Vipul Jairath, MBChB DPhil MRCP FRCPC

CMO/Professor of Medicine

Alimentiv/Western University

Dr. Jairath oversees the global Medical R&D initiatives and services. In conjunction with the executive team and senior medical advisors, he assumes overall responsibility for research strategy, as well as performance of the organization’s Medical R&D services including medical operations, medical imaging, precision medicine, medical writing, medical monitoring, medical/biostatistics advisory collaborations and IBD fellowships. He also provides medical oversight for the design of clinical trials, protocol development and imaging R&D endpoints. Dr. Jairath was previously VP Medical Research & Development (2019-2021) and Director of Academic Research and Development (2016-19).

Dr Jairath obtained his BSc (Pharmacology) and Medical Degree from the University of Leeds (UK), DPhil (PhD) in Clinical Medicine from the University of Oxford and post-graduate diploma in Clinical Trials from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He is Professor of Medicine at the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, and holder of the John and Susan McDonald Endowed Chair in Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) at Western University.

His specialist clinical training in Gastroenterology was completed in London and Oxford, and he holds specialist certification in both Ontario and the UK. Prior to moving to Western in 2016, he was a National Institute for Health Research Clinical Trials Fellow at the Oxford Clinical Trials Research Unit and Consultant Gastroenterologist at Oxford University Hospitals.

He is a practising gastroenterologist and specialist in IBD, and his research interests in clinical therapeutics for IBD include design of clinical trials, development, and validation of outcome measures for use in clinical trials, patient reported outcome measures and prediction modelling for response to therapy.

Dr. Jairath has driven the development and validation of several novel indices for use in IBD clinical trials, like the UC-100 and the novel patient reported outcome measures, Symptom and Impacts Questionnaire for Ulcerative Colitis and Symptom and Impacts Questionnaire for Crohn’s Disease. In addition, he was instrumental to the delivery of the REACT2 trial and to the design of the VERDICT trial, both of which are important clinical practice questions for patients with Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, respectively.

Jessica Allegretti MD MPH

Associate Professor and Director of Crohn’s and Colitis Center

Brigham and Women’s Hospital

Dr. Jessica Allegretti is a gastroenterologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA where she serves as the Director of Clinical Research. She is also the Associate Director of the Crohn’s and Colitis Center as well. She developed the hospital’s Fecal Microbiota Transplantation Program and has grown to become an international expert on the topic.

Dr. Allegretti’s research focuses on the intestinal microbiome and the consequences of its derangement, with the goal of understanding the role dysbiosis plays in microbial associated diseases, with a particular interest in c. difficile infections (CDI) and its effect on patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). In addition, her lab focuses on novel therapeutic agents for IBD, she is leading multiple sponsored and investigator-initiated drug trials.

Martin Ladouceur, PhD

Vice President, Real World Evidence

Alimentiv

Dr. Ladouceur leads and oversees the growth, scientific service offerings, and consulting of the newly formed Real World Evidence (RWE) Unit. As a subject matter expert in RWE methodology, he focuses on bringing scientific evidence to clients build around fit-for-purpose study design and the use of real-world data.

Dr. Ladouceur is a methodologist specialized in health research, he has more than 15-years of applied experience in clinical research and consulting. Trained at McGill University where he obtained his doctoral degree in Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Dr. Ladouceur also pursued postdoctoral training in statistical genetics at the Montreal Jewish Hospital, Erasmus MC Rotterdam, University of Toronto, and INSERM Paris. Before joining Alimentiv, Martin was the Director of Statistics RWE and Senior Research Scientist at Evidera-PPD, where he led the external control arm initiative, acted as the scientific oversight on a large portfolio of projects and contributed to the strategic direction. Through his many leadership roles both in academia and industry, Dr. Ladouceur developed his expertise as a consultant on methodological design. He managed different types of studies such as external control arm, chart reviews, prospective study, matching-adjusted indirect comparisons, retrospective studies using administrative databases, clinical trials, and targeted literature reviews. Dr. Ladouceur also served as the principal consultant at an academic research hospital (CR-CHUM) where he collaborated with clinicians and researchers on all aspects of clinical research projects (consulting, design, protocols, grant applications, disseminations). He has taught several graduate biostatistics classes at McGill and Montreal University and is also an adjunct clinical professor at Montreal University at the School of Public Health in the department of social and preventive medicine.

