Achieving more together
The Pistoia Alliance is a global, not-for-profit members organization. We were incorporated in 2008 by representatives from AstraZeneca, GSK, Novartis and Pfizer, with a shared vision that we can achieve more together.
Today, we have more than 200 members companies representing the biopharmaceutical industry, including 17 of the top 20 pharma companies by R&D expenditure, CROs, technology and service providers, academic and research institutions as well as patient groups.
Using the Pistoia Alliance’s robust legal framework, our members work together pooling expertise and R&D resources to develop solutions that solve shared pre-competitive challenges. These solutions provide the foundations to advance science and create value for the industry, without yielding competitive advantage for individual organizations or requiring competitive data to be shared.


Collaboration under the Pistoia Alliance framework delivers:
- More brain power on shared problems
- Distributed risk and shared R&D costs
- Opportunities to build new skills and your personal network
- Best practices and industry standards to support new regulations
- Acceleration of innovation and ultimately faster drug development
We achieve this through:
Our educational events and training
- Annual European and US member conferences
- European and USA Informatics Forums
- Educational webinar program
- Practical technical training
Our rich and evolving portfolio
- 20 active projects and expert communities
- 20 active new ideas
- Over 1,000 people engaged in our portfolio from across the industry
Executive Team

Becky Upton
President

Errol Sandler
Secretary

Steve Hollinshead
Treasurer

Christian Baber
Chief Portfolio Officer
The Pistoia Alliance uniquely brings together thought-leaders and change makers from right across the biopharmaceutical ecosystem. Our experienced operations team and consultants are guided and supported by our board of directors and strategic priority portfolio steering committees which reflect the diversity, viewpoints and ambitions of our membership.
Board of Directors

Lars Greiffenberg
Director R&D IT and Translational Informatics, Abbvie

Kailash Swarna
Managing Director & Global Leader, Clinical Development, Accenture

Joe Donahue
Chief Business Officer, Aitia

Sheila Elz
Master Data Manager, Bayer

Lauren Shields
Head of Solution and Value Delivery, Benchling

Richard Jones
CEO, ChemAxon

Jane Lomax
Head of Ontologies, Elsevier

Chris Waller
Vice President , Chief Scientist, EPAM Systems

Mara Peccianti
Business Partner for R&D – Global IT, Grunenthal

Shuba Chaudhari
Head of Clinical Technology Solutions, GSK

Anthony Rowe
Vice President, Head of Technology - Research Systems, J & J

Ralph Haffner
Head of Information Products and Data Sciences, Novartis

Anna Craig
Global Head of Strategy and Governance, Roche

Paul Denny-Gouldson
Chief Scientific Officer, Zifo
The benefits of pre-competitive collaboration can be seen clearly across our initiatives
Learn more about how collaboration delivers success in our latest
Annual Report