Arani Chatterjee, MBBS, MPhil, PGCPM completed his graduation from CMC, Vellore and post-graduation from NIMHANS, Bangalore. He has a Post Graduate Certificate in Management from IIM, Indore. Prior to joining Cadila Pharmaceuticals, he has held positions of Senior Vice President, Clinical Research at Aurobindo Pharma, Hyderabad for 5 years, Biological E, Hyderabad for 3 ½ years, Panacea Biotec, New Delhi for 9 years and Principal Research Physician at Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories (Discovery Research), Hyderabad for 6 years with a total experience of over 29 years. He was a visiting faculty at University of Pune and Institute of Clinical Research, member of Expert Committee for PG Diploma in Clinical Research at IGNOU, Academic Board of Studies, Institute of Clinical Research, Hindustan Institute of Medical Sciences & Research, Sharda University and National Committee on Biotechnology of CII. He has served as a WHO Adviser for the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. He is a member of several Brighton Collaboration groups for vaccine safety. His has participated in WHO SAGE and GVSI meetings, pre-IND meetings with USFDA, scientific advice meetings with BfArM (Germany), ANVISA (Brazil), Medsafe (New Zealand), ALIMS (Serbia), NORCB (Egypt), expert group meetings on Indian GCP guidelines and Schedule Y, National Technology Advisory Group on Immunisation, Asia Pacific Dengue Prevention Board Meeting under the Pediatric Dengue Vaccine Initiative of International Vaccine Institute and Pneumococcal Vaccines at UNICEF. He has authored 22 papers in peer-reviewed journals and 4 book chapters. He is a recipient of the 2012 Charles C. Shepard Award from CDC, Atlanta.

Dr. Sudeep Kumar did his Post Doc in Biotech from Valencia. He has more than 20 years of experience in Biopharma from Large scale fermentation based product to recombinant therapeutic proteins, Vaccines and Diagnostic kit. He has vast experience from R&D to commercialization of recombinant proteins, Vaccines and Diagnostic kit with good understanding of regulatory requirement.

He has worked from R&D to tech transfer and manufacturing of different molecule. During his tenure he was involved in dealing with different regulatory agencies for approval and faced WHO, USFDA and other regulatory audits. He also actively involved with clinical research team for Preclinical and clinical trials of recombinant proteins and vaccine. He developed and commercialized many recombinant proteins, vaccines and rapid diagnostic kit.

He established the VLP technology platform for different vaccine in India in collaboration with Novavax and taken the approval for this new concept technology. He is actively involved in the development of novel therapeutic protein for cancer therapy.

He has worked with Ranbaxy, Cadila pharma, Unichem and now at present he is working as Senior Vice president at Biological E, Hyderabad.

Senior biotech executive with expertise in viral vaccines with over 30yrs experience in vaccine development. Currently at PATH, leading and managing projects for viral vaccines and biologics for product development strategies and compliance with GMP and/or GLP practices as applicable for national and international regulatory framework compliance (WHO, FDA, EMA, DCGI, NMPA). Experience in national regulatory approvals and for achieving WHO pre-qualification for vaccine products. Currently leading projects for polio vaccines development and scaleup for OPV, IPV related hexavalent vaccine work. Current and past projects at PATH includes work related to measles-rubella, influenza, RSV, Yellow fever, live rotavirus, and SARS-CoV2 with technologies including whole virion, inactivated, vectored, live attenuated, VLPs and subunit vaccines. Holds national and international patents on VLP technology for influenza and RSV vaccines and include publications in peer-reviewed journals. Presently serves on several scientific panels advisory board for biotech companies in Europe, for national and international vaccine meetings, also serves as scientific reviewer for journals including Vaccine, Journal of Infectious Diseases, Emerging Infectious Diseases, and Human Vaccines & Therapeutics.