His collaborative work led to several financial supports from major granting agencies such as the National Institute of Health, the Canadian Institute of Health Research, Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, Canadian Diabetes Association, and Genome Canada and many published works in top journals such as Lancet Diabetes, Lancet, PLoS Genetics, Statistics in Medicine, Prostate, Radiology, and European Journal of Genetics.

Niels Vande Casteele, PharmD, PhD

President / Associate Professor

AcelaBio/UCSD

Dr. Niels Vande Casteele oversees and directs all business and scientific aspects at AcelaBio. He sets the organization’s vision and mission, develops, and executes strategic and operational plans and oversees employees, ensuring engagement and compliance. Niels leads and protects the organization’s culture, values, diversity, and reputation.

Dr. Vande Casteele is trained as a Clinical Pharmacologist and holds a Bachelor in Pharmaceutical Sciences and a Master in Drug Design and Development from the University of Leuven, Belgium. He performed research in the field of Molecular Biology at the Institute of Medical Sciences, University of Aberdeen, Scotland and in the field of Immunology at Sanquin, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Niels obtained his Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences, focused on Personalized Medicine to treat patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease, at the University of Leuven, Belgium.

Prior to starting AcelaBio, Niels was with Alimentiv Inc. for seven years where he established the Precision Medicine group and oversaw the implementation of Clinical Pharmacology and Translational Medicine in over 25 clinical trials in all phases of drug development. He remains a Senior Scientific Advisor to Alimentiv and continues to lead the global Alimentiv Translational Research Consortium.

Besides his work in the Life Sciences industry, Niels holds an academic position as Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of California San Diego, United States, where he conducts academic research, mentors students, and teaches a course on Biologics and Biosimilars Drug Development. His main research efforts focus on the application of Clinical Pharmacology and Translational Medicine to ascertain efficient drug development.

Dr. Vande Casteele has published over 120 peer reviewed research articles and book chapters, has given over 40 invited lectures globally, and has received awards for his research contributions from distinguished professional organizations such as the European Crohn’s and Colitis Organization (ECCO), the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA), the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation (CCF) and United European Gastroenterology (UEG) association.

Dr. Michael Kappelman, MD MPH

Professor

University of North Carolina

Dr. Michael Kappelman, MD, MPH is a Professor of Pediatrics and Epidemiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

His primary research interests include patient centered outcomes research and comparative effectiveness and safety research in the area of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), as well as studies of the epidemiology, costs, and utilization of resources by children and adults with IBD.

He has experience in both observational and interventional study designs, and has received research funding from the NIH, AHRQ, CDC, PCORI, foundations, and industry.

Siddharth Singh, MD

Assistant Professor

University of California San Diego

​​Siddharth (Sid) Singh is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology, with an adjunct appointment in the Division of Biomedical Informatics at UCSD. He is the Director of the IBD Center at UCSD. He completed his Gastroenterology and Advanced IBD fellowship at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, and has also completed an NIH/National Library of Medicine-funded fellowship in Clinical Informatics, and a master’s degree in Clinical and Translational Science.

His research focuses on comparative effectiveness and safety of therapies and management strategies in patients with IBD, using network meta-analysis of clinical trials, observational comparative effectiveness research using large databases, and secondary analysis of clinical trials. He has led several IBD-related clinical guidelines developed by the AGA as a GRADE methodologist. His research is funded through PCORI, NIH, Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation’s, AGA, ACG and IOIBD.