2024 Fall Symposium - Bios

Sriram Ananthakrishna

Senior Associate, Axtria

Senior Associate at Axtria, with 5+ years of experience in the Life Sciences industry with a Master’s Degree in Data Science. He has mainly worked in the commercial space with marketing analytics as the key focus. He has worked on 10+ projects of various business problems including Gen AI, MLOps, Market Mix modeling, Segmentation and Targeting, Test and Control Analytics and Scenario Simulation. He also has a good grasp on programming and has worked on multiple automation and Optimization tasks. His technology stack include Python, R, SQL, Databricks, PySpark, AWS and LLMs.

Thomas Boyle

Associate Director, Advanced Analytics, Novo Nordisk Inc.

Tom Boyle is a commercial insights and analytics leader at Novo Nordisk, with 10+ years' experience spanning across functions including demand forecasting, secondary business analytics, and primary market research. Most recently Tom has held the role of Associate Director within the Commercial Data Science function, leading a team of Data Scientists in support of the US Commercial organization. In this capacity Tom has dual roles in leading the promotional impact assessment function, while driving development of new data science capabilities in the areas of commercial insights and operations. Tom holds an MBA degree from Rutgers Business School and a BS in Business Economics from Rider University.

Steve Bull

Senior Director, Axtria

Steve is a leader in commercial operations, analytics, and effectiveness, with nearly 20 years of experience working with life sciences companies to address their most challenging issues in this evolving space. He brings a passion for developing great commercial strategy and a knack for the details in pulling that strategy through its execution across the sales planning process. Steve has deep expertise in sales force deployment modeling, targeting and call planning, territory design, personnel placement, and rep effectiveness initiatives. He is passionate about building great teams to deliver on challenging projects and building consensus to achieve outstanding results for his clients.

Sudip Chakraborty

Principal and Head AI/GenAI, Axtria

I am a Principal and Head of AI/GenAI at Axtria, with over 25 years of experience in leveraging data and AI to solve business challenges. In my current role, I collaborate with pharma companies to develop AI/GenAI strategies and roadmaps, build and coach high-performing teams, establish AI/GenAI and MLOps/LLMOps capabilities, and drive adoption and monetization

Rajesh Choudhary

Senior Director - Data Science and AI, Axtria

Rajesh Choudhary is the Data Science and AI Practice Lead at Axtria Inc. He brings over 20 years of expertise in diverse domains, from data science, AI/Gen AI, and cloud transformation to commercial data products and ML engineering/operations. Rajesh built the first end-to-end productized implementation of a commercial data-to-insights platform for a major pharma company and scaled their DQ and business rule management solutions for sales and data science teams. He has implemented multiple large cloud-modernization programs, covering commercial data, data science platforms, and AI/ML engineering implementations.

Nathan Corder, Ph.D.

Sr. Advisor - Medical Affairs Data Sciences, Eli Lilly

Nathan has his PhD in Statistics from North Carolina State University where his research focused on the intersection of causal inference and missing data. He has served in a variety of analytics roles within pharma including regulatory, publication support, payer access, sales force effectiveness, commercial analytics, and medical affairs. He began his pharma career at Dova Pharmaceuticals (now a part of Sobi) where he supported the regulatory submissions of avatrombopag to the FDA and EMA before transitioning to the commercial team to support its launch readiness and label expansion into benign hematology. In 2021 Nathan moved to Eli Lilly where he joined the Advanced Analytics and Data Science team supporting commercial oncology products. Most recently, he has transitioned to a new role within the Medical Affairs organization and is chiefly responsible for the impact measurement environment of Medical Affairs as well as analytical R&D.

Andi Cupallari, Ph.D.

Director, Forecasting Capabilities, Merck

Andi is a seasoned Data Science and Forecasting leader currently serving as the Director of Forecasting Capabilities at Merck, where he leads the development of advanced AI-driven solutions to enable and enhance forecasting across therapeutic areas. He holds a PhD in Applied Economics, specializing in AI-based forecasting, and serves as an Adjunct Professor of Data Science at Columbia University. With several publications in high-impact, peer-reviewed journals, Andi’s expertise spans artificial intelligence, forecasting, natural language processing, and data science.

