Biomanufacturing World Summit

Edgardo Hernandez (he/him/his) is executive vice president at Eli Lilly and Company and president of manufacturing operations.

Ed served as senior vice president of global parenteral drug product, delivery devices and regional manufacturing from 2018 until 2021. In this role, he was responsible for global parenteral manufacturing, emerging markets manufacturing, drug-product contract manufacturing, packaging, and distribution operations. Ed provided oversight for manufacturing sites in 12 countries across North America, South America, Europe, and Asia; that manufacture the final parenteral product (non-oral) formulations of Lilly medicines.

Previously, Ed was vice president of Fegersheim Operations for Lilly’s manufacturing site located in France. Before that, he served as site head for two other Lilly manufacturing sites: Indianapolis Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient manufacturing from 2014 until 2016, and PR06 in Puerto Rico from 2012 until 2014. Ed joined Lilly in 2005 as an engineering services leader for Lilly del Caribe in Puerto Rico, after working for several years in positions for Pfizer and Pharmacia.

Ed is a native of Puerto Rico and holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in chemical engineering from the University of Puerto Rico and North Carolina State University, respectively.

Laura Alquist joined Kite in 2016 and currently serves as Vice President and Global Head of Technical Operations.

She has more than 25 years of experience in all aspects of technical operations including manufacturing, supply chain, quality and information systems. Laura served as Vice President of Global Supply Chain at Kite before being named Global Head of Manufacturing in 2023. Under her leadership, Kite’s manufacturing team has improved its industry-leading track record for reliability and speed. Additionally, Laura successfully led the team in navigating the COVID-19 pandemic with zero supply disruptions to the patients and providers who rely on Kite’s therapies. Before joining Kite, Laura spent 20 years at Amgen in a range of global and operational roles of increasing responsibility across supply chain, manufacturing, quality and IT.

Laura holds a bachelor’s degree in business management from California Lutheran University and is APICS certified in supply chain operations.

Dr. Advant has served as Savara’s Executive Vice President, Global Technical Operations since March 2024. With approximately three decades of experience in the biopharmaceutical sector, he has considerable expertise in drug substance, drug product, and analytical development with early- and late-stage clinical and commercially approved biologics. Dr. Advant also has extensive expertise in technology transfer, scale-up and cGMP manufacturing (both internal and external) in a highly regulated environment. To date, Dr. Advant has helped launch multiple biologic assets across several therapeutic areas. Prior to joining Savara, he was VP, Manufacturing Operations at GSK, where he was responsible for multi-site drug substance and drug product operations. Previously he held roles of increasing responsibility at Celgene Corporation (acquired by Bristol Myers Squibb), Kemwell BioPharma, ImClone/Lilly, and Diosynth Biotechnology (now FujiFilm Diosynth Biotechnolgy), among others. Dr. Advant holds a Ph.D. in Pharmaceutics from the University of Connecticut.

Dr. Pat Yang is one of the most accomplished biotech manufacturing executives and technical operations leaders in the industry.

From 2017 to 2019, Pat was executive vice president at Juno Therapeutics, a leading CAR-T biotech company (now part of BMS) based in Seattle.

Previously, from 2009 to 2013, Pat was Executive Vice President and Global Head of Technical Operations at F. Hoffman-La Roche based in Basel, Switzerland. In this role, he was responsible for Roche’s biopharma process research and development, analytical sciences, engineering, quality, technical regulatory, supply chain and all manufacturing plants with approximately 15,000 employees around the world. From 2003 to 2009, Pat was Executive Vice President of Product Operations at Genentech. He assumed his role as Global Head of the combined technical operations of Roche and Genentech upon the acquisition of Genentech by Roche in 2009.

Before Genentech, Pat worked for 11 years at Merck & Company from 1992 to 2003, based in New Jersey, in various leadership positions including vice president of Asia Pacific Operations and vice president of Global Supply Chain Management. Prior to joining Merck in 1992, Pat spent 12 years at General Electric, serving in research, engineering, technology, and manufacturing leadership roles with increasing scope of responsibilities.

Pat holds a Bachelor of Science from the National Chiaotung University in Taiwan, a Master of Science from the University of Cincinnati, and a Ph.D. in engineering from Ohio State University.

