Hematology

Maria Ignacia Berraondo, MD, is Senior Medical Director of oncology for Fortrea, based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Dr. Berraondo has 10 years of experience in oncology clinical drug development, providing clinical and medical expertise to project teams and other Fortrea departments to advance clients’ drug development programs and contributing to the planning and execution of the scientific strategic leadership of the Oncology therapeutic area. 

Dr. Berraondo earned her medical degree from Universidad del Salvador, Argentina and is a board certified hematologist. She completed her Hematologic residency at Hospital Teodoro Alvarez, Buenos Aires Argentina and Sociedad Argentina de Hematologia. She joined our company in July 2020.

Martine Poelman, MD, is an Executive Medical Director, Oncology, for Fortrea, based in Brussels, Belgium. She provides medical and scientific support to help advance drug development in hematological malignancies for Fortrea clients. Dr. Poelman brings more than 30 years of experience in clinical research and development as a physician and medical director, specializing in pediatrics and oncology, to Fortrea. Before assuming her current position, she served more than 15 years as Global Head of Oncology Research for Fortrea, providing medical monitoring for more than 200 clinical trials. Before joining Fortrea, she served as Clinical Research Physician, Hemato-Oncology-Infectiology, for Eli Lilly in Brussels. Before going into research, she served as Bone Marrow Transplantation and Hemato-Oncology Physician for the Department of Pediatric Oncology, Wilhelmina Children’s Hospital, in The Netherlands. Martine joined our company in November 1996.

Brian Hamilton, MD, PhD, is Senior Medical Director for Fortrea, based in Newton, Massachusetts. He serves as Fortrea Subject Matter Expert for cellular immune-oncology, CAR-T and gene therapy. He also serves as global lead project physician on clients’ drug development projects. Dr. Hamilton has more than 35 years of experience in pediatric medicine, immunology, hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, and clinical research and development. Before joining Fortrea, he served as Executive Medical Monitor for Chiltern International. He has also held senior-level medical director, director physician, regulatory affairs and clinical research positions with Galena Biopharma, AstraZeneca, Onyx Pharmaceuticals, Wyeth Oncology, and other pharmaceutical and biotech firms. Dr. Hamilton joined our company in August 2018.

Carlo Lanza, MD, PhD, is Executive Medical Officer for Fortrea, based in Lugano, Switzerland. Dr. Lanza performs medical monitoring and safety assessments on Phase I-IV clinical trials for Fortrea clients. He leads early phase and translational research early development programs with targeted therapies, small molecules, biologics and gene therapy. Dr. Lanza also oversees development of late-stage development strategies, delivery and approval of registrational programs. He brings more than 20 years of experience in clinical research and development as a physician and medical director, specializing in pediatrics and oncology. 

Before joining Fortrea, he served as Medical Director for Medicines for Malaria Venture in Geneva, Switzerland. Dr. Lanza has also held leadership positions with Novartis Oncology, Pfizer Global R&D, and AstraZeneca UK. Carlo joined our company in 2012.

Carmen Besliu, MD, is Senior Medical Director in Bucharest, Romania. She serves as global lead project physician on clients’ drug development projects and provides medical/scientific expertise to project teams. Dr. Besliu reviews medical data and other materials, is responsible for medical and safety monitoring, and provides training in disease states and protocol-specific requirements to advance knowledge of good clinical practices across the company. She has more than 25 years of experience as a physician, research clinician, medical affairs head, and medical director. Before joining Fortrea, she was Oncology Medical Affairs Head for Novartis Pharma Services in Bucharest. She also has held medical affairs and clinical research positions with Baxter Healthcare, Sandoz, Roche, and AstraZeneca. Carmen joined our company in February 2021.

Gong Qing, MD, is Associate Medical Director for Fortrea Clinical Development Services, based in Shanghai, China. She has over 16 years of academia and clinical practice experience and more than 4 years of early and late clinical development research experience covering oncology and other therapeutic area. Her industry experience includes global trials in solid tumors, including breast cancer, NSCLC, pancreatic cancer etc., for products including biologics, targeted therapy and chemotherapy. Dr. Gong served as Associate Chief Physician before joining in industry and held medical responsibility in Pharma since 2018. She joined our company in March 2020.

José Espinoza, MD, is a Senior Medical Director, Therapeutic Area/Oncology at Fortrea, based in Madrid, Spain. Dr. Espinoza has over 20 years of experience in drug development, which includes enrolling patients into cancer trials, helping design and executing studies, medical monitoring and data analysis of global trials, interfacing with regulatory bodies, and working with biotech and pharmaceutical companies to refine drug development strategies. 

As a European board-certified onco-hematologist, Dr. Espinoza holds a double specialization: Clinical Oncology (1992-97) and Clinical Hematology & Bone Marrow Transplantation (1997-2001), and has more than 20 years of clinical experience as Consultant Onco-Hematologist at public hospitals in Spain and Ireland. Dr. Espinoza joined in our company in October 2021.