Sachit Dwivedi

Lead, Strategic Field Force Deployment and Effectiveness, Astellas Pharma

Sachit leads the Strategic Field Force Deployment and Sales Force Effectiveness department at Astellas Pharma, where he oversees essential functions such as Territory workload optimization and Alignment management, Targeting and Call Planning, Alerts and Next Best Action, and Sales Force Effectiveness across all Astellas franchises. His role involves enhancing the efficiency and impact of the sales force by leveraging data-driven strategies and optimizing field operations.

Before joining Astellas, Sachit was a Life Sciences consulting leader, guiding various pharmaceutical companies through complex sales planning initiatives. His expertise includes rolling out sophisticated solutions in areas such as Incentives, Commercial analytics, and Data Management. Sachit holds an MBA from Texas A&M University and an undergraduate degree in Engineering.

Jing Jin

Director, Data Science & AI, AstraZeneca

Jing is a seasoned commercial Data Science & AI product lead at AstraZeneca, with over 15 years of experience in lifecycle management across diverse pharmaceutical sectors. She excels in crafting and executing innovative data and analytics solutions that drive business growth, with expertise in Marketing Mix modeling, targeting and segmentation, sales force size and structure optimization, executive dashboard, forecasting, and market research.

Jing serves as the Professional Development Committee Chair at PMSA. In this capacity, she is committed to empowering and supporting the PMSA community members in driving impactful changes in pharmaceutical commercial analytics.

Julia Joseph

Data Product Owner, Merck

Julia is a Data Product Owner at Merck, where she specializes in creating analytics solutions for the rare disease space to support strategic commercial decision-making. She holds an MBA and a Masters of Science degree in Healthcare Policy, both from Cornell University.

Sathyan Kallamparambil

Senior Manager, Genpact

Sathyan Kallamparambil is a distinguished analytics professional, boasting over 18 years of experience in leading analytical services across the Pharmaceutical, Healthcare, and CPG industries. His comprehensive skill set includes business analytics, sales force effectiveness, market research, solution design, transition, operations delivery, and quality audits, all of which contribute to driving strategic growth and enhancing overall performance. He has demonstrated expertise in executing a wide array of Pharma commercial analytics projects, showcasing the ability to drive strategic decision-making and enhance business performance.

Sai Rithvik Kanakamedala

Data Scientist, Novo Nordisk

Sai Rithvik Kanakamedala is a Data Scientist at Novo Nordisk with a strong academic background and hands-on experience in advanced analytics and machine learning. He leads the development of data pipelines and predictive models to enhance HCP prioritization strategies. Sai has demonstrated expertise in deploying AutoML processes, achieving significant efficiency gains, and creating impactful machine learning models. With a Master’s in Data Science from Columbia University and a Bachelor's degree from IIT Madras, Sai Rithvik has contributed to academic research, publishing work on neural network architectures, and has experience across diverse sectors including healthcare and artificial intelligence research.

Dheeraj Kathuria

Principal Consultant, Trinity Life Sciences

I have 12+ years of Experience in Data Science & Predictive Modelling, managing team. Extensive experience working with high performance teams and delivering optimal solutions.​ I have expertise in designing innovative solution in commercial analytics across different verticals in Pharma, Auto, FMCG using Python, Py-Spark, SQL, R, ML-Ops, Machine Learning.

Devika Kaushal

Senior Data Scientist, Novo Nordisk

Devika Kaushal is an experienced Data Scientist who leads the ML based HCP Prioritization workstream at Novo Nordisk. Over the past few years, her team has built advanced solutions for informing HCP Prioritization decisions across Personal and Non-Personal targeting and frequency. She also has extensive expertise in building other critical commercial analytics solutions, employing various causation and correlation-based methodologies for campaign measurement.

Pallavi Kesarwani

Director, Axtria

Seasoned sales operations expert with 13 years of experience leading large-scale programs for Fortune 500 clients across sales force deployment strategy and operationalization, incentive management, reporting, and operational excellence. She has worked extensively with teams across the United States and India, leading traditional consulting projects as well as long-term outsourcing engagements and staff augmentation models.