Pat is a member of the Board of Directors of three public companies, Amyris, Codexis and PharmaEssentia. In addition, he is on the board of several private companies, including Acepodia, AltruBio, Antheia and Sana Biotechnology.

Andrea (Andi) Goddard serves as Chief Technical Officer at CatalYm. She brings three decades of global biotechnology experience, spanning all levels of operations — from the manufacturing floor to the C-suite. Andi joined CatalYm from Roche Pharma and Genentech, Inc. where she most recently was the Chief Quality Officer for Roche Pharma Technical Operations. In this role, she led a global team delivering end-to-end quality and compliance for Roche’s pharmaceutical commercial products and clinical pipeline. During this time, Andi was also a member of the Genentech, Inc. Executive Committee. Previously, Andi held various operational and executive roles in manufacturing, technology, and quality across Roche and Genentech. Andi holds a BA in Human Biology from Stanford University.

Sebastian Stening leads Roche’s global Device & Packaging organization, ensuring manufacturing readiness and orchestrating cross-functional collaboration across device development, procurement, quality, regulatory, supplier management, and site operations. He also serves as Global Head of Device, Packaging and Distribution Manufacturing Science & Technology, with responsibility for device industrialization strategy, end-to-end platform implementation, and medical device portfolio performance across Pharma TechOps.

Sebastian joined Roche from Bayer, where he established and led the Global Medical Device MSAT organization, spanning device development, industrialization, and technical lifecycle management for a broad portfolio across biotech, oncology, and cell and gene therapy. At Bayer, his responsibilities also included the development, industrialization, and launch preparation of the Eylea 8 mg drug-device combination product.

Prior to Bayer, Sebastian held multiple leadership roles at Sanofi across device development and industrialization, working on Dupixent across multiple functions to support submission and launch readiness. He holds B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Business Administration and Engineering, with a focus on physics and medical devices, from the University of Applied Sciences Münster, and is a certified Six Sigma Black Belt.

Susan Abu-Absi, PhD, is a seasoned biopharmaceutical executive with more than 20 years of leadership experience spanning technical development, manufacturing, quality and global operations. Most recently, she served as Chief Operating Officer at Be Biopharma, where she led the company’s operational strategy and execution. Prior to Be Biopharma, she was Chief Technology Officer at 2seventy bio, leading technical development, supply and quality and supporting the commercialization of Abecma® as well as the advancement of multiple cell therapy programs. Previously, Susan held senior leadership roles at bluebird bio, where she played an integral role in the approvals of Zynteglo® and Skysona®, and at Bristol Myers Squibb and Bayer Healthcare. She holds a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Minnesota and a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Toledo.

Stephen Hill is the Chief Operating Officer at Lyell. He is responsible for research and end-to-end development and supply of cell therapies to support Lyell’s clinical and commercial aspirations.

Hill was formerly Head of Biologic Operations at AstraZeneca where he was responsible for end-to-end supply of the commercial and late-stage clinical portfolio for Biologics that included oversight of six manufacturing sites across the US and Europe and five commercial products.

As Vice President Operations, Site Head at the AstraZeneca Frederick Manufacturing Center, Hill was responsible for the largest biologics manufacturing facility within the company’s global network. The site consists of a licensed, large-scale cell culture facility and recently commissioned small-scale facility.

Prior to AstraZeneca Hill served as Vice President Bulk Manufacturing at Amgen’s Puerto Rico facility and as Executive Director leading commercial formulation and filling and commercial drug substance operations.

Hill also served prior roles as Executive Director, Manufacturing Technologies leading manufacturing global networks and as Executive Director, Plant Manager leading clinical drug substance operations. In his corporate role he led manufacturing of the future, operations strategy, high reliability performance and manufacturing global network initiatives. In his plant manager role he was an effective change agent driving productivity improvement to deliver multiple pipeline new product introductions annually.

Hill joined Amgen from ICOS Corporation where he executed GMP clinical plant start-up and led manufacturing, ultimately transitioning the operation into a contract manufacturing business. Hill started his career at Immunex Corporation as an operator manufacturing Enbrel.

Hill holds a Master in Business Administration (MBA) and Bachelor’s in Microbiology (BS) and Political Science (BA) from the University of Washington.