Kamal Saini, MD, executive medical director at Fortrea Inc., is a board-certified medical oncologist based in Cambridge, United Kingdom, where he also practices part-time at the Addenbrooke’s (Cambridge University) Hospital. He contributes to the scientific strategic leadership of the oncology therapeutic area at Fortrea and provides clinical and medical expertise to project teams and other Fortrea departments on clients’ drug development projects. He liaises with key opinion leaders and academic cooperative groups with regard to the design, setup, and execution of cancer trials, especially in the breast cancer subdomain. He manages a team of high-performing medical monitors who are a part of the European oncology team. He leads the Precision Medicine and Emerging Therapies Leadership Center at Fortrea, and is also our global Scientific Publications Lead (Oncology). He brings more than 15 years of experience in clinical research and development to Fortrea. He is the author or co-author of several peer-reviewed journal articles. He joined our company in 2015.

Kazuya Iwamoto, MD, PhD, MBA, FACP, is Senior Medical Director for Fortrea in Osaka, Japan. He provides medical and scientific expertise to oncology study teams on clients’ drug development projects and contributes to the development of medical strategies and execution of clinical trials. Dr. Iwamoto has more than 25 years of experience as a physician, research clinician and medical director. 

Before joining Fortrea, he was Head of the Medical Division, including Clinical Development and Medical Affairs, for Hospira Japan in Osaka. He previously served as Head of the Medical Division for Biogen Idec, Head of Medical Affairs for Bayer Yakuhin, and Clinical Research Physician for Eli Lilly in Japan. Currently President and Fellow of the Japanese Association of Pharmaceutical Medicine, Dr. Iwamoto joined our company in May 2016.

Liang Wan, MD, PhD, is a Medical Director for Fortrea in Shanghai, China. He serves as lead project physician on clients’ drug development projects, provides medical/scientific expertise to project teams, reviews protocols and medical data, and is responsible for medical and safety monitoring on assigned projects. 

Dr. Wan has more than 25 years of experience as a physician, research clinician and medical director with therapeutic experience in oncology, gastroenterology, and hematology. Before joining Fortrea, he was Medical Director for IQVIA in Shanghai, serving as Global or Regional Medical Advisor on assigned projects. He began his career as a surgeon and clinical investigator at Shanghai Jiao Tong University Rui Jin Hospital. Dr. Wan joined our company in May 2019.

Liliana Baila, MD, is Senior Medical Director for Fortrea, based in Brussels, Belgium. She serves as lead project physician on clients’ drug development projects. Dr. Baila provides medical/scientific support to project teams, performs medical and safety monitoring on assigned projects, and develops and reviews protocols, case report forms and other data and materials. Dr. Baila has more than 25 years of experience as a physician, research clinician and medical director. Before joining Fortrea, she served as Clinical Research Physician for the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) in Brussels. Dr. Baila began her career as a physician training in neonatology and pediatrics at University Hospital in Romania. She joined our company in June 2020.

María Elvira Parellada, MD, is part of the Oncology Medical Directors at Fortrea, based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Dr. Parellada joined us in 2021. Her area of expertise is the Medical Monitoring of Onco-Hematology trials, through Phase I to III with special focus on Cell and Gene Therapy and small molecules, and their development through early phase trials. Previously, Dr. Parellada served as an investigator in multiple clinical trials related to the area of Onco-Hematology; and served as an MSL in large pharmaceutical companies. 

Dr. Parellada earned her medical degree from the National University of Tucuman (Tucumán, Argentina) and completed her Hematology residency at the Hospital Ramos Mejía and at the Argentinian Society of Hematology (Buenos Aires, Argentina).

Maria Paula Ghirardi, MD, is Medical Director of Oncology for Fortrea Clinical Development Services, based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Dr. Ghirardi has 6 years of Oncology clinical research experience in both pharmaceutical and CRO industry. She provides clinical and medical expertise to project team and other Fortrea departments to advance clients’ drug development programs and contributes to the scientific strategic leadership of the Oncology therapeutic area. She has experience leading important launches of hematology-oncology compounds for multiple myeloma, AL amyloidosis, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and chronic lymphocytic leukemia. 

Dr. Ghirardi earned her medical degree from the University of Buenos Aires and completed her internal medicine residency at the Hospital Ramos Mejia in Buenos Aires and Hematology residency at the Hospital de Clinicas in Buenos Aires and Sociedad Argentina de Hematologia. She joined our company in October 2022.

Moez Benali, MD, PhD, Senior Medical Director at Fortrea, also member of our global medical team, holds a medical degree and board certification in oncology supported by a PhD in molecular biology and anti-cancer drug development. He has over 22 years of overall working experience, 17 of which have been within the pharmaceutical industry (J&J, GSK, BMS, SOBI and Novartis Oncology) across Europe. As a well-rounded medical affairs and clinical development strategist, he has led activities across the life cycle drug development, and registered and launched 11 drugs at EMA, nine of them being the standard of care. 

Dr. Benali is a member of several cooperative groups such as ELN, EORTC and EBMT and head of Oncologues Sans Frontières. He joined our company in October 2022.