Nitin Khandelwal

Director, Data Science Consulting, Tiger Analytics

Nitin brings nearly two decades of AI and analytics expertise in the pharmaceutical domain. He has led and executed numerous projects in areas such as Sales Force Effectiveness, Target Identification, HCP Engagement, HCP Compliance, Market Mix Modeling, Next Best Engagement, Forecasting, and Speaker Programs. Additionally, he has guided teams in developing patient analytics platforms. As a subject matter expert in Data Science, Nitin has spearheaded various engagements, ranging from basic machine learning models to more complex deep learning and Generative AI based models.

Sunil Kushwaha

AD, Data Scientist, Novartis

Sunil Kushwaha is an accomplished data scientist at Novartis, specializing in advanced data analytics and artificial intelligence. With a robust background in machine learning and data science, Sunil has been pivotal in developing innovative AI-driven products and solutions to enhance commercial strategies. Sunil's expertise includes predictive analytics, forecasting, deep learning, natural language processing, large language models, personalized marketing, and resource optimization, all of which have significantly contributed to improving pharmaceutical commercial and patients’ outcomes.

Shunmugam Mohan

Vice President - Operations, Bayser

Shunmugam Mohan is a Vice President with Bayser. His expertise has been in developing Portfolio/Data Strategy for Oncology and Rare Disease Markets using a myriad of data sources ranging from open/closed PLD, SP, retail pharmacy, payer, lab, NGS, EMR, health exchange, remit, hierarchy/affiliation, CMS and SDOH. He finds passion in looking out for new data sources to effectively answer business questions based on their strengths and caveats. Prior to joining Bayser, Shunmugam worked in immune system modeling where he specialized in 3D texture analysis of multiple imaging modalities during his Master’s in Electrical Engineering at the Ohio State University.

Sourabh Pandey

Director, Data Science, Gilead Sciences

A seasoned Data Science Manager with over 12 years of experience in empowering leading pharmaceutical companies to harness Strategic Advanced analytics, Data science solutions including pioneering Generative AI innovation for informed decision-making through insights derived from diverse data sources.

Srikanth Polireddy

Decision Analytics Manager, ZS

A distinguished leader and trusted advisor in management consulting, partnering with healthcare leaders across pharmaceutical commercial analytics and R&D. With over 10 years of experience in data-driven healthcare consulting, I have supported commercial decision-making in product launches, salesforce optimization, patient access support services, and R&D efficiency. I have built and led high-performing global teams to deliver successful analytics engagements for billion-dollar portfolios.

Prabhu Prakash Kagitha

Lead Data Scientist, Akaike Technologies

Developed and deployed 12+ ML & DL models for Pharma & Healthcare use cases including estimating medical events for patient cohort building and targeting physicians (which physicians, how, and why). Developed (multi-modal) LLM solutions and finetuned open-source LLMs for generating patient care insights, understanding patient care gaps, data analytics, and customer support powered by code generation and hypotheses/insights generation from LLMs or combination of it on tables, documents, and other unstructured data. Leading a team of 10+ Data scientists, Senior data scientists, and LLM engineers.

Eren Sakinc

Senior Director of Field Force Deployment, Bayer

Eren heads the Field Force Deployment function at Bayer. In his role, he leads Customer Targeting and Engagement, Sales Force Sizing and Field Deployment Strategies, Territory Alignment, Credentialing, and Roster Management. He has more than a decade of Pharma/LS experience and is widely regarded as an SME in Sales and Commercial Strategy and Analytics, with extensive experience across several therapeutic areas such as Oncology, Cardiovascular and Renal, Women’s Health Care, and Rare Diseases. He also recently served as the Chief of Staff to the Chief Operation Officer at Bayer. Prior to joining the industry, Eren was a post-doc researcher creating optimization libraries and applications for the US military and an adjunct professor teaching Engineering Economy and Meta-heuristic Optimization to undergraduate and graduate students. Eren holds a PhD in industrial & systems engineering and a master’s in financial engineering from Auburn University, Alabama (War Eagle!).

