JNJ - GPH_MEDICAL_SCIENTIFIC_AFFAIRS

GPH MEDICAL &
SCIENTIFIC AFFAIRS
BULLETIN 001
Profiling our team of dedicated staff and the
excellent work they have been doing in the field.
APRIL

Welcome to the J&J GPH Scientific and Medical
Affairs bulletin. Here we will profile our team of
dedicated staff and the excellent work they have
been doing in the field.
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Team Profiles
Paediatric Dr TB Training of Trainers
Report on WAC-CREP Conference
New Horizon Workshop
Ebola Vaccine Preparedness Initiative
Active Markets

MEET THE TEAM
Our team includes members from Clinical Evidence Generation, Patient
Engagement, Scientific Stakeholder Engagement, Evidence Dissemination and
Medical Technical Support. Here they are:
ABEDA
WILLIAMS
Abeda Williams is the
Head of Scientific Affairs.
She said: “Our team is
more structured to support
and execute the plans from
the franchise team as well as
achieve the GPH objectives.”
“Under the leadership of Carlos, we are more
aligned to support the franchise areas with defined
roles and responsibilities.”
“We have dedicated roles for example patient
engagement, med info and medical education.”
CLINICAL EVIDENCE GENERATION:
Clinical insights and data generation to enable
GPH Access goals under the leadership of Fafa
Addo Boateng.
and geographies.
FAFA ADDO
BOATENG
Director for Data and
Evidence Generation
based in Accra, Ghana.
In her role, she leads
all GPH clinical research
activities from PH3/B – PH4,
across all priority therapeutic areas
She said: “The Evidence Generation team is the 1st
dedicated unit within GPH for clinical research. I am
successfully shaping evidence generation and in
collaboration with key internal stakeholders, developed
and implemented the evidence generation framework
which clearly outlines scope, processes and roles
& responsibilities from design to close-out and
publication of all clinical research projects.”
FRIDAH
MWENDIA
Our Clinical Research
Manager for Evidence
Generation Program
based in Nairobi, Kenya.
She is responsible for providing
scientific, technical and operational expertise in the
planning, implementation and close out of all GPH
evidence generation activities across all relevant
Therapeutic Areas (HIV, COVID 19, TB and Mental
Health) and geographies (EMEA, Asia and LATAM).
Mwendia said: “I have years of experience in
managing clinical and epidemiology studies. I
have worked in the non-profit and pharmaceutical
sectors, as well as with research institutions, in
reputable institutions like KEMRI and GSK Biologicals
in Belgium. I have experience in management
of stakeholders including partners, donors and
government that is necessary in the planning,
execution, analysis and reporting of clinical trials.”
UKAH
IDAHOSA
Our Evidence
Generation Program
Manager for Medical
Affairs, based in Lagos,
Nigeria. In her role as
Evidence Generation Program
Manager, she is Project Lead for the ongoing
studies in specified Therapeutic Areas within GPH.
This means, she is responsible for ensuring that all
activities related to these projects are conducted to
specification and comply with company and other
quality standards in accordance to agreed timelines.
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EVIDENCE DISSEMINATION:
Integrated communication plan for medical information
and education contextualized to relevant audiences.
RETHABILE
LECHESA
The Medical Information
& Compliance Manager
for Africa and has diverse
experience spanning
fifteen years in Medical
Affairs gained in different
pharmaceutical companies. Her vision is to ensure
that we provide the best customer experience
through well researched, fair and balanced medical
responses, share meaningful insights and measure
their impact and to compliantly enhance our service
offering for patients.
MERCY
WALI
Our Medical Education
Lead GPH at Johnson
and Johnson, based in
Nairobi Kenya. Wali leads
the medical affairs team in
the Eastern African region,
as a Medical Science Liaison and subsequently as
a Medical manager. Medical Education was a key
component of medical affairs and is anchored on
good relationships with key opinion leaders, from
who insights are obtained.
She said: “I enjoyed impacting children through
activities of the New Horizons Collaborative which
was double pronged program.”
“If anyone tries to tackle TB in isolation, it’s going to be
a big challenge. I think South Africa is demonstrating
that if we work together, you can make a difference.”
– Abeda Williams –
PATIENT ENGAGEMENT:
Integrated and compliant patient engagement
strategy and programs execution.
MARK ANUM
NORTEY
is based in Accra-
Ghana and works in the
patient and community
engagement team of the
medical and scientific affairs
department in Global Public Health (GPH), and with
a focus on the New Horizon Collaborative.
Mark joined GPH from the Janssen Medical
Affairs (MAF) team in Near East Maghrib &
Africa (NEMA) where he worked as a Medical
Science Liaison responsible for driving the NEMA
medical affairs strategy in Ghana, and with a focus
on the Oncology & Neuroscience therapy areas.
