Leaders in innovation

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.

Publications

• The Evolving Landscape in Multiple Myeloma: From Risk Stratification to T Cell-Directed Advanced Therapies
• Mechanisms of immune modulation in the tumor microenvironment and implications for targeted therapy

Isabella Presch, MD, MBA, is a Senior Medical Director. She is a certified pediatric surgeon with more than 10 years of clinical experience across therapeutic areas in academia as well as private and public hospitals. Her pharmaceutical industry experience spans over 20 years across several indication, incl a focus on hematologic rare diseases across Phase I–IV.

Dr. Presch has broad experience in global clinical development developing and overseeing product developments collaborating with internal and external stakeholders, including the FDA, PMDA, EMA, PEI and reimbursement agencies. She also has supported global and local medical affairs leading launches of disruptive treatments in rare hematologic diseases and immunology and has significant experience in supporting due diligences.

Dr. Presch is a strategic, cross-functional global leader supporting rare disease, advanced therapies and pediatric clinical development activities across several therapeutic areas. She was recognized in 2022 with the prestigious Labcorp Chairman´s Award for her outstanding contributions.

Sonia Preston is a Senior Director in Strategic Delivery & Growth for Infectious Diseases and Critical Care and is based near Salt Lake City, Utah. Sonia has more than 25 years of clinical research experience including working as a study coordinator for the VA and in a university setting, in major pharma and for the CRO industry in senior positions of leadership in both project management and strategy. Her therapeutic focus within the last five years has been in infectious and immunological diseases, multiple therapeutic areas of rare diseases, renal, cardiovascular, and pulmonary indications. She has been in drug development in Phases I-IV with expertise in pediatric studies and hybrid study designs. 

Sonia is a certified Green Belt in Six Sigma and has been certified as a Project Management Professional (PMP) since 2003 and remains an active member of the Project Management Institute. She earned her master’s degree in operational management from the University of Washington. She joined our company in 2006.

Mala Puri, MD, is a Board-Certified Pediatric Endocrinologist and Senior Medical Director focused in the Cardiovascular, Metabolic, Endocrine and Renal therapeutic areas at Fortrea. Dr. Puri completed her residency training and fellowship in Pediatric Endocrinology at the Children's Hospital at Montefiore, New York and has over 20 years of combined clinical and research work in academia and industry including significant experience in global pediatric and rare disease studies.

Dr. Anna-Karina (Karina) Putineanu, MD, is a Senior Medical Director for Infectious Diseases and Critical Care and is based in Brussels, Belgium. Dr. Putineanu has more than 27 years of experience as an MD, with senior and extensive global pharmaceutical experience, in the medical, clinical, development and leadership fields. Her experience includes medical and operational leadership of multiple Phase I to IV clinical research programs in a multitude of indications, including pediatric, complex, and rare diseases as well as the development of both therapeutic (drugs and biologics) and vaccine products. Her therapeutic areas of interest and expertise include infectious diseases, immune-inflammation, vaccines, respiratory, non-malignant hematology and rare diseases. 

Dr. Putineanu has a strong record of team leadership at the global level, having built and led teams in Europe, U.S. and Asia. Besides the industry/CRO expertise, Dr. Putineanu collaborates with the European Commission in the evaluation of healthcare/medical projects. 

Dr. Putineanu earned her medical degree from Carol Davila University of Medicine & Pharmacy, Bucharest, Romania. Dr. Putineanu joined our company in 2017.

María García Requesens, MD, is a Medical Director at Fortrea based in Madrid, Spain. Dr. García has 5 years of experience in oncology clinical drug development clinical trials in pharma and CROs. She focuses on medical support of global oncology clinical trials for solid tumors. Dr. García earned her medical degree from Universidad Europea in Madrid. She also holds a Nursing Degree and is very patient-oriented, believing in the power of cross-functional communication. She joined Fortrea (formerly Labcorp) in January 2020.

Tanya has over 28 years of experience with Fortrea (formerly Labcorp, Covance and Chiltern), including monitoring, global project management, delivery director oversight and strategic planning and growth. Her clinical research experience includes a broad range of therapeutic experience with over 18 years in ophthalmology. Tanya’s ocular experience covers front and back of the eye indications, inherited retinal and ocular rare diseases across phase I-IV and medical device studies as well as ocular cell and gene therapies.

Her extensive delivery background, coupled with her ocular experience supports both internal and external stakeholders in the strategic development of a reduced burden approach, as well as an efficient and successfully executed ocular trial.

Tanya is passionate about ensuring the priorities of a clinical trial are 1) to reduce the burden across all stakeholders 2) a realistic, common-sense approach and 3) at the end of the day, we all do what we do for the patients.

