Michiel has more than 21 years of drug development and clinical research experience in both pharma and CROs. He joined Fortrea (then Covance) in 2011 as a lead CRA on global trials and moved into project management and delivery leadership positions. He serves as an accountable executive responsible for Fortrea’s liver portfolio (MASH, PSC, PBC), as well as several other metabolic and cardiovascular indications. Michiel has provided oversight across a portfolio of five T2DM studies from start-up through regulatory filing and marketing approval.

Michael George, MBBS, MRCP, MFPM, is the Global Therapeutic Area Head at Fortrea. 

His areas of expertise include global strategic clinical drug development and portfolio and program management across multiple therapeutic areas, including immune-mediated inflammatory diseases (IMIDs), cardiovascular and metabolic diseases and women’s health. 

He has more than 25 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and CRO industry, having held numerous posts of increasing seniority across all phases of clinical drug development in various therapeutic areas and pharmacovigilance with both regional and global responsibility. At Fortrea, Michael is responsible for medical portfolio oversight, executive governance and clinical business development. He has authored several articles in the areas of IMID development, hypertension, heart failure, diabetic retinopathy and neuro-endocrine modulation.

Mary has over 30 years of experience with Fortrea (formerly Labcorp and Covance), including global project management experience and drug development experience in discovery, translational medicine and clinical development roles. Her clinical research experience includes range of neuroscience indications, such as schizophrenia (adult and pediatric), Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, sleep disorder, Tourette’s and rare disorders. She has an extensive background in Phase I-III studies that require in-hospital patient settings and multiple department interactions. Mary also provides expert advice as she customizes sponsors’ strategies to anticipate and mitigate risk, meet the needs of the target patient population and improve efficiencies and data quality.

Martine Poelman, MD, is an Executive Medical Director, Oncology, for Fortrea, based in Brussels, Belgium. She provides medical and scientific support to help advance drug development in hematological malignancies for Fortrea clients. Dr. Poelman brings more than 30 years of experience in clinical research and development as a physician and medical director, specializing in pediatrics and oncology, to Fortrea. Before assuming her current position, she served more than 15 years as Global Head of Oncology Research for Fortrea, providing medical monitoring for more than 200 clinical trials. Before joining Fortrea, she served as Clinical Research Physician, Hemato-Oncology-Infectiology, for Eli Lilly in Brussels. Before going into research, she served as Bone Marrow Transplantation and Hemato-Oncology Physician for the Department of Pediatric Oncology, Wilhelmina Children’s Hospital, in The Netherlands. Martine joined our company in November 1996.

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.

Mark Dowling is a Senior Director of Strategic Delivery & Growth. He has more than 30 years of industry experience, 22 of which are with Fortrea. Mark offers extensive respiratory experience in both strategic and operational delivery.

Maria Paula Ghirardi, MD, is Medical Director of Oncology for Fortrea Clinical Development Services, based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Dr. Ghirardi has 6 years of Oncology clinical research experience in both pharmaceutical and CRO industry. She provides clinical and medical expertise to project team and other Fortrea departments to advance clients’ drug development programs and contributes to the scientific strategic leadership of the Oncology therapeutic area. She has experience leading important launches of hematology-oncology compounds for multiple myeloma, AL amyloidosis, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and chronic lymphocytic leukemia. 

Dr. Ghirardi earned her medical degree from the University of Buenos Aires and completed her internal medicine residency at the Hospital Ramos Mejia in Buenos Aires and Hematology residency at the Hospital de Clinicas in Buenos Aires and Sociedad Argentina de Hematologia. She joined our company in October 2022.

María Elvira Parellada, MD, is part of the Oncology Medical Directors at Fortrea, based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Dr. Parellada joined us in 2021. Her area of expertise is the Medical Monitoring of Onco-Hematology trials, through Phase I to III with special focus on Cell and Gene Therapy and small molecules, and their development through early phase trials. Previously, Dr. Parellada served as an investigator in multiple clinical trials related to the area of Onco-Hematology; and served as an MSL in large pharmaceutical companies. 

Dr. Parellada earned her medical degree from the National University of Tucuman (Tucumán, Argentina) and completed her Hematology residency at the Hospital Ramos Mejía and at the Argentinian Society of Hematology (Buenos Aires, Argentina).

María García Requesens, MD, is a Medical Director at Fortrea based in Madrid, Spain. Dr. García has 5 years of experience in oncology clinical drug development clinical trials in pharma and CROs. She focuses on medical support of global oncology clinical trials for solid tumors. Dr. García earned her medical degree from Universidad Europea in Madrid. She also holds a Nursing Degree and is very patient-oriented, believing in the power of cross-functional communication. She joined Fortrea (formerly Labcorp) in January 2020.

Maria Ignacia Berraondo, MD, is Senior Medical Director of oncology for Fortrea, based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Dr. Berraondo has 10 years of experience in oncology clinical drug development, providing clinical and medical expertise to project teams and other Fortrea departments to advance clients’ drug development programs and contributing to the planning and execution of the scientific strategic leadership of the Oncology therapeutic area. 

Dr. Berraondo earned her medical degree from Universidad del Salvador, Argentina and is a board certified hematologist. She completed her Hematologic residency at Hospital Teodoro Alvarez, Buenos Aires Argentina and Sociedad Argentina de Hematologia. She joined our company in July 2020.