Mental Health: How can we fight illnesses we cannot see?

Jean Freymond

Director, Geneva Dialogues (D@G) and President

Dr. Jean F. Freymond, Director, Geneva Dialogues (D@G) and President, Network for Governance, Entrepreneurship & Development (GE&D). A Swiss national, Jean Freymond holds a degree in Law and a Ph.D. in Political Sciences. In 1979, he founded, and became Director of the Centre for Applied Studies in International Negotiations (CASIN). Previously, he held academic positions at the Colegio de Mexico and the Institute of International Relations of the University of the West Indies. In 2007, Dr. Freymond established D@G, a laboratory in governance, which aims is to rethink governance and create the conditions for stakeholders to address complex societal issues, e.g. global health and agriculture; as well as GE&D, whose objective is to simultaneously foster entrepreneurship and create the framework conditions for enhancing the capacity of doing business, with focus on Africa.

Shekhar Saxena

Director of the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse at World Health Organization

Dr. Shekhar Saxena is Director of the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse at World Health Organization. He is a psychiatrist by training with about 30 years of experience in research and programme management, service delivery and information systems in the areas of mental health, especially in low and middle income countries. He was one of the writers of the World Health Report-2001 on mental health and an editor and author in the Lancet Series on Global Mental Health-2007 and the Lancet Series on Global Mental Health-2011 (launched in October 2011). He led WHO's Mental Health Atlas and WHO Assessment Instrument for Mental Health Systems (WHO-AIMS) being used in more than 80 countries. He is responsible for implementation of WHO's mental health Gap Action Programme on scaling up care for mental disorders in low and middle income countries. He is also supervising the ongoing revision of ICD-10 mental and behavioural disorders.

Norman Sartorius

President Association for the Improvement of Mental Health Programmes

Prof. Norman Sartorius specialized in neurology and psychiatry and subsequently obtained a Master’s Degree and a Doctorate in psychology. He joined the World Health Organization in 1967 and soon assumed charge of the programme of epidemiology and in social psychiatry. He was the principal investigator of several major international studies on schizophrenia, on depression and on health service delivery. He was responsible for WHO’s work on the classification of mental and neurological disorders. In 1977, he became the first Director of the Division of Mental Health of WHO, a position which he held until mid-1993. He is the President of the Association for the Improvement of Mental Health Programmes. He has published more than 300 articles in scientific journals, authored or co-authored books and edited a number of others. Professor Sartorius is a corresponding member of the Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the Spanish Royal Academy of Medicine and an honorary member of the Medical Academies of Croatia, Mexico and Peru. He is also a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association.

Peter Høngaard Andersen

Senior Vice President of External Scientific affairs and Corporate Patents and Trademarks at Lundbeck

Dr. Andersen is Senior Vice President of External Scientific affairs and Corporate Patents and Trademarks at Lundbeck. He started his career at Lundbeck in 1999 as Divisional Director of Biological Research, became Vice President of Research in 2003, Executive Vice President of Research and Corporate Patents and Trademarks in 2008 and Senior Vice President of External Scientific Affairs and Corporate Patents in 2011. Prior to joining Lundbeck, Dr. Andersen was employed at Novo Nordisk from 1984 to 1997 in various positions latest as Project Director in Corporate Project Management following which he served as CEO of Acadia Pharmaceuticals DK from 1997 – 1999. Dr. Andersen serves as Chairman of the BOD of the Biotech Research and Innovation Centre at the University of Copenhagen. He further serves as chair of the Research Directors Group in EFPIA, as vice chair in the Committee of Research Policy in the Danish Pharmaceutical Industry association and member of the Research and Education committee in the Danish Industry association. Dr. Andersen is Chairman of the BOD of Epitherapeutics and member of the Board of Directors af Serendex Aps. Dr. Andersen is founder or co-founder of Acadia Pharmaceuticals, Zealand pharmaceuticals, Glycom Aps and Epitherapeutics. He holds a B.Sc. in Chemistry, a M.Sc. in biochemistry and a dr. medicine degree from University of Copenhagen and is author and co-author of more than 50 international peer reviewed publications and inventor and co inventor of a number of patents.

Marc Wortmann

Executive director of Alzheimer’s Disease International (ADI)

Mr. Marc Wortmann is Executive director of Alzheimer’s Disease International (ADI) since November 2006. He studied Law and Art in the city of Utrecht in the Netherlands and was a member of the Parliament of Province of Utrecht, working closely with various charities and voluntary organisations. Mr. Wortmann was Executive Director of Alzheimer Nederland before joining ADI and has been a speaker at many international conferences on campaigning, raising awareness, fundraising, public policy and ethical issues.

Mario Ottiglio

Associate Director, Public Affairs & Global Health Policy at the IFPMA

Mario Ottiglio is Associate Director, Public Affairs & Global Health Policy at the IFPMA where he has been working since 2007 in positions of increasing responsibility. At IFPMA, Mario leads on interactions with key stakeholders such as governments, international organizations and civil society and coordinates IFPMA Members’ policy positioning on current global health issues. Mario is also the IFPMA policy lead on the WHO Global Strategy and Plan of Action for Public Health, Innovation and IP. Prior to joining the IFPMA, Mario worked as a consultant, both for governments and private firms.
An Italian national, Mario holds an MA in Political Sciences from the Naples Eastern University.