Patrícia Andrade Brandalise, MD, is a boarded clinical oncologist in Brazil since 2005. Dr. Brandalise earned her MD and MsC degrees at Campinas State University (UNICAMP), Brazil, and received her oncology qualifications in the Campinas Institute of Oncology. She is an active member of the Brazilian Society of Oncology. 

Dr. Brandalise has more than 18 years of experience in clinical oncology with clinical, investigational and administrative responsibilities and 15 years serving in pharmaceutical industry. Prior to joining Fortrea, Patrícia worked for Janssen and Abbvie as Medical Director for Latin America in the Hematology and Oncology Business Unit. She also served as Oncology Medical Leader for Roche Brazil implementing several compassionate use programs in Latin America, preparing and delivering launches for new molecules/indications. She also has been designing and implementing Phase I-II-III-IV trials in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, México, Peru, Argentina, Puerto Rico, Korea and Australia, many as lead physician.

Suning Qian, MD, has eight years of pharmaceutical experience in oncology area and has built strong relationships with external research groups and Key Opinion Leaders. She has medical monitoring experience in all phases of oncology trials, focused on planning and execution of oncology clinical development projects. Dr. Qian earned her medical degree from Peking Union Medical College, Tsinghua University, and completed her internal medicine residency and fellowship training at Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital. She joined our company in July 2021.

Valery Chatikine, MD, PhD, is a medical oncologist, board certified by University of Paris XI and Cancer Research Center of the Russian Academy Medical Science, with more than 10 years medical oncology clinical practice. He is experienced in oncology drug development Phase I-III studies for multiple solid tumors and selected hematologic malignancies with small, large molecules (Immuno-Oncology), ADCs, T cells and NK cells in solid tumors, glioblastoma and lymphoma with FDA and EMA relevant IND/NDAs/BLA submission and approval involvement. Dr. Chatikine is well published with more than 40 publications in peer-reviewed journals (Journal of Clinical Oncology, American Journal of Clinical Oncology, European Journal of Clinical Oncology and Cancer Letters). He is an active member of American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and Society for Neuro-Oncology (SNO). He joined our company in April 2022.

Victor Angélico, MD, is a Senior Medical Director for Fortrea, based in Paris, France. He provides clinical and medical expertise to project teams and other Fortrea departments to advance clients’ drug development programs. Dr. Angélico performs medical monitoring on assigned projects; reviews protocols, case report forms and other data and materials, and contributes to the scientific leadership of the Oncology area at Fortrea with a special focus in early phase clinical studies and hematological malignancies. 

Dr. Angélico is board-certified in Internal Medicine and Oncology with 16 years in the clinic and has significant medical and pharmaceutical expertise with 14 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry. Before his current position, he served as Senior Medical Officer for Chiltern, France and as Medical Director at IQVIA France. Dr. Angelico joined our company in January 2019.

Xiaoling Li, MD, is the senior medical manager, oncology for Fortrea, based in Wuhan, China. Xiaoling has more than 15 years of experiences in industry, including hospital, pharmaceutical companies and CRO, focused on providing drug development expertise to the medical strategy and execution of the programs, performing medical and safety monitoring on the projects. Xiaoling earned her master degree of Hematology from Tongji Medical College of Huazhong University of Science & Technology in 2008. She joined our company in Jan 2021.

As a member of our global team of Medical Monitors, Dr. Yi Pi has significant medical and pharmaceutical expertise with more than 15 years in the industry and academia. He was certificated for specialized clinical practice in Cardiac Surgery and internal Medicine of Cardiology and had performed as the Principal Investigator and Medical Monitor, fully engaged in both designing and implementing clinical research in China National Center for Cardiovascular Diseases, Fuwai hospital and Duke Clinical Research Institute. 

After joining our company in 2021, Dr. Pi has been working as lead/regional physician on multiply early phase studies, as well as confirmatory trials in treatment areas including Oncology, as well as Cardiology, Endocrinology, Respirology, Neurology, Dermatology and Rare Diseases. Dr. Pi earned his medical degree from Xiangya School of Medicine and Master of Health Science degree from Duke University School of Medicine.

Chunyan Li, MD, is an associate medical director of oncology for Fortrea, based in China, Shanghai. Dr. Li has solid background and experience in Oncology, she is a board certified oncologist and has 7 years of clinical experience in Shanghai's top hospitals and has served as medical monitor in CROs since 2018 for studies that include solid tumors (non-small cell lung cancer, small cell lung cancer, hepatocellular carcinoma, gastrointestinal stromal tumor, colon cancer, head and neck squamous cell carcinoma) as well as lymphomas (classical Hodgkin’s lymphoma, mantle cell lymphoma, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma). 

Dr. Li received her bachelor degree of clinical medicine from Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine and master degree in oncology from Tongji University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine. She completed the standardized training for residents and standardized training for oncology specialist in Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center and Shanghai 10th People’s Hospital. She joined our company in May 2021.