ROBERT
KANWAGI
Our Patient Engagement
& Advocacy lead for
GPH based in Nairobi
Kenya. He joined GPH in
May 2021 having worked on
supporting the deployment of the
J&J Ebola vaccine for 7 years on the Africa continent
in Sierra Leone, DRC, Uganda, and Rwanda. His
new role with GPH is to work with both internal and
external stakeholders to enhance an integrated
and compliant patient engagement strategy and
programs execution.
SCIENTIFIC STAKEHOLDER
ENGAGEMENT:
Regional and country field based medical
engagement team for evidence generation and
other med/scientific activities.
ALMA-NALISHA
CELE
Medical Affairs Manager
for Southern Africa –
HIV and TB, based in
Johannesburg.
She heads up the medical affairs for GPH in
Southern Africa and has launched a successful
program that caters to junior doctors and young
professionals by equipping them with skills for ease
of treatment wherever they may be as well as a
collaborative workshop with an excellent scientific
partner that was well received by doctors.
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SHAAKIRA
ABRAHAMS
Our Medical Science
Liaison, based in
Johannesburg, South
Africa. Her primary
responsibility is to connect with external
stakeholders in order to communicate clinical
data as well as gather information about the HIV
treatment and care landscape. Shaakira said:
“During my time as a research scientist, I was able
to contribute to HIV therapy research by publishing
scientific data in several peer-reviewed journals
both nationally and internationally. I consider these
to be one of my proudest achievements”
WALTER
MIBEI
The vaccines medical
manager for Eastern
Africa based in Nairobi,
Kenya. He works within the
medical affairs team focused on
the J&J COVID-19 vaccine and has been with
J&J GPH for 7 months.
Walter said: “For the last three months I have
also been supporting COVID-19 vaccine related
medical affairs work across the West Africa region
pending arrival of a new colleague. The vaccines
team has had many achievements and a key one
is close collaboration of the larger GPH vaccines
team in rolling out introduction and scientific
update meetings with leadership of expanded
program on immunization (EPI) teams in 18
countries in sub-Sahara Africa over the last three
months.”
MEDICAL TECHNICAL SUPPORT
JESSICA
ABRAHAMS
Medical Digital
Excellence Manager
for Johnson & Johnson
Global Public Health,
based in Cape Town, South
Africa. She has Facilitated the
successful integration of phase 1 ROA (Rest of
Africa Countries) in iConnect and managing the
data supply.
THERESA
DREYDEN
Lastly, Theresa (Tracy)
Dreyden is our Snr
GPH Technical Support
based in Midrand,
Gauteng. In her role she
provides high-level support and
manages information, communication, logistics in
the office to ensure regulatory functions, legal and
compliance issues are in line with the requirement
for GPH products.She also manages the GPH
Tender Management for SSA from end-to-end in
partnership with Regional Access Leaders.
Tracy said:“In the future I would like to streamline
the processes with regards to processing of
payments for the various teams as well as improve
on the previous Tenders success rate.”
“Future of the vaccines team looks bright and
busy as we continue to roll out COVID-19 vaccine
focused meetings with EPI teams in the remaining
29 countries in sub-Sahara Africa and continue to
focus on the Ebola vaccine.”
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PAEDIATRIC DR TB TRAINING OF TRAINERS
DATE: 24TH TO 26TH FEBRUARY 2022
VENUE: RADISSON BLUE GAUTRAIN, SANDTON
Paediatric DR TB remains a major public health
problem. Paediatric DR TB case finding is low.
This can be attributed to challenges in sample
collection for TB DST and the lack of knowledge
in managing DR TB in children. Contact
management remains globally suboptimal,
despite being a proven and easy to implement
intervention for paediatric DR TB case finding.
Unavailability of paediatric DR TB formulations
presents a major challenge in the management of
children diagnosed with DR TB. Children tolerate
side effects of TB medicines better than adults,
however, administration of adult formulations
in children presents a major challenge to
clinicians and caregivers in the preparation
of the medicines and dosing of the prepared
formulations as they are not always standard and
thus the likelihood of over- or under-dosing.
Health education to the caretakers is suboptimal
due to the health care workers lack confidence in
managing children with DRTB.
Despite all the challenges, to the best of our
knowledge, there is no training on DR TB
specifically tailored for children aged less than 15
years. Management of paediatric DR TB is largely
extrapolated from the management of adults with
DR TB.
Aquity innovations NPC engaged two consultants
to develop a curriculum specifically for DR TB in
children based on the South African guidelines
and other globally accepted guidelines. The
consultants developed a draft curriculum that was
reviewed by the South African paediatric DR TB
technical working group based in South Africa, in
October 2021.
