A commercial specialist, Ronan has started, built and sold three companies over the course of his career. With a decade of experience in medical technologies, Ronan has both led and worked across a multitude of elements of medical technology innovation and commercial execution strategies. Ronan also works in a range of capacities with high potential medical technology companies in sectors ranging from ophthalmology through to cardiology. Ronan holds a BA degree (Economics & Politics) from UCD as well as an MBA Degree from UCD Smurfit Business School.

A Biomedical Engineer with over 15 years’ experience in the design, development, preclinical testing and evaluation of medical devices. Nicky is the inventor of the Latch platform tissue anchorage technology and a medical device innovator, with several medical device patents he has led having been licensed. He is a Fellow of the New South Wales Health Medical Device Commercialisation Training Program (Sydney, Australia) and holds BE (Mechanical), Masters (Biomedical Engineering) and PhD Degrees from the University of New South Wales (Sydney, Australia).

Bernard J. Birkett joined West as Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer of West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc. in June of 2018. In May of 2022 he was appointed to a combined position of Chief Financial and Operations Officer. In this role, Bernard is responsible for leading the Finance, Global Operations and Global Supply Chain organizations. Prior to joining West, Bernard served as the Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer for Merit Medical Systems, Inc., a leading manufacturer of disposable medical devices. Over a 20-year career at Merit, Bernard served in a number of senior global leadership roles, including Controller for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) and Vice President of International Finance.

Bernard began his career as an accountant, and has experience working for additional manufacturing and medical device companies, including Inamed Corporation, Strix Limited and SPS Unbrako International. Bernard is a Qualified Accountant with a business degree from the National University of Ireland Galway, a master’s degree in banking and finance from Smurfit Business School Dublin, and has completed a program at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business in Strategic Leadership for CFOs.

Chris is CEO of RedRock MediPharm with offices in Ireland and the USA. Prior to establishing RedRock, Chris headed up global business development for the Pharma Delivery Systems division of Jabil Healthcare (formerly Nypro) - the leading global contract developer and manufacturer of drug delivery devices to the world’s largest Pharmaceutical companies. Chris previously spent 14 years in the paper based print and packaging industry and started his career in investment banking with Gandon Securities (now Investec). Chris is a Business & Economics graduate of Trinity College Dublin.

Professor James Birchall PhD FHEA - Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Deputy Head of School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Cardiff University.

James Birchall graduated from Bath University in 1993 and completed his PhD researching drug and DNA delivery systems in 1998 (Cardiff University). Current research includes microneedle delivery of molecules, macromolecules, vaccines, auto-antigens and cells into skin for therapeutic, immunisation or immunotherapy applications. Professor Birchall has acted as Associate Editor of Critical Reviews in Therapeutic Drug Carrier Systems, a member of the Editorial Board of Expert Review of Medical Devices, a temporary advisor to the WHO and an expert advisor to the British Pharmacopoeia and conducted research funded by the EU, DFID, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, NIH, Wellcome Trust, EPSRC, MRC, Welsh Government, Royal Society, Innovate UK and various charities and pharmaceutical companies. 

Abina Crean is a Professor of Pharmaceutics at the School of Pharmacy, University College Cork, Ireland. She received her degree in Pharmacy from Robert Gordon's University, Aberdeen, Scotland and completed her PhD in Pharmaceutics at the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Trinity College Dublin. Prior to joining University College Cork, she worked as an industrial Pharmacist at Elan Pharmaceutical Technologies and Servier (Ireland) Industries and has over 25 years pharmaceutical formulation development experience. Her main research interests lie in the design and manufacture of conventional and novel pharmaceutical dosage forms, including microneedles. She has a number of publications and patents in this subject area.