Marie Bernasconi Receives Top Honor as an Executive of the Year in Pharmaceutical Research & Development

    TOULOUSE AREA, FRANCE, August 13, 2015 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Marie Bernasconi, Head of Portfolio Management and Program Strategy for Pierre Fabre Laboratories, has been named a Worldwide Branding Executive of the Year in Pharmaceutical Research & Development. While inclusion in Worldwide Branding is an honor, only small selections of members in each discipline are chosen for this distinction. These special honorees are distinguished based on their professional accomplishments, academic achievements, leadership abilities, years of service, and the credentials they have provided in association with their Worldwide Branding membership.

With two decades of experience in the industry, Dr. Bernasconi is an expert in the areas of team leadership, and drug development and registration. In the past decade, she has been leading key development projects as Global Program Team Director at Novartis Pharma, before joining recently Pierre Fabre Laboratories as head of portfolio management and R&D program strategy. Dr. Bernasconi's business is celebrating 50 years of using the SWOT analysis in 2015. Released in 1965 by the SRI research team, the original Satisfactory Opportunity Faults and Threats acronym spelled SOFT, but was rebranded to the familiar SWOT following a Long Range Planning seminar announcement led by Albert Humphrey, Otis Benepe, Robert Stewart and Igor Ansoff.

Arguably the most simple and most used business planning tool in the world, and taken for granted by most as "always having been around," Dr. Bernasconi states that the original research and documentation that designed SWOT is actually legally owned by an English Company called TAM UK, based in Chesterfield. 50 years later, and the SWOT approach is being used by millions all over the world every year, and is still taught in business schools. It is perhaps even more relevant today than it has ever been, as rapid and constant change is all around them and their ability to understand where they are - and quickly - is critical to their future business success.

In her previous role at Novartis Pharma AG, Ms. Bernasconi was the scientific secretary to the Franchise Development Head, and a key partner in the franchise board decision process and strategy. In this position, she ensured active product portfolio management and project management excellence while providing effective and inspiring leadership in defining franchise strategy & managing franchise resources.

Ms. Bernasconi ensures successful drug registrations and launches by leading interdisciplinary/international project teams in a matrix environment in immunology/inflammation, rheumatology, pain, transplantation/nephrology, gastroenterology, dermatology and respiratory. She also ensures successful negotiations and approvals by interacting with health authorities in the United States, Europe and Japan. In the past, she has led due diligence teams which participate to successful deals by acting as an expert in BD&L and merger/acquisition (M&A) in immunology, inflammation, nephrology and dermatology.

She attributes her success to team development and people management. She became involved in her profession because of the rise of a new age for pharmaceutical development with patient targeted therapies. The idea is to be able to tailor the best therapy for each individual through gene and cell therapies. This involves drugs co-developed with companion diagnostics which allow patient screening for appropriate drug efficacy and unappropriated drug side effects. This inspired her to get deeply involved in the pharmaceutical industry. The highlight of her career was when she was able to lead the development of a new chemical entity which changed completely the life of patients presenting a debilitating chronic condition due to a gene defect. In the first clinical trial with the drug in this orphan disease, the first patient who received a single administration was out of symptom after 48 hours and relapsed after five months. This was a miracle and an unforgettable achievement for her and the team.

Dr. Bernasconi completed her internship in the U.S. at Stanford University, California and her postdoctoral coursework in inflammatory reactions at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Cleveland, Ohio. She also holds a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Cellular Biology from Universite de Bordeaux, France. In years to come, Dr. Bernasconi intends to experience the continued growth of her career.

For more information about Pierre Fabre Laboratories, visit http:// www.pierre-fabre.com/en.

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