Lauren Barnes is Head of Global Commercial at Blueprint, a Sanofi Company, a commercial stage Boston based precision medicine company focusing on genomically defined cancers, rare diseases and cancer immunotherapy. Ms. Barnes has extensive expertise and experience in pricing, market access, pre-commercialization and managed markets in particular for the US market. She has been involved in launch planning of more than 50 drugs, devices and diagnostics during her career. Prior to her current role Lauren was Vice President at Vertex Pharmaceuticals, SVP Avalere Health and led their Reimbursement & Commercialization practice and has also held various roles at Amgen and the agency that runs the United States Medicare Program, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Ms. Barnes has a BA in Public Health and an MHS in Health Care Policy from Johns Hopkins University. She serves on the board of Ascelia, a Swedish biotech company, as well as Ossium Health, a US biotech company, both of which are developing innovative cancer treatments.

Jeff Allen, Ph.D. serves as the President and CEO of Friends of Cancer Research (Friends). During the past 20 years, Friends has been instrumental in the creation and implementation of policies ensuring patients receive the best treatments in the fastest and safest way possible. As a thought leader on many issues related to Food and Drug Administration, regulatory strategy and healthcare policy, he is regularly published in prestigious medical journals and policy publications, and has contributed his expertise to the legislative process on multiple occasions. Recent Friends initiatives include the establishment of the Breakthrough Therapies designation and the development of the Lung Cancer Master Protocol, a unique partnership that will accelerate and optimize clinical trial conduct for new drugs. Dr. Allen received his Ph.D. in cell and molecular biology from Georgetown University, and holds a Bachelors of Science in Biology from Bowling Green State University.