Bureau and Executive

The Bureau and Executive of EIPG

The following are the biographies of the current members of the Bureau and Executive of the European Industrial Pharmacists Group.

Piero Iamartino
President
Piero Iamartino graduated in Chemical and Pharmaceutical Technology in 1976 at Pavia University (Italy). He spent all his professional career in the pharmaceutical industry and is now a consultant after retirement. He began his professional experience in pharmaceutical dosage forms and process development working for over 10 years with multinational companies (Roche, Boehringer Ingelheim, Recordati). Afterwards, he covered the QP position of an Italian production unit of Sanofi and within the Sanofi group he moved to the API manufacturing site in Italy achieving the position of Plant Manager. He extended his experience in the API area taking responsibility for another important manufacturing plant in Italy (Olon). After spending 15 years in the API area, he joined Micromacinazione SA, as Business Development Manager and then R&D Director, taking care of new development projects in API micronization. He is a member of the board of A.F.I. (Associazione Farmaceutici Industria), the Italian leading organization of professionals operating in pharmaceutical industries in Italy. He is a co-author of a few scientific papers about pharmaceutical development and API manufacture and five patents about technological applications. Before becoming President, he served as Vice-President of Technical and Professional Development from 2006 to 2022.

Jane Nicholson
Executive Director
Jane Nicholson is a Chelsea pharmacy graduate, with experience in formulation development at Beecham Research Laboratories and in regulatory affairs, both as Regulatory Affairs Manager at Bristol-Myers Squibb and as a member of the UK MHRA’s Ministerial Advisory Board. She is the past President of both IPSF (International Pharmaceutical Students Federation) and the Industrial Pharmacists Section, Vice-President of the Fédération Internationale Pharmaceutique and, until 2007, also the President of the European Industrial Pharmacists Group. She is currently a member of the British Industrial Pharmacists’ Group Committee, and a designated Fellow of both the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and The Organisation for Professionals in Regulatory Affairs.

Rebecca Stanbrook
Vice-President Technical and Professional Development
Rebecca is a member of the Industrial Pharmacy Advisory Group of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and was a member of the inaugural Credentialling Panel at the Faculty of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society. Currently Rebecca works as Executive Director, Regulatory and Development Policy in the Regulatory Affairs Group of Novartis Pharma AG. In this role Rebecca supports innovation at Novartis to ensure congruency with legislation and has an outward focus. Her main area of specialisation is Clinical Trials. She is the EFPIA Topic Lead for ICH E6 R3 and holds various roles on the TransCelerate Regulatory Council. She has been based at the Basel Headquarters since May 2014. Prior to joining Novartis, Rebecca was Group Manager, Inspections (GLP/GCP/PV) at the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). Since she joined the Agency in 2003, Rebecca held a number of positions within the fields of GCP and Pharmacovigilance. She helped shape the GCP and Pharmacovigilance statutory programmes in their early stages and was a member of one of the teams conducting the first statutory GCP inspections in the UK. Rebecca’s group at the Agency wrote the Good Clinical Practice Guide and the Good Pharmacovigilance Guide. Prior to joining the Agency, Rebecca worked at a number of pharmaceutical companies in various roles across all aspects of the industry. To date she has over 30 years’ experience in the industry or as a regulator. Rebecca is very excited to join the EIPG Bureau as she has a great interest in the furthering of the profession in the industry.

Astrid Thorissen
Vice-President Education and Careers
Astrid Thorissen has obtained her Master’s degree at Utrecht University, while her Master’s thesis research on gram negative multidrug resistant bacteria was performed at Monash University in Melbourne. After graduating Astrid started her career at Fagron BV, a global compounding industry provider. She then pursued her career as a Medical Science Liaison at Bayer, focusing on cardiovascular diseases. Afterwards she has made the step to logistics and she’s now managing the Global Healthcare Quality department at Yusen Logistics where she makes sure the GDP network is expanding and also increases the company’s expertise in other healthcare related quality standards like GMP, ISO13485 and GAMP5. Next to that she is implementing several value adding projects, like an EQMS, lane validation, computer systems validation and serialization. Her experience as an Industrial Pharmacist is highly valuable in GDP logistics, a rapidly changing environment that requires more security and safety than ever before. Next to her professional career she has been active in ‘Young NIA’ network in the Netherlands and has been a Dutch Delegate for EIPG since 2018.

