Hi, I’m Ana. I’m on a mission to make all diseases treatable, and to make the development of medicines sustainable.
Bio
Ana is a drug discovery strategist, working with drug developers and rare disease foundations to develop new orphan drugs for epilepsy and rare neurological diseases.
Ana has 15 years of broad operational experience in biotech-pharma R&D and strategy (first at UCB Pharma and since 2014 as an independent consultant through her firm Dracaena Consulting), spanning indication selection, preclinical, clinical, regulatory and commercial stages. She has supported numerous programs at 15 bio-pharmaceutical companies, including 3 currently approved drugs and one preclinical-to-Phase 3 program. Ana is also a co-Founder of Singularity Bio, and Theracule, two biotech startups developing small molecule drugs for underserved conditions.
Ana is also a strong advocate for patient engagement in drug discovery and development (see eBook #ImpatientRevolution). She is the Chief Development Officer of the Loulou Foundation, Chief of Translational Science of CureSHANK, former Scientific Director of the Dravet Syndrome Foundation Spain, and an advisor to other rare disease Foundation. Through these roles, Ana helps build under-developed rare disease fields to accelerate the development of new treatments.
Ana is a neuroscientist by training. She received her PhD in neuroscience from the University of Barcelona in Spain (2006), and completed an EMBO postdoctoral fellowship at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada (2006-2009).
Affiliations
Founder and Principal, Dracaena Consulting
Boutique consultancy helping companies and patient organizations develop new medicines for epilepsy and neurodevelopmental syndromes.
Founding CEO, Singularity Bio
Biotech startup on a mission to make all complex diseases treatable by developing medicines that induce specific cell states to fight disease.
Chief Development Officer, Loulou Foundation
Non-profit foundation dedicated to advancing research into the understanding and development of therapeutics for CDKL5 deficiency disorder.
Chief of Translational Science, CureSHANK
Non-profit foundation Accelerating the development of treatments for Phelan-McDermid syndrome (SHANK3)
Scientific Advisor, Dravet Syndrome European Federation
Non-profit organization, federation of European patient organizations active in the field of Dravet Syndrome and driven by patients and patients’ caregivers.
Supporting therapeutic program development by the DHPS Foundation
Non-profit foundation looking for treatments for an ultra-rare neurodevelopmental disorder caused by mutations in the DHPS gene.
Content
Presentations
2023 - Tratamientos para SYNGAP1: dónde estamos y hacia dónde vamos [Español] SRF
2023 - CDKL5 Deficiency Disorder treatment pipeline - CDKL5 Alliance conference
2022 - Patient community driven alliances, presented at the Patient Engagement in 2030 meeting, Utrecht
2022 - La Importancia del movimiento asociativo - EPIGENS
2021 - Retos de la terapia génica y medicina de precisión desde el punto de vista del movimiento asociativo - Sociedad Española de Epilepsia
2021 - El futuro de los tratamientos para los síndromes con epilepsia refractaria - EpiBilbao
2020 - Epilepsy Therapies in Development - Cleveland Clinic Epilepsy Genetics Update
2019 - Patient groups partnering in the drug development process - RAREsummit 19 by Cambridge Rare Disease Network
2019 - From seizures to genes: how Dravet syndrome is changing the way we treat epilepsy - Madrid
2018 - World Orphan Drug Congress (WODC) - Barcelona
2018 - 1st Metting in Translational Pharmacology - Santiago
2018 - Eurordis Winter School - Paris
2017 - World Orphan Drug Congress (WODC) - Barcelona
2017 - Cambridge International Rare Disease Summit - Cambridge UK
2017 - Inaugural Symposium of the Austrian Platform for Personalized Medicine - Vienna
2017 - Rare disease symposium: the rare disease patient in 2030 - Amsterdam
2016 - European Congress on Epileptology (ECE) - Prague
2016 - European Conference on Rare Diseases (ECRD) - Edinburgh
2015 - Big Data in Health Care - Luxembourg
2015 - World Orphan Drug Congress (WODC) - Geneva
2015 - Orphan Drug Summit - Copenhagen
2015 - The Future of Refractory Epilepsy Syndromes - Madrid
Featured videos and podcasts
Introduction and presentation on the role of patient groups in advancing research and treatments
2020 update on epilepsy therapy development, with a focus on rare epilepsy syndromes
2015 presentation on Impatient patient organizations as partners, with a focus on rare epilepsy syndromes
Where to find me