(ARVO) Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology Annual Meeting

Tanya has over 26 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 the last 15 years specifically focused on 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!

Sarah Bolger-Ford is Senior Director within the Ophthalmology section of the Strategic Delivery and Growth group at Fortrea, based in the UK. She has a PhD in Physiology from King’s College London (UK) and has more than 25 years in the industry, from trainee CRA, through project management to her present position, and joined our company in November 2006. 

She works with the pre-award team to provide client’s with tailored proposals, supports study teams in strategic delivery of awarded work and contributes to the growth of the ophthalmology portfolio. 

Sarah is passionate about being part of the development of sight preserving and sight restoring solutions for patients.

Marlene Brown is the Director, Operational Strategy of Fortrea’s Rare Diseases, Advanced Therapies and Pediatrics Team (RAPT) and Co-Chair of Cell, Gene and Advanced Therapies Tiger Team. She has more than 30 years in pharmaceutical drug development spanning large pharma, emerging biotechs and CROs. 

Within the Project Management realm, Marlene has more than 20 years of supporting end-to-end drug development, clinical, regulatory solutions with Phase I–IV clinical and regulatory expertise across multiple therapeutic areas as well as working as a product development team leader. Before she joined Fortrea, Marlene held various roles at Merck, including basic research, QA, regulatory, product-level project management. She has worked in basic research at Sandoz, BOC Group and W. Alton Joes Cell Science Center.

Vikas Mohan Sharma, MD, joined Fortrea in December 2023 and serves as its Global Head of Neuroscience and Ophthalmology therapeutic areas. He is a recognized industry leader with more than 23 years of experience in healthcare and clinical development, known for his expertise in research ethics and patient safety. 

Dr. Sharma has held various leadership roles in healthcare, CROs and the biopharmaceutical industry and is considered a key opinion leader in the field of drug development. He leads and collaborates on various industry, consortia and non-governmental efforts to advance progress in precision psychiatry, digital biomarkers and the use of technologies to address healthcare access and “last mile” challenges. 

In his most recent role with Boehringer Ingelheim, Dr. Sharma was responsible for the end-to-end clinical development strategy and execution of early and late-stage products, as well as leading global clinical development, medical affairs and scientific relations teams spanning multiple therapeutic areas. With 16 years of clinical experience in psychiatry and as an investigator in CNS trials, Dr. Sharma has a track record of success in developing and executing first-in-class, “blue ocean” and “beyond the pill” product strategies for pharmacological as well as digital assets. He is known to champion early investment in biomarker development and has a passion for bringing the right stakeholders together. 

Dr. Sharma also serves an independent ethics expert with the European Research Council and other non-governmental organizations. He is passionate about helping children with special needs and volunteers for this cause by sharing his time and expertise. He earned his MD in Psychological Medicine from Seth Gordhandas Sunderdas Medical College (GSMC) and the King Edward Memorial (KEM) Hospital in Mumbai, India.