Rajinder as CEO-DCVMN International is responsible for leadership, governance, strategic vision and overall operational excellence of DCVMN. Rajinder is appointed as member GAVI’s Vaccine Investment Strategy (VIS) Steering Committee 2024, a permanent member of CEPI’s Joint Coordination Group (JCG), 2023-24, PAVMs Talent Development WS and Regional Vaccine Manufacturing Collaborative (RVMC). To meet an un-precedented challenge posed by COVID-19, Rajinder has been actively involved in all global strategic initiatives along with COVAX partners-WHO, GAVI, CEPI, UNICEF and several other international organizations including industry associations to ensure equitable and timely access to vaccines. He has been member of several advisory expert groups including COVAX Manufacturing & Supply Chain Task Force Leadership Team, G-20 Health group and Market Design and Demand Intelligence pillar of PAVM. Rajinder has over 25 years of top management experience in the industry including at the Board of Directors of the Indian subsidiary of Sanofi Pasteur and as CEO-Panacea Biotec. Rajinder has served as Member-GAVI-PPC as well as Vice-President, DCVMN Executive Committee.

Dr. Sushant Sahastrabuddhe, MBBS, MPH, MBA, has +20 years of global experience in public health and vaccine development projects.

Currently, he leads a team of 40 scientists (clinical, regulatory, and operational) and administrators to implement vaccine development programs through studies in Cholera, Typhoid, HPV, Chikungunya, COVID-19, HEV, among other pathogens.

Dr. Raj Shankar Ghosh is a physician with three decades of experience in policy, planning and delivery of public health programs. His primary interests are in primary health care, infectious diseases and vaccine delivery. Dr. Ghosh has worked in West Bengal State Health Services as a Medical Officer in a Primary Health Centre, as a Regional Coordinator in the National Polio Surveillance Project of World Health Organization and as Director, Immunization for South Asian Region at PATH India office. His most recent assignment was as Senior Advisor, Immunization at the India office of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Dr. Ghosh currently provides technical support to national and international organizations on One Health, Disease Surveillance and Immunization. Dr Ghosh is a recipient of honorary Fellowship form Indian Public Health Association for his contribution to public health in the South Asian region.

Dr. Maithal specializes in Vaccines & Biologicals R&D, Manufacturing and Quality Control. Product development and Project management from concept to market including process and analytical method development and validation, Technology Transfer, Manufacturing, Quality Control, Intellectual Property Rights and Regulatory Affairs. Also interested in developing and managing Strategic Alliances, collaborations and scientific advocacy.

He has developed numerous human and veterinary vaccines (including viral, bacterial, toxoid, protein subunit, polysaccharide, conjugate and plasmid DNA).

Dr. Maithal led the licensure of World’s First human DNA Vaccine, ZyCoV-D® against COVID-19. He also led the development and launch of India’s first ELISA based COVID-19 detection kit, COVID KAWACH in collaboration with Indian Council of Medical Research, Ministry of Health &Family Welfare, Government of India. Earlier, Dr. Maithal also led the R&D team at Indian Immunologicals Limited, which led to licensure of World’s First vaccine for porcine cysticercosis, Cystavax® developed in collaboration with University of Melbourne, Australia & GALVMed, UK. He also worked as Director - Program Management at International AIDS Vaccine Initiative and facilitated the setting up of HIV Vaccine Translational Research Laboratory at NCR-Delhi, INDIA in partnership with Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science & Technology, Government of India.

Dr. Nimesh Gupta, a distinguished viral immunologist, is at the forefront of ground breaking research in translational immunology, with a remarkable career spanning over 20 years. He earned his doctoral degree from Jiwaji University, focusing on unravelling host-pathogen interactions for flaviviruses such as Dengue and Japanese encephalitis virus. Driven by an insatiable thirst for knowledge, he pursued postdoctoral training in immunology at the prestigious Institute Pasteur and University Pierre and Maire Curie in Paris, France. As the head of the Vaccine Immunology Laboratory at India's esteemed National Institute of Immunology, Dr. Nimesh envisions a future where long-lasting protective immunity is understood at its core, providing the foundation for designing effective human vaccines. His seminal work has left an indelible mark on the field, profoundly shaping the current mechanistic framework and understanding of T-cell immunity to virus vaccines. Dr. Nimesh's impactful research (40+ publications) has been prominently featured in esteemed journals including Science Translational Medicine, Nature Microbiology, Lancet Infectious Diseases etc. His contributions have resulted in several patents on T-cell-based bioassays and the application of T cells in vaccine development.

