BioPharm Insight - Pharmawire EDITORIAL TEAM Bios

Pharmawire Editorial Team

Pharmawire Editorial Bios

Biographies:

Kimberly Ha, Global Editor of Pharmawire
Kimberly Ha is Global Editor for Pharmawire, a part of the Mergermarket Group. She has a BA in psychology from New York University, with a concentration in neuroscience. She has been with Mergermarket for five years, covering healthcare. She started out as a financial journalist in Hong Kong, covering live M&A deals, before moving to New York to join Pharmawire in 2007. Kimberly generates daily breaking news, and market moving scoops. She was previously a court reporter for the Hong Kong Government. Her articles have also appeared in AsiaMoney and Hong Kong Magazine.

North America

Beth Herskovits, Content Editor
Beth Herskovits copy edits all Pharmawire articles before they go out on the site. She has been with the news service since its launch in 2007, starting as a reporter covering litigation, drug development and regulatory issues. She previously served as news and online editor at Pharmaceutical Executive magazine, as well as deputy news editor and healthcare reporter for PRWeek, where she covered drug marketing and public affairs. She has also written for publications as diverse as Medical Marketing & Media, The Staten Island Advance, and The Forward. She is a graduate of Cornell University.

Elizabeth Krutoholow, Consultant Editor
Elizabeth Krutoholow attended Boston University where she studied Biology. She held an internship at Genstruct, a computational systems biology company, where she studied the mechanisms of prostate cancer to aid several pharmaceutical and biotech companies in their drug development. After obtaining her BA, she worked at the Joslin Diabetes Center in the Cellular and Molecular Physiology Department as a Research Assistant where she studied the molecular mechanisms of type II diabetes. Elizabeth then attended graduate school at New York University, where she graduated with distinction with an MS. Her thesis focused on the biochemical pathways involved in pancreatic cancer. Elizabeth joined Pharmawire in February of 2008.

Sasha Coffiner, Journalist
Sasha Coffiner received her J.D. Cum Laude, Order of the Coif, from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in 2004. She was admitted to the New York Bar in 2005. While in law school, Sasha was a Supervising Editor on the Cardozo Law Review. She practiced pharmaceutical patent and intellectual property law in New York for several years prior to joining Pharmawire. She also received a M.A. in Biological Sciences from Columbia University in 2001 and a B.S. in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology from Haverford College in 2000. In college, she was the Managing Editor of the weekly student newspaper. Sasha covers licensing, litigation and drug development for Pharmawire.

Viral Gandhi, Journalist
Viral Gandhi graduated with a Bachelor and Master of Science in Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania where he studied bioengineering and entrepreneurship. He has extensive experience in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries with internships at Centocor of Johnson & Johnson, Cephalon, NuPathe, and Viropharma. In college, Viral led a venture to develop a non-invasive blood glucose monitor for which he wrote a business plan and his team was a finalist in the Wharton Business Plan and PennVention Innovation Competitions. His senior design project focused on optimization of the release profile of a grain-sized implant which delivered schizophrenia medication for up to three months. This technology is now being developed and implemented by NuPathe, Inc. He also spent time in Hong Kong & Guangdong, China learning to build an orthotic device for children with cerebral palsy.

Jennifer C. Smith, DC Correspondent
Jennifer C. Smith covers FDA regulatory affairs, CMS reimbursement issues, healthcare reform, orphan and pain drugs in the DC office. Prior to joining Pharmawire in 2009, she was an associate news editor at FDA Week, an online and weekly publication covering FDA regulatory policy for all FDA-regulated product areas. She also worked at The Monitor, a daily newspaper along the South Texas-Mexico border where she covered health, environment and science issues, including a year-long project on indigent healthcare services. At the paper she was awarded the Texas Medical Association’s Anson Jones journalism award for an article on breast cancer. Jennifer graduated from New York University with a BA with Honors in History and Journalism. She served on NYU’s independent, student-run daily newspaper as an editor and reporter.

Meghna Bhattacharjee, Journalist
Meghna Bhattacharjee has a Bachelor of Arts in premedical studies and English literature from Columbia University. Immediately after obtaining her BA she completed her Master of Arts from Columbia University in English and Comparative Literature, researching social and cultural trends in transnational pre-colonial texts. During her undergraduate and graduate studies, Meghna worked for The Water Center, part of The Earth Institute, as a Communications Analyst. Her responsibilities included writing and editing articles about water scarcity and other water-related environmental issues of impact, developing and maintaining the website, tracking and optimizing the efficiency of advertising strategies. Additionally, she has experience working at Columbia University’s biochemistry labs researching bacterial programmed cell death as a potential alternative route to cure bacterial diseases.

Europe

Kirsty Barnes, Assistant Editor
Kirsty joined Pharmawire in July 2008 and specializes in reporting on the clinical development of diabetes, endocrinology, cardiovascular, anti-infective drugs and vaccines; as well as the pharmaceutical contract services industry and the Asia - Pacific markets. Previous roles include editor of pharmaceutical industry breaking news websites www.Outsourcing-Pharma.com and www.In-PharmaTechnologist.com where she was honored among the place winners of the 2006 Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism (AHCJ). Prior to this Kirsty has worked as a senior medical writer and a biomedical scientist in Sydney and London, having obtained a Bachelor of Biomedical Science, majoring in pathology, at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS).

Abigail Moss, Journalist
Abigail Moss is a journalist covering drug development for Pharmawire. She recently completed a Masters degree in Clinical Neuroscience from King’s College London, where she worked on an independent research project on a functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) investigation of psychopharmacological modulation. She also has a BSc (Hons) in Psychology and has previous experience working in mental health. Prior to joining the mergermarket group Abigail worked at the department of Law at the University of Westminster, where she completed her undergraduate degree, for a project investigating miscarriages of justice.

Surani Fernando, Journalist
Surani received a Bachelor of Medical Science from Sydney University in 2005 with a focus on medical microbiology and infectious diseases. After graduating, she worked for a contract pathology laboratory for clinical trials in Sydney. She moved to the UK in 2007 and worked in the contract research organization (CRO) industry working mainly on ethics submissions and contract negotiations for studies in start up. In 2009 she returned to Sydney to complete a Masters in Health Communication which combined elements of a public health and journalism degree. During her Masters, she completed an internship at The Medical Observer, an Australian GP magazine.