Haruka Sakamoto

Senior Manager, Health and Global Policy Institute
After Professor Haruka Sakamoto, MD MPH, PhD graduated from Sapporo Medical University School of Medicine and served as an internist at St. Luke’s International Hospital, she worked at the International Affairs and the Maternal and Child Health Divisions of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW). She has represented Japan at various international conferences including the United Nations General Assembly and the World Health Organization (WHO) General Assembly. She also participated in organizing the G7 Ise-Shima Summit and the G7 Kobe Health Ministers’ Meeting in 2016. She attended the Harvard T.H Chan School of Public Health with a scholarship from the World Bank and received a Master of Public Health degree in 2014. In 2021, she received a Doctor of Public Health degree from the University of Tokyo. Her current roles include Associate Professor, Department of International Affairs and Tropical Medicine, Tokyo Women’s Medical University; Project Researcher, Department of Global Health Policy, the University of Tokyo; Consultant, WHO Western Pacific Regional Office; and Senior Fellow, the Tokyo Foundation Institute for Policy Research.

Keizo Takemi

Member of the House of Councilors, Chairman of the LDP Special Committee on International Health Strategy
Keizo Takemi is a Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) Member of the House of Councillors. Prof. Takemi has been involved in various global initiatives including the Commission on Information and Accountability for Women’s and Children’s Health, Global Health Workforce Alliance (GHWA), WHO expert working group on R&D Financing, and the international organizing committee of the Prince Mahidol Award Conference (PMAC). He has also been serving as Chair of the parliamentary caucus on Stop TB Partnership and the Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (AFPPD). In 2016, he was appointed to the UN High Level Commission on Health Employment and Economic Growth, and in 2018, to the UHC Financing Advisory Committee for the G20 2019. He has served as Senior Vice Minister for Health, Labour and Welfare, and State Secretary for Foreign Affairs, where he led the initiative to establish the UN Trust Fund for Human Security. Within the LDP, he is Chairperson of the Special Committee on Global Health Strategy, Acting Chairperson of Headquarters for Novel Coronavirus Measures of the LDP Policy Research Council. In recognition of his contributions to the field over the past decade, he was appointed WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Universal Health Coverage (UHC) from 2019-2022. He was also appointed as Co-Chair of the UNDP’s High-Level Advisory Panel for the Special Report on Human Security in May 2021. Prof. Takemi is co-Chairman of the UK-Japan 21st Century Group. He has been a senior fellow with the Japan Center for International Exchange (JCIE), since 2007, where is Chair of the Executive Committee of the Global Health and Human Security Program. Professor Takemi is a visiting professor at a number of universities around Japan, and is the co-author of Global Action for Health System Strengthening: Policy Recommendations to the G8 (2009), and has contributed numerous articles in English and Japanese to journals such as The Lancet, Asia-Pacific Review, and Gaiko [Diplomacy].

Yasuhiro Suzuki

Executive Board Member, WHO; President, International University of Health and Welfare; former Chief Medical & Global Health Officer and Vice-Minister for Health, MHLW
Dr. Suzuki was born in 1959. He graduated from School of Medicine, Keio University (MD) in 1984 and trained as neurologist. He received PhD for public health from Keio University in 1996 and two Master’s degrees from the Harvard School of Public Health (MPH in 1989 & MSc in 1990).
Dr. Suzuki has a professional career at the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW), Japan for 30 years covering infectious diseases, mental health, environmental health, food safety, international health, ageing & health, and health research policy. He also worked for the World Health Organization as Executive Director for Social Change & Mental Health, later for Health Technology and Pharmaceuticals (covering vaccines, immunization and biologicals) from 1998 to 2002.
He previously served as Vice-Minister for Health, Chief Medical & Global Health Officer at the MHLW from July 2017 to August 2020. From March 2021, become Vice President of IUHW, and appointed as President in April 2022.

Thomas Cueni

Director General, IFPMA (International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations)
As Director General, Thomas leads IFPMA’s mission to encourage the development of sustainable solutions that enable innovation and improve global health.

Over the past two decades, Thomas has been instrumental in developing collaborative solutions for some of the greatest global health challenges. These include HIV/AIDS and antimicrobial resistance, as well as the industry’s response to pandemics.
Since he joined IFPMA, Thomas has pioneered collaborative solutions to tackle antimicrobial resistance (AMR), chairing the AMR Industry Alliance and launching the AMR Action Fund. This is a USD 1 billion venture begun in July 2020 to fund the development of between two and four new antibiotics by 2030.
Thomas represents the innovative pharmaceutical industry in the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator initiative, set up in April 2019. In 2022, together with industry CEOs and building on the lessons learned from COVID-19, he led the development of the Berlin Declaration. This is a vision for equitable access in global pandemic response that invites multilateral organizations as well as the G7 and G20 to agree to a social contract for future health security. He is Chair of the Business at OECD Health Committee and serves as Industry Co-Chair of the APEC Biopharmaceutical Working Group on Ethics.

Osamu Kunii

CEO, Global Health Innovative Technology Fund (GHIT Fund); Deputy Director, Hiroshima G7 Global Health Task Force
Dr. Osamu Kunii, MD, Ph.D., MPH, is currently serving as CEO and Executive Director of the Global Health Innovative Technology Fund (GHIT), which promotes R&D of therapeutics, diagnostics and vaccines against infectious diseases such as neglected tropical diseases, tuberculosis and malaria.
In the past 30 years he has been engaged in global health, especially infectious diseases control, humanitarian emergencies, and maternal and child health, through NGO, JICA, academia, Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, UNICEF, and the Global Fund. He serves as visiting professor in several universities, and have published over 100 articles and books related to global health.

Heulwen Philpot

Head of Secretariat, IPPS (International Pandemic Preparedness Secretariat)
Heulwen Philpot is currently the Head of the International Pandemic Preparedness Secretariat, a time limited independent body established to support the implementation of the 100 Days Mission. Heulwen is a global health policy specialist by background, having worked at the UK department of health on the 2014 Ebola response and leading the UK’s international AMR strategy including the negotiation of the 2016 UN HLM Political declaration. More recently Heulwen was the Head of Multilateral Summits at the UK Cabinet Office overseeing G7 and G20 negotiations and the delivery of the 2021 UK G7 Presidency. In a voluntary capacity Heulwen is the head of International Advocacy at Resource Uganda, supporting grassroots community improvement programmes in Uganda. Heulwen grew up on the wild west coast of Wales and has a 1st class honours degree from the University of Cambridge.

Yasushi Okada

President, Japan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association
Representative Corporate Officer, COO, Eisai Co., Ltd.
Yasushi Okada joined Eisai. His experience in Eisai covers broad areas including sales and marketing of pharmaceutical products in Japan, Corporate Planning, Asia, Oceania and Middle East business, Human Resources, General Affairs, China business, Data Integrity and Industry Affairs.

In Eisai, Mr. Okada was appointed as Vice President in 2005, Senior Vice President in 2012, Executive Vice President in 2013 and Representative Corporate Officer in 2017. He has been the representative of Eisai for industry and government affairs since 2017 and engaged in several healthcare policy matters.

Mr. Okada has served as President of Japan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association since 2021.