Dr. Ravi P.N. Mishra is currently working as Principal Scientist and leading a group working on Vaccine and Biotherapeutics Process Development at the CSIR-Institute of Microbial Technology, Chandigarh, India. Dr. Mishra has more than 15 years of rich experience in industries and academic organizations in the domain of Vaccines and Biotherapeutics development. Dr. Mishra has obtained Ph.D. from Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India. He worked as Indo-French Post-Doctoral Fellow in the University of Montpellier/INRA, France and, at the Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA. He has several national and international patents and, research publications in the journal of international repute.

In his current capacities as Principal Scientist, Dr. Mishra led the programme for the development next generation protein subunit based vaccine against COVID-19, that is in the advanced stage of preclinical process development. Dr. Mishra is also heading the project for setup of a facility of a national importance under the programme entitled, ‘Establishment of a National Repository of GMP compliant cell banks for Biopharmaceutical products (NRGCBIO) at CSIR-IMTECH, supported by National Biopharma Mission-BIRAC under Innovate in India (I3) Mission.

Dr. Vinod Pantula holds a PhD in genetics and has over 17 years of experience in vaccine development, specializing in preclinical and early clinical development of vaccines. He joined Dr Reddy’s two years ago as the Head of Product Development – Vaccines. He has worked with several vaccine development companies in India and Europe.

He is presently setting up a next generation vaccine development lab named “Centre of Excellence for Biologic Therapeutics” (COEBT) to work on novel mRNA-based cancer vaccines and other unmet needs. The lab is being set-up in Dr Reddy’s Institute of Life Sciences (DRILS), HCU campus, Hyderabad.

Avinash is a Registered Pharmacist having knowledge and understanding of global regulations pertaining to Pharma Good Clinical Practice, Good Manufacturing Practice, Good Storage & Distribution Practice and Drug Supply Chain Security (Track & Trace) with decades of industry expertise.

He is proficient in managing business / Programme encompassing Cold Chain Management, R&D, Key Account Management, Business Development, Operations, Quality, Warehousing, SCM & Logistics, Procurement and Project Management.

He is a persuasive and influential leader with inclusive acumen in achieving topline as well as bottom line objectives.

Avinash also possesses an ESG expertise and a subject matter expert in pharmaceutical, vaccine, and clinical trial temperature-controlled packaging, logistics, cold chain management and operation pertaining to storage, distribution, packaging, temperature monitoring, and Track & Trace".

Dr. Santosh Taur has over 14 years of experience in Clinical Research, Medical Affairs, Regulatory Affairs, Pharmacovigilance, and Compliance. He is a peer reviewer of ‘The Journal of Postgraduate Medicine (JPGM)’ and ‘Perspectives in Clinical Research’. Also, he has multiple publications in national and international journals: original articles (n=11), review articles (n=10), 2 chapters in a book,and has delivered more than 50 invited talks.

Presently an Additional Director, Production (viral vaccines) at Serum Institute of India Pvt. Ltd., Pune, India. He is Incharge for Rabies and polio vaccine departments. Trained in regulatory affairs at UMASS in Boston, USA and Chumakov Institute, Moscow, Russia. He is Ex.IITian and has a Doctorate in biotechnology with more than 34 years of rich experience in various departments such as production, quality assurance, quality control in the Biotechnological industry and Research Institute. He has expertise in upstream processing as well as downstream processing of viral vaccines. He is specialized in purification of viral vaccines.

