Pharma Pitch Perfect - Meet the Judges

Teresa Di Franco - Teresa is a PSWA Board member. She has had extensive involvement in the profession as a past president of the WA Branch of PSA, the PSWA Early Career Pharmacist Working Group and through facilitating diabetes education events. Teresa was the winner of the 2016 PSA WA Young Pharmacist of the Year. Teresa is a Credentialled Diabetes Educator and is a co-owner of Pharmacy 777 East Victoria Park and Perth Diabetes Care.

Maud Eijkenboom - Maud is a Life sciences executive and board member with 25 years multinational, listed, private and startup company experience. She worked for companies such as Bayer healthcare to develop new, putative therapeutics for chronic pain, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, cognitive recovery after stroke, and fulfilled roles as Chief Scientific Officer for ASX listed biotechnology and medtech companies. She is also a mentor to biomedical innovators through CERI and other incubators. Maud is passionate about high quality, evidenced based, natural medicine integrated into a balanced healthcare system. She is currently Executive Director and Head of Product for Netura. She has an MSc in preclinical neuropsychology and a PhD in Neurobiology.

Jeff Leach - Jeff was instrumental in establishing the Friendlies Pharmacy group franchise in 1982 which was sold to HBF in 2013. He still retains an interest in a number of pharmacies via partnerships with young pharmacists.

While pharmacy is his background, and property development is his business, Jeff’s passion is startups. Through the JJ Leach Group he is committed to helping great ideas get off the ground and in doing so, facilitating economic activity and employment in our community.

The Group supports early stage health, environmental and tech founders: most recently Iron Matrix, Workmetrics, cellr, BioActive, Frame VR, EnGeneIC and Pentanet.

The JJ Leach Charitable Foundation supports several health initiatives including PCFA, EnGeneIC (new cancer treatment), JM O’Hara Research Foundation and the Rotary Foundation.

Chris Meyerkort - Chris has been involved in the Retail and Pharmacy industries across a variety of roles for over 25 years, joining Symbion in 2006 in a Retail Consultant role and then stepping into the State Managers position in 2011.

In Chris’ current role as National Sales Manager at Symbion he is responsible for National Sales Team who provide support to retail pharmacies across Australia through a range of programs and solutions.