Women's Health Innovation Summit, USA

Lucy Perez, PhD

Lucy is a Senior Partner in McKinsey’s Boston office. Lucy has 15+ years of experience advising CEOs and top teams at leading pharma, biotech and life sciences companies globally on growth strategy, innovation, sustainability, and organizational transformation.

Lucy co-leads McKinsey’s ESG domain and McKinsey’s All-In DEI efforts in North America.  She also sponsors the Hispanic Latino Network at McKinsey and leads our research efforts on health equity.

Lucy works extensively with number of biopharma and life science clients on broad range of topics, with recent focus on ESG/ sustainability, evidence generation, and digital/analytics programs to improve patient outcomes and support sustainable, inclusive growth.

Led efforts for a leading biopharma to define their ESG strategy, partnership strategy, and stakeholder engagement approach

Led efforts for a leading biopharma to embed health equity as a core principle in their R&D priorities and ways of working across the value chain

Led efforts to assess internal and external portfolio productivity and pricing models to optimize the R&D strategy and redesign the organization for a top pharmaceutical company

Led efforts for a leading biopharma to transform how it engages with customers through digital transformation, applying advanced analytics and embedding agile ways of working across their six largest markets that delivered $300M+ of near-term growth

Sponsor of McKinsey’s Early Stage Investor Conference, an annual event convening 200+ entrepreneurs and 1000+ investors interested in bio/med/health tech and sustainability innovation

Before joining McKinsey, Lucy was a research fellow at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, where she was involved in the development of novel treatments for solid tumors. She was also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute research fellow at Harvard University while completing her doctoral studies. She is co-inventor on multiple patents and has published in peer-reviewed journals.

Sandy Milligan, MD, JD

Elizabeth Garner

Elizabeth Garner, MD, MPH is the US Chief Scientific Officer of Ferring Pharmaceuticals, a leader in reproductive medicine and maternal health, uro-oncology and in specialty areas within orthopedics and gastroenterology including microbiome therapeutics.

 Dr. Garner has nearly 30 years of experience in medicine and industry. Prior to joining Ferring in 2022, she held Chief Medical Officer roles for ObsEva, a women’s health biotechnology company, and Agile Therapeutics, a women’s healthcare company focused on contraception. Earlier, she held leadership roles in medical affairs at Myriad Genetics Laboratories and clinical development at Abbott Laboratories and Merck Research Laboratories. Across her 16-year career in the pharmaceutical industry, she has led or contributed to several US product approvals, including the HPV vaccine-Gardasil®9, Orilissa®-an oral treatment for endometriosis, the novel Twirla® low-dose contraceptive patch, and Rebyota-the first FDA-approved live microbiota product for the prevention of recurrent Clostridium Difficile.

Dr. Garner is on the Board of Directors of Kezar Life Sciences (KZR), which develops novel therapies for autoimmune diseases and cancer. She is also on the Board of Directors of Sermonix Pharmaceuticals, which focuses on targeted therapies for breast cancer. Dr. Garner is also the current President of the American Medical Women’s Association, the oldest multispecialty organization dedicated to advancing women in medicine and improving women’s health.

Dr. Garner received joint M.D. and M.P.H. degrees from Harvard Medical (HMS) and Public Health Schools. She trained in obstetrics and gynecology at Brigham and Women’s (BWH)/Massachusetts General Hospitals and completed a fellowship in gynecologic oncology at BWH/Dana Farber Cancer Institute. Prior to transitioning into industry, she was an Assistant Professor at HMS, where she focused on academic clinical practice in gynecologic oncology, basic science ovarian cancer research and teaching and mentorship of residency and fellowship trainees and medical students. Dr. Garner is a frequent panelist and speaker on a range of topics including innovation and investment in women’s health, women’s leadership and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). She is an author of close to 40 peer-reviewed scientific papers. Dr. Garner was also a 2019 awardee of the PharmaVoice 100 Most Inspiring Individuals in the life sciences industry and is the 2022 recipient of the Woman in Science Award from the American Medical Women’s Association.

Anula Jayasuriya

Dr. Neel Shah

Valerie Palmieri

Charlotte Owens