We are glad to announce the formation of our advisory board, which held its first meeting last week. The board consists of three experienced and diverse members with exceptional skill sets.
The first member is Dr. Refiloe Matji, a Public Health Physician based in South Africa. She is the Founder and CEO of a Non-Governmental Organization, AQUITY Innovations, and has been working in public health for over 20 years. Dr. Matji offers unparalleled expertise in programming, technical assistance, and capacity building for health programs, and serves in several international working groups working on TB and TB/HIV. Dr. Matji has also worked with BMGF, WHO, USAID, and other bodies on issues related to TB.
The second member is Dr. Florian von Groote-Bidlingmaier, a specialist physician in internal medicine and pulmonology trained in Germany and South Africa. Following his fellowship he worked on clinical trials with novel antituberculosis agents and combinations, with a special interest in the clinical development of treatments against drug-resistant tuberculosis. Since 2019, Dr. von Groote-Bidlingmaier has been Executive Vice President, Global Health at Evotec, an international drug discovery and development company, leading the global health programs out of Evotec's specialist infectious diseases site in Lyon, France.
The third member is Dr. Wilson Mok, a global health expert who advises organizations focused on low- and middle-income countries. From 2013 until 2020, he worked for Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, in various roles including as Head of Policy and coordinating the initial design of the COVAX Facility. Prior to Gavi, Dr. Mok was a strategy consultant at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, focusing on HIV prevention, and a management consultant with McKinsey & Company, advising healthcare companies and public sector clients.
Our advisory board has a range of responsibilities, including playing a role determining EPCON’s strategy, interpreting market trends, and reviewing our business model and relationships with stakeholders. Additionally, the board will be tasked with best positioning EPCON’s offerings, such as its AI predictive model for infectious diseases, in the market. Because we are a small and agile company, we are ideally placed to respond to health crises and gaps as they arise in the market.
We are convinced the board will be instrumental in helping EPCON to face new challenges and move from strength to strength. Globally, various public health trends are emerging - for instance, that governments increasingly seek solutions for infectious diseases, including malaria, TB, and HIV, as a one health challenge and not in separate disease silos. The board will provide guidance on how best to respond to such trends, as well as other emerging market developments.