Ophthalmology 

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.

Dr. Naidan Luo M.D Ph.D is based in Beijing, China with 25 years as a trained ophthalmologist and 21 years of clinical trial research experience in Phase I, II, III, IV in a wide variety of therapeutic areas, focusing on medical monitoring in ophthalmology indications including Glaucoma, ocular hypertension, wet/dry AMD, Dry eye disease, Conjunctivitis, Blepharitis, refractive error, Corneal Transplantation, NAION, LHON gene therapy, Stargardt disease, ataxia, Parkinson Disease, AD,woman health, COPD etc. 

Education 

Ph. D in Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, The Ohio State University, OH, USA, 1999-2002 

7-years Elite Program in Clinical Medicine, Trained Ophthalmologist, Shandong Medical University, Jinan, China. 1990-1997 

Key Publications: 

• Luo，Naidan as 1st Author, PNAS 2005 Jan 18；102（3）：541-6.
• Luo，Naidan as 2nd Author, Appl Environ Microbiol. 2003 Sep;69(9):5372-9.
• Luo，Naidan as 1st Author, Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy. 2003 Jan; 47(1):390-4.
• Luo，Naidan as 1st Author, Plasmid 45, 127-13
   

Dr. Hoelscher is based in Austin, Texas with 24 years of CRO industry experience in a wide variety of therapeutic areas, most recently in the past 16 years focusing on medical monitoring in ophthalmology indications including: 

• Retinal: dry/wet AMD, Non-infectious Uveitis, DME, Macular edema in uveitis, Vitreomacular traction, Proliferative/non-proliferative diabetic retinopathy 
• Anterior indications: dry eye, Glaucoma/POAG 
• Gene therapy: wet AMD, Batten’s disease 
• Rare disease: Batten’s disease, choroideremia, Stargardt’s disease, Retinitis Pigmentosa, Leber’s amaurosis 

While in medical school, he participated in Parkland Hospital’s “Mavericks in Ophthalmology” program, leading to a long fascination with research and the clinical practice of vision care.

Dr Jovan Obradovic is ophthalmologist, with more than 10 years of clinical and research experience in Ophthalmology and CRO industry. He spent 5 years in Clinical Center of Serbia as Ophthalmologist and 7 years as Medical Monitor in Clinical Research. He started his pharmaceutical career with Parexel before moving to Chiltern and later Covance (LabCorp) and Fortrea. His Ophthalmology Medical experience spans a variety of phase I ‑ IV clinical trials in retina, glaucoma, keratitis, rare diseases. 

At Fortrea, Jovan serves as Medical Director, providing clinical and medical expertise and medical monitoring on assigned projects. In addition, he assesses the feasibility of the study and participate in bids and bid defenses, reviews the study protocol from a medical and scientific point of view, liaises with investigators, sponsor and other company’s functions on relevant aspects of the study, provides out of hours medical coverage for the Medical Monitoring of the project, Medical Support for Clinical Project Teams and Business Development, discusses issues arising from adverse events reported to Pharmacovigilance, Involved in the preparation of variety documents as required, provides consulting advice within company and to Sponsor, provides project specific and therapeutic area training to Company staff and Sponsor as well. 

Jovan is based in Belgrade, Serbia.

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.

Brian is based in Chicago, Illinois, USA and has over 19 years clinical research experience, having worked at several biotech companies, a global CRO and GlobalCare Clinical Trials (acquired by Covance/Labcorp). Brian joined Fortrea in 2020 as a part of the GlobalCare acquisition. He has worn many hats in those years and has hands-on experience in clinical operations, strategic planning and growth, data management, medical writing, project management, portfolio management, line management, business development, contract execution, FDA submissions and working with advisory boards. He has therapeutic experience in Ophthalmology, Women’s Health, Neurology, Rare Disease, Oncology, Cardiovascular and Trauma research and has spent the last 3 years solely focused on Ophthalmology. 

Brian is passionate about patient centric clinical trials and finding creative solutions to reduce site and patient burden in a space filled with complex and debilitating disorders.