Saurabh Sarker

Director & AI/ML CoE Lead, Axtria

Saurabh heads the Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning Center of Excellence at Axtria. He has over a decade and a half of experience in the pharmaceutical and manufacturing industries. He has worked with pharma companies of all sizes and types across commercial operations, managed markets, insights and analytics, and artificial intelligence/machine learning. He has served as a trusted advisor to C-suite stakeholders, supported launches, led large-scale reorganization initiatives at a large pharma company, and served as a subject matter expert across a diverse range of engagements.

Ed Scura

Principal, Axtria

Ed is an accomplished Data and Analytics leader with over 25 years of experience across pharma, media, and consulting domains. His work at Novartis, NBC Universal, and EY (Ernst & Young) reflects a trail of success in orchestrating multimillion-dollar transformations, architecting robust data solutions, and driving digital innovation. With expertise in data lake houses, AI/ML use cases and modern analytics landscapes, Ed brings a wealth of speaking experience with over 10+ conference talks.

Mehul Shah

Executive Director, Insights & Analytics, Bausch & Lomb

Mehul is currently Insights and Analytics lead at Bausch and Lomb. Mehul is a seasoned pharmaceutical professional with more than 15 + years of experience in roles supporting Marketing, Advanced Analytics, Payer Analytics, and Sales Operations. Having contributed to successful product launches in areas like Oncology, Diabetes, Dermatology, and Ophthalmology, Mehul combines analytical expertise with strategic insight to optimize business outcomes and foster growth.

Mehul has been a Board member for Pharmaceutical Management Science Association board since 2017. He has worked with industry to organize conferences, symposiums, and contributed through presentations and posters in the decision science area. He lives with wife and 2 kids in Bridgewater, NJ. He enjoys traveling and playing tennis.

Jaan Nashin Singh

Senior Associate - Data Science and AI, Axtria

Jaan Nashin Singh has a deep understanding of the technology, telecommunications, and life sciences industries. He is an accomplished product manager with over five years of experience at highly esteemed organizations, including Axtria Inc., Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and Amdocs. This experience, along with a Master of Engineering Management from Cornell University, positions him at the dynamic crossroads of software product management, consulting, data science, and AI/ML. Jaan Nashin’s forward-thinking mindset provides invaluable insights that help him accelerate Gen AI initiatives in Axtria’s Data Science and AI center of excellence. Jaan values technical as well as business expertise while bringing a product sense to solving intricate challenges.

Mohit Singla

Head, Insights & Analytics, Takeda U.S. Oncology Business Unit

As the Head of Insights and Analytics for US Oncology at Takeda, my career is marked by a commitment to fostering data-driven decision-making in the pharmaceutical sector. Leveraging a robust foundation in business analytics and machine learning, I've become a recognized thought leader in transforming customer engagement across US and international markets.

Our team at Takeda thrives under a culture of innovation, where I apply my expertise in advanced analytics to guide executive decisions for brand planning and product launches. With a strategic focus on integrated analysis and a track record of leading high-impact analytics initiatives, I am dedicated to enhancing product performance through actionable insights.

Meghana Sundaresan

Associate Director, TRINITY

Meghana Sundaresan is an Associate Director within the Commercial Analytics group of TRINITY, based in San Francisco, CA. ​With 10 years of Experience within Commercial Analytics, where she worked with several pharma and biotech organizations to design commercial strategies for launching therapies in the market as well as repositioning existing offerings to optimize growth.

Aayush Tandon

Executive Director & Head of US Forecasting and Integrated Insights for Xolair, Novartis

Aayush Tandon is an accomplished leader with over 15 years of experience in business planning and effectiveness within the pharmaceutical industry. Currently serving as the Executive Director & Head of US Forecasting and Integrated Insights for Xolair at Novartis, Aayush oversees the US Pharma and Oncology Forecasting Center of Excellence, managing $16+ billion in annual net revenues. He has built a high-performing forecasting team and leads demand forecasting for all priority brands across the US portfolio. His accomplishments include establishing best-in-class forecasting capabilities across brands and markets, streamlining forecasting processes, and scaling the enterprise-wide solutions across brands in all Therapeutic Areas. He also has experience leading Insights and Analytics for BD&L deals to drive informed decision making with precise forecasting, HCP targeting, AI predictive modeling, CI, and insights generation. Aayush holds an Executive Program in Business & HR Management from IIT Bombay and a Bachelor's degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences from Mumbai University.

