTANCY TEAM

Our clients operate in dual environments - life science and business - and we shape our teams around the common challenges facing these segments. Valid Insight’s international team draw on decades of market access, medical and relevant commercial experience.

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.

Raf De Wilde

PhD

Senior Executive Advisor

Raf De Wilde is Senior Executive Advisor at Valid Insight. He is a global expert in life science market access, having over 40 years’ experience in the pharmaceutical industry and over 30 years in global market access.

Raf became the head of International Marketing Services within Janssen Pharmaceutica (a Johnson & Johnson (J&J) company) in 1991, introducing Health Economics at J&J that year. Raf was Chairman of EPhMRA Primary Research and Methods Committee (1993-1995). He became VP of EPhMRA in 1994 and 1997 and President in 1995 and 1998.

In 1997, he joined Peter Lauper’s team that pioneered the ‘biosimilars’ concept and the first patient access schemes. Raf led a specialist oncology, real-world evidence and virology group between 2002 and 2004, where he created a centre of excellence for oncology pricing and specialised in biologics while leading the HEOR function at CENTOCOR. Raf was VP of Market Access at J&J leading teams working on oncology, cardiovascular and biotech products from 2004 to 2010.

Raf joined United Biosource Corporation (UBC) as Associate VP in early 2011 and stayed with Evidera until 2015, prior to joining Valid Insight in 2016. In his consulting career he has led nearly 200 global market access projects, including value strategies, price finding research, patient access schemes, negotiation tactics, tendering and contracting, WHO classification and naming strategies. He has moderated over 150 training workshops in Asia, Asia-Pacific, Europe, North America and Middle-East, and led the life sciences pricing training of the European Pricing Platform from 2011 to 2014.

Raf has university teaching positions on the Master of Science in Pharmaceutical Medicine course of the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany, and at Grenoble Ecole de Management, a leading French graduate business school, where he teaches the market access module on the Advanced Master’s in Biotechnology & Pharmaceutical Management programme.

Carolyn Steeds
BSc (Hons), PGCert Health Economics

Director – Value Communication

Carolyn has over 30 years’ experience in the healthcare industry, comprising 15 years with Allergan (now AbbVie) in their global HEOR group, 14 years in market access consultancy and 3 years working for a diagnostic company (Bruker Renshaw). With 25 years’ experience in HEOR and market access she has developed key value messages, value communication tools, HTA submissions and economic models for many most of the top global companies over the years.

In her career, Carolyn has worked on pharma product launches for products such as BOTOX and Lumigan while in industry, and in consulting has managed numerous projects working with large global pharmaceutical companies to smaller diagnostic manufacturers, delivering high quality value communication deliverables to support global market access across a wide range of therapy areas including; oncology, infectious diseases, neurology, ophthalmology, medical devices (insulin pumps, gastric bands), in-vitro Diagnostics (biomarker testing for cancer, molecular assays for infection), nutrition and immunology.

Carolyn has an honours degree in Biology from Strathclyde University and a postgraduate certificate in Health Economics from Aberdeen University.

Patricia Buchholz

RPharm, PhD, Dipl. Health Economics, Dipl. Public Health

Associate Director

Patricia has 30 years of experience in healthcare industry, comprising 18 years in pharmaceutical industry, and 12 years in consultancy as well as working as a GCP inspector for a regional health authority in southern Germany.

She has spent over 20 years working in HEOR, P&R and Market Access gaining considerable experience in developing value dossiers and key value messages, market access strategies, value communication strategies, health economic data to support pricing and reimbursement, and outcomes research studies.

Patricia has focused on ophthalmology products (medicinal products, medical devices/IVDs), an area she also covered as medical writer and sales force trainer.

Additionally, Patricia has managed projects working with global pharmaceutical companies and diagnostic manufacturers delivering high quality deliverables across different therapy areas such as oncology and dermatology.

Patricia has a pharmacy degree and PhD from University of Heidelberg (Germany). She has a postgraduate HE diploma from Stockholm School of Economics (Sweden) and a diploma as “Specialist in Public Health”.

She is author of about 30 published articles, mainly in ophthalmology.

Patricia is proficient in German and English and has a good understanding of Spanish and French.

Francesca Torelli
MSc, MPhil

Associate Director

Francesca Torelli is an Associate Director at Valid Insight.

Joining in 2020, Francesca has gained experience in value demonstration and market access strategy in a range of chronic diseases at Medtronic, working directly with stakeholders to understand their needs and developing targeted value propositions and communication materials. In addition, Francesca has been involved in evidence generation, collecting real world data and developing economic evidence (such as budget impact and cost-effectiveness analyses).

Francesca also worked as a Research Assistant in Health Economics at the University of Leeds and as a trainee in Global Market Access at Chiesi.

Francesca has presented her work on economic evaluation and PROs at several international conferences. She has an MSc in Economics and Economic Policy from the University of Bologna and a MPhil in Health economics and Management from the University of Oslo.

Stephen Hall
BSc, MRes, PhD

Associate Director

Stephen is an Associate Director 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.

Maria Ana Almeida
MPharm

Consultant

Maria is a Consultant at Valid Insight. She holds a Master of Pharmacy (MPharm) from University of Lisbon with a final thesis on the use of Big data across the medicine´s lifecycle.

As part of her graduation Maria had a lot of different experiences dealing with areas such as clinical trials, immunology, pharmacology, information technologies and she did a supplementary course in Marketing for pharmacists. She has done some laboratory work and internships in community pharmacy in Portugal and in the UK.

Prior to joining Valid Insight, Maria worked in numerous digital brand launch projects, as a speaker on Big data and Data Sciences.

These experiences have equipped her with a broad scientific knowledge and key communication, project management, analytical, problem solving and team working skills.

