Vice President of Pharmacovigilance and Regulatory Affairs
PPD
Cindy Elko-Simms, vice president, heads pharmacovigilance (PV) and regulatory affairs (RA) and serves on PPD’s global clinical development leadership team. Dr. Elko-Simms provides an important leadership and corporate risk management role while ensuring regulatory compliance and efficient execution of PV and RA services. She sets the strategic vision for and leads business process optimization and technology roadmap planning at a functional level while contributing to assessments at an enterprise level. She supports strategic partnership relationships at executive-level interactions and serves as the chair of PPD’s executive medical risk review committee, which is responsible for addressing escalated potential patient safety issues.
Experience
Dr. Elko-Simms joined PPD in 2005 as an associate medical director. Since then she has held successive leadership roles within PV, including lead medical director, executive medical director and global executive medical director. In February 2018, her leadership scope expanded to include regulatory affairs. Dr. Elko-Simms has participated in the conduct of clinical trials in multiple therapeutic areas, as well as provided drug safety monitoring. Her areas of expertise include HIV, hepatitis B, hepatitis C and general infectious diseases.
Education
Dr. Elko-Simms has a medical degree from the Saint Louis University School of Medicine. She has a bachelor’s degree in pharmacy from Drake University. Her internship and residency in internal medicine and her fellowship in infectious diseases were completed at the University of South Florida.