Tanya is based in the US.

Dana Romano, MD, is a Senior Medical Director at Fortrea. In this position, she has the responsibility of leading the medical team working on global respiratory Phase I, II, III and IV studies, ensuring the Execution of the projects and direct communication with sponsors, including Medical Monitoring to support to Clinical Operations and Pharmacovigilance and ensure the development of compelling medical strategies and integrated solutions to meet sponsors’ needs. 

Dana started her pharmaceutical career as a Principal Investigator conducting Phase IV studies at her GP practice and Phase I and II studies at Richmond Pharmacology (Croydon University Hospital, UK), before moving to the Clinical Research Physician and Medical Monitor roles at Wyeth and Pfizer UK. 

Dana is board-certified in Family Medicine and has strong medical expertise gained through 11 years of clinical practice experience in Romania and the UK. She worked as a GP for 7 years at her own practice and with the largest private service providers. Dana has more than 21 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and CRO industry and managed successfully Phase I-IV clinical trials in biopharmaceutics, from the early protocol development through to medical oversight of enrolled adults, adolescents and children.

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.

Publications

• The Evolving Landscape in Multiple Myeloma: From Risk Stratification to T Cell-Directed Advanced Therapies
• Unraveling the link between cholesterol and immune system in cancer: From biological mechanistic insights to clinical evidence. A narrative review
• CAMBRIA-1 & CAMBRIA-2 phase III trials: camizestrant versus standard endocrine therapy in ER+/HER2– early breast cancer
• Bladder Cancer, Loss of Y Chromosome, and New Opportunities for Immunotherapy
• The Convergence of Radiology and Genomics: Advancing Breast Cancer Diagnosis with Radiogenomics

Verena brings more than 25 years of clinical research experience, with 17 years in global project management across Phase I to Phase IV. She has more than 16 years of experience at Fortrea and offers extensive operational background in respiratory indications, including sinusitis, pharyngitis, bronchitis and pneumonia. 

In her previous role as Director of Project Management, Verena provided oversight for several international studies in Asthma and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). She currently provides functional support from a strategic perspective to our teams.

Dr. Cheerag Shirodaria is the Vice President and Cardiovascular/Metabolic Therapeutic Area Head at Fortrea. He has over 25 years of clinical experience as an interventional and clinical cardiologist and remains on the Faculty at Oxford University Hospitals. He is an expert in cardiac imaging, having completed his doctoral thesis at the University of Oxford on the role of cardiovascular MRI in the evaluation of vascular function. He is also co-director of the coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA) service in Oxford. He is also co-founder and Chief Development Officer of Caristo Diagnostics, an AI image analysis company that has developed proprietary AI image analysis technology that quantifies cardiometabolic risk associated with coronary inflammation plaque and adipose tissue characteristics. He has supported multiple companies through regulatory interactions, protocol development and Scientific Advisory Board interactions. 

Dr. Shirodaria received his medical degree from St. Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical College in London, his medical doctorate from the University of Oxford and his MBA from London Business School.

Hannah Simonds is Director of Patient Recruitment and Engagement at Fortrea, having joined the organization in June 2020. She brings more than 15 years of industry experience spanning commercial pharmaceutical marketing, patient support programs, clinical trial advertising, and the development of creative recruitment and retention solutions.

Throughout her career, Hannah has worked across Phase I–IV clinical trials in a broad range of therapeutic areas, including rare disease, paediatrics, oncology, neurology, immunology, and ophthalmology. Her work is driven by a strong commitment to improving equitable patient access to clinical research, using real‑world and real‑time data to enable smarter, faster, and more effective recruitment strategies.

Hannah is passionate about working with patients as true partners in research. She advocates for embedding patient insight directly into study designs, ensuring recruitment and retention approaches better reflect patients’ needs, expectations, and lived experiences. In her role at Fortrea, she is responsible for integrating patient insights into patient‑centric recruitment and retention strategies, including patient advocacy partnerships, site recruitment tools, targeted recruitment campaigns, and comprehensive patient education and support materials.

Norberto Soto, MD, is Senior Medical Director for Infectious Diseases and Critical Care and is based in Philadelphia, USA. Norberto has more than 25 years of clinical research experience with academia, biopharma and CROs, focused on planning and execution of infectious disease, inflammation and general medicine clinical development from first in human to product registration. He has held regional and global positions of increasing responsibility in fields of infectious diseases, rheumatology, respiratory, gastroenterology, cardiovascular, hematology and urology. 