Anni Svala
Vice-President European Affairs
Anni Svala is an experienced industrial pharmacist with wide-ranging experience in the pharmaceutical sector, having worked in areas like regulatory affairs, compliance, quality assurance, and pharmacovigilance. She is committed pharma professional with a quality & business orientated mindset and positive attitude. At the moments she works as a Quality director and responsible pharmacist at Tamro Oyj. and is an executive board member. Anni is also interested in strategic foresight, stakeholder engagement and public affairs. Anni is known for her motivation for leading and managing teams, guiding them through complex projects and challenges. She has also spent several years as a Bureau member of the European Industrial Pharmacists Group (EIPG), where she previously played a key role in supporting and promoting the work of industrial pharmacists among students. Anni Svala has obtained her Master`s degree at University of Helsinki and has actively been developing her skills and knowledge thereafter. in 2023 she finalised her specialization studies for Industrial pharmacy. Anni promotes actively the role of industrial pharmacist and is willing to find new roles where industrial pharmacists could contribute. If you are willing to hear more or start a collaborative project with her, do not hesitate to reach out.

Giorgos Panoutsopoulos
Vice-President Communications
Giorgos Panoutsopoulos is an industrial Pharmacist with over 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical sector. He holds a degree in Pharmacy and a MSc in Pharmacognosy and Chemistry of Natural Products from the University of Athens, where he worked for several years as a Research Scientist in extraction, isolation, and identification of secondary metabolites from endemic medicinal and aromatic plants. He then moved to the corporate pharmaceutical sector starting a career in registration procedures for pharmaceuticals, food supplements and nutraceuticals extending his involvement also to Quality Assurance and ISO 9001:2008 roles. He then joined Regulatory Affairs and Pharacovigilance field where he gathered intelligence and expertise to expand his role as a corporate liaison with the competent authorities and the wider pharmaceutical public sector. Now he is a senior pharmaceutical affairs executive with expertise to market access activities and involvement to product launches into the market. He is also a long and active member of the Panhellenic Association of Pharmacists serving as the national delegate in EIPG for several years and since 2017 he holds the post of the Vice President Communications within the bureau of EIPG.

Maurizio Battistini
Treasurer
Maurizio Battistini graduated in Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Technologies in 1991 from the Università degli Studi of Milan, and in Pharmacy in 1995 from the same institution. He subsequently obtained a degree as a Quality System Manager from the Swiss Association for Quality in 2002. He is the Managing Director and Qualified Person in a Swiss pharmaceutical company manufacturing parenteral medicinal products, and has been employed in a number of companies, including Abraxis Bioscience, Zambon, Bracco and Indena, in different roles throughout his career. Since 2000, he is a member of the Council of the Pharmaceutical Association in Ticino-Switzerland (AFTI), in particular Vice-President from 2006 to 2015, and more recently the Delegate for External Relations. In 2004, he was added to the Register of Technical Consultations of the Judge at the Varese court, as an expert in industrial and pharmaceutical chemistry. In 2008, he was approved as a Qualified Person by the Italian Medicines Agency (AIFA) and inserted in the European register of Qualified Persons. He is also enrolled as an expert in several chemical product categories at the Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Craftsmanship. He also cooperates with the Professional University of Italian Switzerland (SUPSI), as an international lecturer in the Masters in Advanced Study in Sustainable Pharmaceutical Operations & Engineering, and with the Universities of Parma, Pavia and Perugia, for which he teaches courses at the Master in Pharmaceutical Technologies and Regulatory Activities.