Maria is a native Portuguese speaker and fluent in English.

Federico Ghinelli
MSc

Consultant

Federico is a Consultant at Valid Insight. He holds an MSc in Health Economics, Management and Policy from the University of Bologna with a final thesis on the development of a cost-effectiveness analysis of prosthetic implant combinations in total hip replacement in Italy, through a collaboration with the Region Emilia-Romagna’s health service.

Prior to joining Valid Insight, Federico was part of the Healthcare and Public Sector Consulting line of service at KPMG Italy, where he worked on projects dedicated to supporting the development and deployment of ICT solutions for healthcare at a regional and local level in the country.

He is a native Italian speaker and fluent in English.

Annie Smith
MSc

Consultant

Annie is a Consultant at Valid Insight.

She holds a Master by research in molecular neuroscience from Swansea University. Her work examined the underlying disease pathology of Parkinson’s related dementia, and she has a strong scientific background in neuroscience and immunology. As part of her studies, she has presented at international conferences including Society for Neuroscience and won awards for her research such as the KM Scott Prize for best academic talk.

She has extensive experience in project management, data handling, scientific communication, and analytics, and has taken part in multi-discipline collaborative projects which included team leadership roles. Annie has partaken in several scientific-communication community outreach projects and has designed and run an undergraduate development module at the University of York.

She holds a first-class honours degree in Biochemistry from Swansea University.

Ayesha Qureshi
BSc

Associate Consultant

Ayesha is an Associate Consultant at Valid Insight. She holds a BSc in Medical Biochemistry from the University of Manchester and a Masters in Pharmaceutical Formulation and Entrepreneurship from University College London (UCL).

Through her studies, Ayesha has gained extensive knowledge in market access and business development particular to pharmaceuticals and life sciences with regards to business viability, technological feasibility, and regulatory constraints. Her knowledge ranges from developing market landscapes and competitor landscapes to building stake-holder maps. Her studies have further equipped Ayesha with experiences ranging from interviewing founders, analysing their company’s financial journey, and building a valuable network overall.

Darlene Lucion
MSc

Associate Consultant

Darlene Lucion is an Associate Consultant at Valid Insight. She holds an MSc in Bioscience Entrepreneurship from University College London and a BSc in Biology from Royal Holloway University of London.

She has experience working for healthtech start-ups such as Solvemed Group and Phenopolis, overseeing research, competitive landscapes, grant proposals and compliance. She also worked as a digital health analyst for PATH where she built a framework to integrate artificial intelligence and machine learning health initiatives across low-income countries, specifically LATAM.

Prior to joining Valid Insight, Darlene worked as a Research Executive for a market research firm where she predominantly ensured medical devices conformed to the EU medical device regulations by designing and conducting post-market clinical follow up surveys. By leading various projects using several research techniques, she was able to work in several disease areas and understand the perspectives of various stakeholders in the healthcare industry.

Anna Świder
MPharm

Associate Consultant

Anna is an Associate Consultant at Valid Insight. She holds a Master of Pharmacy (MPharm) from the Jagiellonian University in Cracow, as well as the postgraduate diploma in Interdisciplinary Studies in Pharmaceutical Management from the Warsaw University of Technology Business School.

Anna began her career working as a Junior Analyst at HTA Consulting, where she was involved in conducting the systematic literature reviews for a global pharmaceutical company.

Prior to joining Valid Insight, Anna worked as an Analyst at Creativ-Ceutical, the global market access & HEOR consulting company. She gained experience in a range of projects including competitive landscape analysis, environmental assessment, development of the global value dossiers and the post-approval AMCP dossier for FDA submission. She has an experience in working in the disease areas such as dermatology, oncology, with the focus on the psychiatry and neurology.

Anna is a native Polish speaker and fluent in English.

Alia Karaouni
BSc, MSc, PhD

Senior Advisor

Alia Karaouni is Senior Advisor at Valid Insight. She is an experienced strategy consultant and foresight expert. Alia has a proven track record in decision support for senior pricing and market access management in the pharmaceutical industry. Her in-depth knowledge of biotech and pharma stems from 15 years of consultancy work, as well as work in the industry, on issues related to pricing strategy, market access, portfolio analysis, cost-benefit assessment, commercial planning and valuation, among others.

Alia has over 20 years’ experience helping clients tackle complex management decision-making in highly-uncertain, rapidly-changing environments, through issue framing, discussion facilitation and simulation-tool building. Alia was head of market access for three years ad interim at Onxeo, a Paris-based small biotech company with several orphan oncology drugs in development. Prior to this, she worked for the World Economic Forum in Geneva, as deputy head of scenario planning. Here she directed several year-long scenario projects exploring the future of industries and regions, with the outcomes made public at the annual Davos meeting. She has also worked as a management consultant in Brussels for IBM Business Consulting Services and PricewaterhouseCoopers, before setting up her own independent company, using her expertise in the field of systems thinking and business modelling to support business strategy and decision-making

Alia holds a PhD in Economics from MIT, a Master’s degree in Econometrics and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Université de Montréal.

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Newton Street

Macclesfield

Cheshire

SK11 6QJ

discover@validinsight.com

+44 (0) 20 3750 9833

Who We Are

OUR MARKET ACCESS CONSULTANCY TEAM

JAMES WRIGHT

RAF DE WILDE

CAROLYN STEEDS

PATRICIA BUCHHOLZ

Francesca Torelli

STEPHEN HALL

MARIA ANA ALMEIDA

FEDERICO GHINELLI

ANNIE SMITH

AYESHA QURESHI

DARLENE LUCION

ANNA ŚWIDER

ALIA KAROUNI

LEARN MORE ABOUT VALID INSIGHT

GET IN TOUCH

UK OFFICE ADDRESS