Dr. Siobhán Kelleher

Eternally curious, Siobhán has a unique education spanning scientific (BSc; MSc in Cell Biology and PhD in Cardiovascular Pharmacology, UCD), clinical (MSc in Health Policy and Health Services Management, TCD) and commercial (Smurfit PGC; BioInnovate PG. Dip) training. Siobhán is passionate about health and wellbeing and the ability of food, medicine, and technological innovation to save and improve the lives of patients and their families. To this end, Siobhán completed BioInnovate, a needs-led innovation programme affiliated with Stanford Biodesign. Following clinical immersion in the Mayo clinic (Rochester), she pursued an unmet clinical need in foetal monitoring and secured Science Foundation Ireland TIDA and Infant funding for ongoing research in the Translational Medical Device Laboratory in NUI Galway. Siobhán is currently Principal Investigator for projects funded by Enterprise Ireland and Science Foundation Ireland (AI for Societal Good) in addition to leading the EndoSolve Project (European Research Commission) to develop a novel digital biomarker to diagnose, monitor and treat chronic inflammatory endocrine conditions such as endometriosis.

 

Siobhán has over 20 years senior leadership experience (coaching & mentoring, performance management and succession planning) at national, regional and global levels in leading multi-nationals including ICON Plc. Novartis, Wyeth and MSD. She led teams across many functions including sales, marketing, data analytics, market access and digital. Eager to share her experience, Siobhán delivered BioDesign elements of the Master of Engineering (ME) programme in Biomedical Engineering in NUIG (2017 – 2020). This programme focuses on developing advanced technical knowledge and skills to address real-world unmet needs and subsequent implementation of these in terms of prototype and business plan development. In addition, Siobhán developed and facilitated bespoke industry training for BioInnovate Ireland. This involved developing a needs-led innovation progamme for R&D engineers across different business units in Baxter and facilitating workshops in their European Corporate Headquarters in Basel.

 

Siobhan is a champion of Women’s Health and has vast experience across many therapeutic areas including pain and fertility. As Sales and Marketing Lead, she established a dedicated business unit for the Fertility Franchise in MSD across the Nordics, Baltic, UK and Ireland – responsible for leading strategy and operations across the region. The belief that hormonal health is at the heart of personalised medicine is core to Siobhán’s research. Furthermore, having worked with patient advocates and organisations throughout her career, Siobhan is a strong proponent of patient and public involvement (PPI) in research. She believes that patients should be involved in every stage of research - developing the research questions, designing clinical studies, identifying user needs for prototyping to ensure that any innovation or advancement in science is in line with patient’s requirements.