Chrissie Fletcher, PSI Chair

Chrissie is passionate about her profession as a statistician and the significant value statistics has in development and commercialisation of new medicines in the Pharmaceutical Industry.

Chrissie is the VP of Development Biostatistics at GSK and previously held various roles in the Biostatistics at Amgen and SmithKline Beecham.

For nearly 30 years, she has supported a wide range of associations where she is widely recognised for her expertise and leadership in shaping her profession and broader industry initiatives. PSI was the first association Chrissie joined back in 1991 and she has supported ITIT/Training, Scientific, Treasurer and Regulatory activities. Chrissie has also supported a variety of SIG’s, including the HTA SIG, for the last ten years. She was awarded an Honorary Membership in 2019 for her services to PSI.

Lucy Rowell, Vice Chair and Secretary

Lucy has been engaged in the PSI Scientific Committee for more than 8 years. She was the Conference Chair (2017 & 2018) and has sat on the Board since July 2016. She is driven by advancing the role of statisticians within healthcare and breaking down perceptions of what a “statistician” is. 

Lucy  is the Group Head for Affiliate Partnerships, within the Personalised Healthcare Data Science team at Roche with over 16 years industry experience and was the PSI Chair from 4th July 2019 to June 2021. Lucy has worked as a clinical statistician across early and late stage and many therapeutic areas, performing varying roles. She spent 3.5 years being a Global Development Team Leader, leading a cross functional team (clinical science, regulatory, statistics, operations, safety, clin pharm ….)  to deliver complex development programs and has spent a year rotation as a medical manager/commercial brand manager in the Roche UK Affiliate.

Outside work Lucy loves doing anything adventurous, traveling the world and going to see live bands. To relax she likes to read, meditate and is experimenting with being a vegan (since Jan 2019).

Connect via LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-rowell-90670273/

Kimberley Hacquoil, Careers Director

Kim has over 15 years’ of experience in the pharmaceutical industry working as a statistician. She has worked in a number of different therapeutic areas, mainly in early development. She has championed new approaches to decision making in clinical development through initiatives developing and promoting innovative/novel designs, and statistical methodology including futility and predictive inference, prior elicitation, assurance and quantitative decision making. She has also worked in strategy and portfolio management as a Statistics & Mathematical Modelling Director. Kim has recently taken on a new role as the Chief Data Scientific Officer at Exploristics.

Kim has been an active member of PSI for many years and has previously been part of the New Starters SIG and the Careers and Academic Liaison Committee (CALC).

Kim received her BSc in Mathematics from Bath University and MPhil in Statistical Sciences from Cambridge University.

Aiden Flynn, Commercial Director

Dr Aiden Flynn has over 25 years’ experience in drug discovery and clinical development, with ten years at GlaxoSmithKline as a Director of Statistical Support for Biomarker Studies across R&D.  There he was responsible for developing and implementing the company’s Pharmacogenetics strategy enabling the use of genetics data in clinical studies.  This involved the development and integration of new analysis tools and methods, data standards, processes and training.  Aiden has in-depth experience in developing computer simulation tools for the design and analysis of complex trials and has worked closely with the FDA and EMA to develop tools and guidelines that support the use of biomarkers in clinical studies. 

In 2009, he set up Exploristics, a privately owned, commercial company providing statistical products and services in support of clinical trial design and analysis.  Since it was founded, Aiden has overseen the consistent growth in the company.

Stephen Jones, Communications Committee and External Affairs (and EFSPI) Chair 

Stephen has been a PSI member since 1988, when he joined the Pharmaceutical Industry as a Statistician after graduating with an Msc in Biometry. His current interests fall more under data science and using his statistical knowledge to guide predictive modelling for investigator site and overall study performance.

Stephen has been involved with the running of PSI ever since in many roles, including Scientific Committee Chair, Conference Chair, SPIN Editor and most recently, External Affairs.

Stephen is passionate about promoting the importance of data and the correct use of statistics in decision making but in a way that is not off-putting to those who claim not to understand (something he refers to as ‘statistics by stealth’).