JP Tsang

President, Bayser

Jean-Patrick Tsang is the Founder and President of Bayser, a Chicago-based consulting firm dedicated to sales and marketing for pharmaceutical companies. JP is an expert in data strategy and advanced analytics. JP has published 25+ papers, given 80+ talks at conferences, and completed 250+ projects. In a previous life, JP deployed Artificial Intelligence to automate the design of payloads for satellites. JP earned a Ph.D. in Artificial Intelligence from Grenoble University, advised 2 PhD students, and earned an MBA from INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France. He was the recipient of the 2015 PMSA Lifetime Achievement Award.

Sami Ullah

Associate Director, Tiger Analytics

Sami brings extensive expertise in Big Data Engineering, Data Modeling, and Multi-Tenant Data Architecture across diverse cloud platforms. Throughout his career, he has partnered with both business and technology teams to build enterprise-wide data and analytics platforms, with a strong focus on the Pharma and Life Sciences sectors.

Over the past decade, he has designed, developed, and delivered innovative data, analytics and advanced reporting systems. His deep understanding of data architecture, cloud technologies, and design principles has been instrumental in creating sophisticated, tailored data products that meet the demands of complex and highly regulated industries.

Nathan Wang

Director, Global Oncology Forecasting, Johnson & Johnson

Nathan Wang is the Director of Global Oncology Forecasting at Johnson & Johnson, with over 20 years of experience in pharmaceutical commercial insights and analytics. His expertise spans advanced analytics, market research, forecasting, competitive intelligence, and data management. Nathan has held both U.S. and global roles, with extensive experience across the entire product lifecycle.

Maharshi Yeluri

Lead Data Scientist, Akaike Technologies

Maharshi is a Lead Data Scientist with extensive experience in AI and ML, currently leading a team of over 10 LLM engineers and data scientists. Since April 2024, they have been driving innovation in GenAI solutions for the pharmaceutical industry, working closely with client stakeholders to integrate AI into sales and targeting workflows. Their expertise spans building personalized physician profiles using structured and unstructured data, developing high-fidelity pharma copilots, and creating GenAI infrastructure for unstructured data solutions.

In previous roles as Lead Data Scientist (2022-2024) and Senior Data Scientist (2021-2022), they spearheaded several R&D projects in pharma, including AutoML platform development, explainable AI for EHR patient journeys, and large-scale model deployments. Their contributions have been instrumental in increasing market share for key drugs and optimizing physician engagement strategies.

Nuray Yurt

Business Engagement and Activation Lead, Merck

Nuray Yurt, PhD is currently Business Engagement and Activation Lead for Merck Human health. Previously, as a data science expert, she led several teams in the areas of data science, business analysis, and market research within Novartis Oncology US Organization. She also worked with other small bio-techs in the areas of commercial and medical planning.

Nuray is Vice President for Pharmaceutical Management Science Association board since 2013. She has worked with the industry industry to organize conferences, symposiums, and published journals.

She is also a board member for Peace Islands Institute where she partners with interfaith organizations to improve local peace within the NJ community. Nuray has Ph.D. in econometrics. She lives with her husband and 3 kids in Cedar Grove, NJ . She enjoys traveling and learning new languages.

Mengyao (Vivian) Zheng

Data Scientist, Novo Nordisk

Mengyao Zheng is a data scientist in Enterprise Data & Advanced Analytics at Novo Nordisk. She holds a Master of Science degree in Biostatistics from Harvard University. Her interests include causal inference methodologies and privacy-preserving machine learning in healthcare. Mengyao aims to integrate statistical analysis with innovative data solutions to support advancements in healthcare analytics.