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This was a follow-up training of trainers using the
material that was developed and facilitated by the
TB experts and consultants.
THE TRAINING WAS AIMED AT
1) Training of the paediatric DR TB Trainers in line
with current WHO and SA guidelines
2) Reviewing the current updates on the M & E tools
in use. This was a 3-day in-house training. It was
well attended with representatives from the National
DOH, the TB and DRTB heads from various
provinces, AQUITY innovations staff among others.
Nineteen participants undertook the pre-and
post-test that demonstrated 15.7% knowledge
increase. Key lesson learnt during the training is to
allocate at least 4-5 days for the training. Some of
the PAEDIATRIC TB Programmatic challenges to
tackle:
• Decentralization in some provinces is affected
by low numbers of staff
• Limited outreaches to communities is limited
due to staff shortages
• Some sites were closed as TB sites and
converted to COVID-19 sites
• Differentiating programmatic policies and
advising participants what is the SA policy, and
when to consult TB experts
• Consider job aids on ordering of TB drugs, their
side effects, the management of ADRs
• Institutionalize programmatic contact
management (including follow up) in DS TB and
DR TB guidelines
• Provide clear programmatic guidelines on TB
screening (symptomatic vs CXR vs laboratory
testing)
• Include HIV experts in training
Dr J Luiz
Dora Nginza
Hospital
We are not nearly where we want to be but the first
step has been taken and we believe we will reach
a point where sample collection for TB DST and
knowledge in managing DR TB in children is at
100%.”
Dr F Ismail (NICD),
Dr S Nyathie (AQUITY),
Dr T Njoroge (Consultant Paed.)
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REPORT ON WAC-CREP CONFERENCE
Johnson and Johnson GPH recently sponsored
the 5th International Scientific Conference of the
West African Consortium for Clinical Research on
Epidemic Pathogens (WAC-CREP) from 17 to 19
March 2022 in Yamoussoukro, Cote D’Ivore.
The conference had approximately 100 researchers
from Ivory Coast, Guinea, Mali, Sierra Leone, Liberia
and the larger West Africa region in attendance
to discuss and receive latest updates on topics
of interest such as health, conducting research in
epidemics, COVID-19 disease and Ebola Virus.
Researchers from the region also presented
abstracts on their studies.
There was also a symposium and abstract
presentation focused on the J&J Ebola Virus
Vaccine. The symposium topic was ‘Updates on
the Clinical Trial Program of the J&J Ebola Vaccine
and Best Practices for conducting research in
Africa’ and the symposium started with Walter
Mibei introducing GPH and Prof Omu Anzala from
University of Nairobi who shared from his wealth of
experience in conducting research in Africa for over
20 years.
Our J&J colleague based in Uganda, Michael
Katwere presented an abstract titled ‘Immune
Response of a Two-dose, Heterologous Ebola
Vaccine Regimen Using a ‘One Assay, One Lab’
Approach: Summary of Three African Clinical Trials’.
The research community mentioned they have
challenges with certain aspects of research and
were keen to continue collaborating with J&J to
strengthen such aspects.
NEW HORIZON WORKSHOP (LAGOS, NIGERIA)
In April 2022, the New Horizons Collaborative
(NHC) through its implementing partner Elizabeth
Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (EGPAF) and
in collaboration with the National AIDS and STDs
Control Program (NASCP) of the Federal Ministry
of Health (FMOH) in Nigeria organized a 2 day
technical workshop in Lagos – Nigeria.
New Horizons is a collaborative initiative to build
awareness, inspire action, and advance learning
around the unmet needs of HIV treatmentexperienced
children and adolescents globally.
The workshop brought together several experts
and stakeholders in pediatric HIV care to discuss
treatment optimization in the management of HIV
among pediatric and adolescent populations.
Key topics discussed included the management
of treatment failure in children and adolescents;
challenges in 2nd and 3rd line management for
children and adolescents and a training on the NHC
Real World Evidence Study Protocol.
The J&J and EGPAF team also conducted field
visits to treatment centers such as the Abuja
National Hospital (ANH) and the Lagos University
Teaching Hospital (LUTH).
The NHC in keeping with our promise of advancing
pediatric HIV treatment and care in Sub-Saharan
Africa (SSA), would continue to work together with
our implementing partner and key stakeholders to
provide capacity, enhance access to treatment and
strengthen health systems.
