Uma Swaminathan MSc, MBA
GlaxoSmithKline
Uma’s passion for medical writing brought her all the way from Bangalore (India) to Belgium. During her Scientific Writing career of over 7 years at GSK, Uma has worked on a wide range of regulatory and disclosure documents across different vaccine projects. Following her stint in Medical Writing, Uma headed the Web Disclosure Team in GSK Biologicals which allowed her to further develop her skills in the field of project management, medical governance and scientific communication. These included such diverse activities as understanding and complying with the complex and ever-changing legal and regulatory requirements for disclosure; planning, tracking and delivery of protocol and results summaries; cross-functional training; and increasing the public disclosure awareness within the company. Uma then set up the Clinical Process Excellence Team in GSK Biologicals with oversight for process and written standards simplification in the human subject research space across all Clinical Delivery functions and transversally for the activities directly impacting clinical trials. Uma then moved to GSK Pharmaceuticals to head the Clinical Development Policy and Process group that drives consistency, accountability and continuous improvement in the way clinical development processes are governed, created, documented and continuously improved. Uma’s assignment as Ethics & Compliance Director in Vaccines focused on enabling value-based decision making and smart risk taking while maintaining quality and compliance. In her current role as Head of R&D Bioethics & Policy, Uma and her team support the Chief Medical Officer in establishing patient focused and pragmatic R&D Policies.