Dr. Pragya Yadav iscurrently working as Scientist ‘F’ and leading Asia’s first Biosafety Level-4 laboratory at Indian Council of Medical Research-National Institute of Virology (ICMR-NIV), Pune, India. With my extensive experience in the field of virology, I have contributed significantly to the understanding of emerging viral infections in India.She has made significant contributions in the field of virology and biocontainment science, human and animal Virology (Nipah, SARS-CoV-2, mpox, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus, Zika, Ebola, Kyasanur Forest Disease, Bunyavirus, Dengue, Chikungunya, novel virus pathogens, high risk group of pathogens, respiratory diseases), health sciences, epidemiology, biomedical sciences, molecular biology, public health, research & development Biocontainment, Translational research, and preclinical vaccine studies in animal model with the special focus on highly infectious viral pathogens.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, made sincere efforts in quick isolation of SARS-CoV-2 virus from India which was utilized by Bharat Biotech International Limited to generate the first indigenous vaccine (COVAXIN™). Subsequently, preclinical studies for COVAXIN™ were carried out successfully which paved the way of vaccine candidate further towards clinical trials. This is the one of the biggest scientific achievements in the history of ICMR and Indian Science.

Sandeep is highly experienced in various facets of Biosimilars and Vaccines manufacturing, projects and development.

With about 30 years of experience in this field has acquired knowledge in all these facets.He is very passionate about automation and new technologies catering to biopharma manufacturing.

Dr. Rajendar Burki working as Vice President, at R&D, Biological E Limited.

He received Ph.D. degree in Bioanalytical/Biological Chemistry from Tohoku University (Japan), followed by postdoctoral training at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (USA).

Authored 10 patents, 20+ international publications and delivered talks at National and international conferences.

His expertise includes Analytical development and characterization, conjugation of biomolecules with markers and polysaccharides, and process development of biopharmaceuticals and vaccines.

Dr. Parag NAGARKAR is currently working as Director & Head - Regulatory Affairs, at Serum Institute of India Pvt. Ltd. (SIIPL), and is accountable for Regulatory Affairs activities for India, WHO and globally. Parag has global pharmaceutical experience of ~30 years in Regulatory Affairs, Industrial, Quality Operations and Program Management divisions that includes 26 years in Vaccine Industry (with developing and developed country vaccine manufacturers). • 26 years in Vaccine industry (with developing & developed country vaccine manufacturers) o Worked for 16 years with Sanofi Pasteur (globally) >10 years of North American experience o 10 years at Serum Institute, India Most recently, Parag and his regulatory team at SIIPL has been instrumental to register two Covid-19 Vaccines (COVISHIELD (AZ Vaccine) and COVOVAX/NUVAXOVID (Novavax vaccine), which supported supply of ~2 Billion doses of vaccine globally (includes 88% of Indian Covid-19 vaccine coverage).

Dr. Rajender is working as a team lead for malaria vaccines (Quality Control) at Serum Institute of India Pvt. Ltd. Pune. He did his Ph.D. from IIT Delhi, on application of chaperoning activity of small heat shock proteins as stability enhancer. Prior to Serum institute he was leading the product development activities at Multi Vaccine Development Program at New Delhi. He has also worked at Intas Biopharmaceuticals Ltd. Ahmedabad, where he was instrumental in process development, scale up and project coordination of cytokines and antibody fragments. Currently at Serum Institute he is involved in recombinant vaccine development specifically for malaria vaccines in collaboration with Oxford University, UK and National Institute of Health, USA. The malaria vaccine R21 developed by Serum has already received WHO pre qualification. His expertise and research interest lie in upstream/downstream process development for biosimilars and recombinant vaccines along with method development, qualification and validation for the same. He is also interested in process and product characterization for regulatory submissions, and has taken products from clones to commercialization for both biosimilars and recombinant vaccines in India and abroad.

