Guest Speakers

  • Dr Eva M A Ombaka

    Dr Eva M A Ombaka

    Former Co-ordinator
    Ecumenical Pharmaceutical Network, Kenya

    Winner of the 2007 Olle Hansson award for her work in rational use of medicines, Dr. Eva M A Ombaka trained as a pharmacist at the University of Aston in Birmingham, UK where she also did her PhD research in Pharmaceutical Microbiology. Her 34 year career in pharmacy has spanned hospital practice, academia and manufacturing. She has been involved in pharmaceutical policy development, capacity building for better pharmacy practice and advocacy. Her main advocacy areas are in the field of access to medicines. She was, for 17 years the coordinator of the Ecumenical Pharmaceutical Network (EPN) bringing together church-related health services around the world to address pharmaceutical issues.

    Dr. Ombaka is an honorary pharmaceutical adviser to the World Council of Churches. She is also involved in the work of Sustainable Healthcare Enterprises Foundation (SHEF) that has pioneered the franchising of community based pharmaceutical services to enable access to essential medicines and other basic health services.

    Dr. Ombaka is Tanzanian and is currently working partly in Nairobi, Kenya and in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

  • Professor Munir Pirmohamed

    Professor Munir Pirmohamed

    MB ChB (Hons), PhD, FRCP, FRCP(E)

    NHS Chair of Pharmacogenetics & Consultant Physician
    The University of Liverpool, UK

    NHS Chair of Pharmacogenetics since 2007, Munir Pirmohamed is also Deputy Director of the MRC Centre for Drug Safety Sciences in Liverpool. He was awarded a Personal Chair in Clinical Pharmacology at The University of Liverpool in 2001.

    Professor Pirmohamed is a member of the Commission on Human Medicines and Chair of its Pharmacovigilance Expert Advisory Group.He qualified in medicine in 1985, undertook a PhD in pharmacology in 1993, and was appointed Consultant Physician at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital in 1996. His main area of research is in pharmacogenetics and drug safety. Adverse reactions to drugs are a major cause of illness in the population. The research aims to maximise the benefits of drugs and minimise their harms. This is being achieved through the use of different strategies ranging from improvements in prescribing to the development of genetic and other tests for predicting and monitoring individual susceptibility to toxicity.

  • Victor M. Montori

    Victor M. Montori

    MD, MSc

    Professor of Medicine
    Mayo Clinic, USA

    Victor M. Montori is a diabetologist and clinical epidemiologist and Professor of Medicine at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in Rochester, Minnesota, USA. He serves as Co-Director of the Knowledge Translation Research Unit of the NIH-sponsored Mayo Center for Translational Research.

    He was born in Peru, where he obtained his medical degree and trained in internal medicine and endocrinology at the Mayo Clinic where he was a Chief Resident. He also obtained a master's degree in biomedical research from Mayo Graduate School and spent two years as a research fellow at McMaster University in Canada.

    His areas of research interest are clinical decision making in patients with chronic conditions, knowledge generation, synthesis, translation into practice and optimal patient outcomes.

    Dr. Montori is associate editor for the ACP Journal Club and evidence-based medicine, member of the editorial board of Trials, and has published a book on evidence-based endocrinology. He has more than 200 peer-reviewed publications in top medical and specialty journals.