Rachael Lawrance, Events Director

Rachael  is a Principal Statistician at Adelphi Values Patient Centered Outcomes team, focused on the analysis and interpretation of PRO data, particularly in the context of clinical trials (3-days a week). She also occasionally works part-time as a freelance statistical consultant, with a focus on statistical work for small healthcare companies. Rachael previously worked at AstraZeneca for sixteen years; most recently as a lead project statistician in oncology projects, including those with companion-diagnostics. Rachael has a slightly unusual career route to becoming a statistician in the pharmaceutical industry, as she has a BSc Biochemistry and Genetics - she started at AZ as a molecular geneticist -- but has gradually been drawn into the world of statistics and enjoys the application of statistics in practice. 

After leaving AZ Rachael was keen to stay connected to Pharma Statisticians and therefore joined the PSI Scientific Committee member in 2016. Rachael enjoys organising events and has been co-organising one-day meetings, webinars & PSI conferences and joined the PSI Board as scientific chair in June 2019.

Rachael loves the outdoors and is a keen fell runner and is also slightly infamous for completing long races (marathon distance and beyond). She has two boys who are currently at primary school so family life keeps her busy too!

Connect via LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachaellawrance/ 

Kate Tsirtsonis, Membership Chair

Kate has over 15 years of experience in the Pharmaceutical Industry, working as a Statistician and a Statistical Programmer across early and late stage therapeutic areas, performing varying roles. She is currently European Statistical Lead for General Medicine within Amgen.

Before joining the Pharmaceutical Industry, Kate obtained a Bsc in Maths with Actuarial Studies and an Msc in Medical Statistics from the University of Southampton.

Kate has been involved in PSI for many years but is now enjoying taking an active part in the PSI Membership Committee, focusing on widening out the PSI community.

Outside of work, Kate is a keen, yet distinctly average, runner. She also has two active young boys, so family life keeps her very busy.

Adam Crisp, Special Interest Group (SIG) Director

Adam is Head of Infectious Disease Statistics at GSK with 25 years’ industry experience across all phases of drug development and multiple therapeutic areas. Educated and based in the UK, Adam has extensive experience in the design and conduct of cardiovascular outcomes trials and in working with the associated external groups. Adam is a member of GSK’s “Global Safety Board” and is a GSK Senior Fellow. Adam has previously served on the PSI Scientific Committee and joined the Board in December 2019.

Adam has a range of statistical interests, with recent publications on topics such as use of assurance to support decision making in drug development, the changing landscape of Data Monitoring Committees and a wide-ranging overview of blinding in clinical trials; recent external presentations have included contributions as a keynote speaker at the Indian Association for Statisticians in Clinical Trials 2018 conference (on Go/No-go criteria), as panellist at the 2017 ISBS Conference session “Data Monitoring Committees – Scope, Expectations and Challenges” and as speaker at the 2016 ASA Biopharmaceutical Workshop on “Futility assessments in late-phase drug development: a novel two-stage outcomes trial in Acute Coronary Syndrome”.

Adam received his PhD in Statistics from University College London and has a Diploma in Mathematical Statistics from Cambridge University.

Markus Elze, Contracts and Finance Director

Markus Elze is Biostatistician at Roche with a focus on late stage Oncology, based in Basel. He works mainly in cancer immunotherapy, including some early phase and paediatric trials, as well as in biomarker work. His interests include computational tools (especially R for the generation of valid outputs), decision-making in early phase settings and paediatric studies.

Markus has been an active member of PSI for several years, including presentations at the conference and membership in the PSI AIMS SIG. He is an active member of RSS and was also a Young Statisticians Section Committee member in 2016.

Markus obtained his PhD in Statistics from the University of Warwick with a thesis on joint modelling of time-to-event and longitudinal processes and did a PostDoc at The London School of Tropical Medicine.  

Markus’ hobbies include technology, space, travelling and food.