Dr. K.S. Jaganathan is working as Dy. Director and Heads the Production Department (Bacterial vaccine) since November 2017 at Serum Institute of India focusing on Formulation development, Commercial manufacturing and Troubleshooting activities for vaccines and vaccine adjuvants. He obtained his Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from Dr. H.S. Gour University, Sagar, India, in collaboration with National Institute of Immunology (NII), New Delhi. He did his post-doctoral studies (JSPS fellowship) at Tokyo University, Japan and worked in collaboration with Kowa Pharmaceutical Ltd, Japan. Prior to joining Serum, he worked for SANOFI group for about 14 years on various projects related to Biologics, Vaccines, Monoclonal antibodies and Protein / Drug delivery (Global role).

Jaganathan is a recipient of Best Scientist award by Ministry of Science and Technology, GOVT of India and was chosen as key scientist to attend the Nobel Laureate Meeting at Germany. He is also a recipient of several awards and key awards are Bio-Asia Innovation award by Nobel Laureate, Prof. Martin Evans, UGC-JRF, ACITE-NDF, Young Scientist Award by DST, Govt. of India, JSPS Post-Doctoral Fellowship award by Govt. of Japan and Best Employee award – Platinum Category by SANOFI group of company.

He has several refereed publications in International journals, besides oral presentations at international conferences and symposia as Speaker to his credit including many US patents.

He has more than 25 years of experience in Pharma Industry at various roles of Product Development and Operations.

He has 20 years of cross-functional experience in Analytical Research, QC, and CRO at large pharmaceutical multinationals with a sound knowledge of QMS, Data Integrity, Method Development & Validation, Cleaning Validation, Nitrosamine, Stability Study, audit & compliance, etc. He also has hands-on experience in Oral, Topical, Inhalation & Parenteral dosage forms, with a deep understanding of Regulatory, and Tech Transfer Worked with renowned pharma organizations such as Dr. Reddy’s, Apotex, USV, and Glenmark amongst a few.

Eng. Rajeev Kabbur, Director of Sales, Marketing and R&D at Brevetti Angela S.r.l. Rajeev Kabbur earned a degree of Mechanical Engineer and MBA at Birla Institute, India. With over 25 years of experience in the pharmaceutical field, has a solid background in sterile and aseptic production facilities for injectables, intravenous fluids, Hemofiltration and Ophthalmic products. He joined Brevetti Angela in 1998 and since then, he’s been actively working on the development of innovative solutions on Blow Fill Seal machines. He has also worked as Chief Production Planning in Fresenius Kabi Italia, Validation Manager at SIFRA (Italy), Chief Engineer at Iveon Laboratories and Maintenance Engineer at Indian Rayon Ltd., India. Eng. Kabbur has been a speaker at PDA, BFS IOA, ISPE, VacChina, Management Forum, Hexagon, among other Conferences and Meetings. There are several products/technologies patented under his name.

Mr. Ashutosh Shelar is an experienced professional with a strong background in Bioanalytical Sciences. He holds a master’s degree in Bioanalytical Sciences from Mumbai University and has accumulated over 15 years of industry experience. For the past decade, he has been associated with Shimadzu, India, where he is engaged in CRO and biopharma market development.

At Shimadzu, Ashutosh is instrumental in enhancing the biopharma market in India by developing trending applications and presenting solutions offered by Shimadzu to meet the evolving needs of the industry. Additionally, he serves as a visiting faculty member at several colleges under Mumbai University, where he imparts knowledge through lectures on bioanalysis, regulations, proteomics, and LC-MS.

Before joining Shimadzu, Ashutosh gained valuable experience working with esteemed organizations such as Teva Pharma, Accutest Research Laboratories Pvt. Ltd., and Reliance Life Science.

Masters in Biotechnology, with 22+ years of exposure to Biotherapeutics, Biosimilars, Vaccines, Microsphere (NDDS), Blood Plasma Fractionation Products & Sterile Pharma, across various facets like: Bio-process engineering, Technology Support, Customer Training, Process development & Production.

He has expertise on process engineering, design & documentation of customized process equipments like Bioreactor, Fermentor, Process Vessel for upstream / downstream, CIP system, Bio kill system, Filtration Unit and Sterile Process Piping.

He leads engineering function in Praj HiPurity Systems Ltd.