Norberto has co-authored three book chapters, and author/co-authored more than 30 papers in infectious diseases. Norberto earned his medical degree from the Escuela Colombiana De Medicina, Bogota, Colombia and completed his Internal Medicine residence and Infectious Diseases fellowship at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, NY. Prior to joining Fortrea, Norberto worked as Research Physician at National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, MD, and held various clinical development positions in pharma and biotech companies. He has been with Fortrea and the legacy companies since 2013.

Dr Marcus Stavchansky PharmD, Executive Director, Global Head Pharmacy Services. Dr Stavchansky is Executive Director and Global Head of Pharmacy Services at Fortrea, based in Dallas, Texas. With over 20 years of experience in pharmacy practice—primarily in research and development—he leads global pharmacy operations across Fortrea’s Clinical Research Units in North America and the UK. As member of the Clinical Pharmacology Services leadership team, he provides strategic and scientific guidance for Phase I/Ib clinical trials, applying his specialist knowledge to drug development, GMP pharmacy services, On-Site Manufacture (OSM) of investigational drug product to clinic dose administration, and the transition from pre-clinical to first-in-human trials. He has therapeutic experience in cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, asthma, and more. A registered pharmacist in Texas, Marcus also serves as adjunct faculty at the University of Texas and Texas Tech University.

Darby Thomas, PhD, is the Scientific Director of Cell & Gene Therapies. She earned her PhD in Molecular Virology from Baylor College of Medicine, performed postdoctoral training at the University of Pennsylvania, followed by 17 years in industry prior to joining Fortrea (formerly Labcorp) in 2021.

Dr. Thomas has broad experience in adeno-associated virus (AAV) gene therapy with roles in CMC, discovery, translational development, and patient advocacy for several AAV-focused companies with an emphasis on rare neurological and metabolic diseases and ophthalmology. She also has translational experience developing plasmid-based gene therapies, lentiviruses, as well as gene-modified cell therapies for the treatment of rare skin disorders.

Dr. Thomas provides specialized scientific expertise providing leadership and guidance to integrated global teams, as well as internal and external consultation and training on cell and gene therapy programs.

Carrie Thompson is a Director in Strategic Delivery & Growth for Infectious Diseases and Critical Care and is based in Sheffield, UK. Carrie has over 18 years of clinical research experience, 14 of which with Fortrea. Her experience working in CROs and investigator-led settings, includes Phase I-III clinical trial execution, delivery and strategy. Carrie’s therapeutic experience spans multiple areas, including hematology, rare diseases and IBD. For the last six years, Carrie’s therapeutic focus has been infectious diseases, specializing in CHB with expertise in hybrid and platform study designs, overseeing operational delivery at a global level. 

Carrie earned her MSc degree in Clinical Research at the Welsh School of Pharmacy, Cardiff, S. Wales and completed an executive MBA programme at York St John University, UK in 2022.Sonia is a certified Green Belt in Six Sigma and has been certified as a Project Management Professional (PMP) since 2003 and remains an active member of the Project Management Institute. She earned her master’s degree in operational management from the University of Washington. She joined our company in 2006.

Dr. Todorova is a board-certified neurologist with over 15 years of clinical and research experience in neurodegenerative disorders and demyelinating diseases. She obtained her PhD degree with a thesis on Quality of life in patients with Parkinson’s disease and was involved in academic and clinical research. Dr. Todorova worked as a Clinical Research Fellow at King's College Hospital, London and during this period she was involved in academic research focused on non-motor symptoms and continuous drug treatment in Parkinson's disease. She contributed to 14 publications in international medical journals, as well as 16 abstracts/ oral presentations in medical conferences.

She has been an Investigator in more than 20 clinical drug trials in Parkinson’s Disease, Alzheimer disease, Multiple Sclerosis and Migraine.

Her pharmaceutical industry expertise is focused on the neurosciences across Phase I-IV of clinical development, mainly in Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and Multiple sclerosis.

Based in Brussels, Belgium.

Yulianna Tymovska, MD, PhD, is Senior Medical Director based in Brisbane, Australia. Dr. Tymovska has 20 years of clinical experience, specializing in Oncology (extensive clinical experience in breast, head and neck cancer, melanoma, and gynecology malignancies diagnostic and treatment, as well as research in mechanisms of tumors resistance to anti-cancer treatment and immune oncology). 

Dr. Tymovska has more than 15 years of clinical research experience as a clinical trial investigator and medical director (monitor) providing medical expert oversight and monitoring of clinical trials, contribution and scientific expertise to study design, and regulatory documents, work in cross functional team on all phases of the studies and trials including feasibility assessments, design process, education efforts, and management of medical information. 

Dr. Tymovska earned her medical degree and completed clinical oncology postgraduate training in Bogomolets National Medical University, Kyiv, Ukraine, and PhD training in Kavetsky IEPOR of NAS of Ukraine. She joined our company in Jan 2023.