Prof Regina Oladokun (UCH, Ibadan) is seated first from the right, followed by Dr. Peter Nwaokenneya, Stacy Meyer is Dr Apollo
Tiam, Prof Stephen Oguche (JUTH, Jos) and Dr Ijeoma Itanyi (UNTH, Enugu
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EBOLA VACCINE PREPAREDNESS INITIATIVE
The Ebola Vaccine Preparedness Initiative is a
partnership between JNJ and the Kenya Paediatric
Research Consortium(keprecon) with support from
the Ministry of Health (moh) through the National
Vaccines and Immunization Program (nvip), Kenya
Paediatric Association (kpa) and the University of
Nairobi’s (uon) Department of Paediatrics
Ebola Virus disease (EVD), a viral haemorrhagic
illness that carries a high mortality rate has been
recognised as a significant health threat with the
potential to cause large epidemics particularly
in Africa. In recent years, outbreaks, which have
previously occurred mainly in West and Central
Africa, have been spreading to eastern Africa due to
the increasing ease of cross- border travel.
The World Health Organisation confirmed a new
Ebola outbreak on the 24th of April 2022.
Two vaccines were approved by the World Health
Organization Strategic Group of Experts for Ebola in
2020. The rVSV vectored vaccine has been used in
outbreaks in West Africa and DRC since 2014 as a
ring vaccination strategy.
The second vaccine candidate consists of two
components: Ad26.ZEBOV and MVA-BN-Filo and
is administered in a heterologous prime-boost
schedule.
The vaccine has been used in DRC and in Rwanda.
It is a prophylactic vaccine in a 2-dose schedule and
is therefore suitable for populations at risk outside
outbreak situations.
Following the SAGE recommendations and in
recognition of the high risk of rapid spread of Ebola
to new countries, Janssen in 2021 approached the
Kenya Paediatric Research Consortium (Keprecon)
to partner in an Ebola Vaccine Preparedness
Initiative.
roll out can be accelerated and expanded to all
countries allowing rapid containment.
The educational activities planned were a series of
4 monthly webinars. The first Webinar was held on
2 March 2022and had 71 participants. The topic
was “Description of the Ebola virus, epidemiology
and pathogenicity”. The speaker was Dr. Daniel
Mukadi who is the Regional Director of the P3/P2/
P2 Rodolphe Mérieux INRB-Goma Laboratories from
DRC Congo.
The 2nd Webinar held on 23 March 2022 with 38
participants and the speaker was Dr. Gaudensia
Mutua from Kenya. She has worked for close to 20
years as a principal investigator on various clinical
trials including HIV and Ebola at the KAVI-Institute of
clinical research (University of Nairobi). Dr. Mutua
spoke on “Viral vaccine technologies, including
vector-based vaccines”.
The 3rd and 4th webinars are scheduled for April
and May on the topics “Ebola vaccines research,
including current Ebola vaccines” and “Ebola virus
disease: prevention and treatment, including the
SAGE recommendations”.
Following positive feedback from participants
and after discussion with Janssen, a 5th webinar
has been proposed to address the challenge of
improving vaccine uptake.
To wrap up the webinar series, there will be a roundtable
discussion bringing together all the speakers
to address important highlights as well as brainstorm
on the next steps with regards to the Ebola Vaccine
Preparedness Initiative.
This project has brought into focus the need to
educate health professionals on the rationale for
vaccination early enough outside of emergency
need.
Together, Janssen and Keprecon developed a
proposal to conduct the Ebola Vaccine Preparedness
Initiative project.
The goal of the project was to prepare countries
for effective introduction of the Ebola vaccine by
educating members of National Immunization
Technical Advisory groups as well as Immunization
personnel from at-risk countries on key aspects of
EVD and vaccines.
This is with the aim of increasing awareness of
vaccines as well as building up preparedness and
capacity to ensure that during outbreaks, vaccine
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ACTIVE MARKETS
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LOCATIONS
Southern Africa
JC South Africa
JC Botswana
JC eSwatini
JC Lesotho
JC Mozambique
JC Namibia
JC Zambia
JC Zimbabwe
East Africa
JC Kenya
JC Ethiopia
JC Rwanda
JC Uganda
JC Tanzania
West Africa
JC Nigeria
JC Ghana
JC Cameroon
JC Democratic Republic Congo (DRC),
Kinshasa
JC Democratic Republic Congo,
Brazzaville
JC Senegal
JC Ivory Coast / Cote d’ Ivore
JC Burkina Faso
J&J GPH Medical & Scientific Affairs Bulletin | 11

THANK
YOU
This GPH Scientific & Medical
Affairs Bulletin 001 2022 was
brought to you by our contributing
editors, Robert Kanwagi and
Rethabile Lechesa; sub editors,
Fridah Mwendia, Ukeh Idahosa, Addo
Boateng, Mercy Wali, Mark Anum
Nortey, Shaakira Abrahams, Walter
Mibei, Alma-Nalisha Cele, Abeda
Williams, Jessica Abrahams, Tracy
Dreyden; and, our agency
of choice, Avatar Agency
12 | J&J GPH Medical & Scientific Affairs Bulletin