Team

The Access to Medicine Foundation is staffed by a team of professionals who apply their experience, talents and skills to improve access to medicine for those most in need.
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Wim Leereveld
CEO and Founder

Wim Leereveld established the Access to Medicine Foundation in 2004. Today, Wim leads the team, takes a hands-on role in the Foundation's day-to-day strategic operations and oversees the publication of the bi-annual Access to Medicine Index.

Prior to forming the Foundation, he was co-founder of PMSI and Walsh International, leading providers of information services to the healthcare industry. Both Walsh and PMSI later went on to become listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange. It was while he was working so closely with some of the most powerful names in the healthcare industry that he had the idea of creating the Access to Medicine Index.

In the knowledge that some two billion people in developing countries have no access to affordable medicines, he decided to develop a ranking that would clearly show what the major pharmaceutical companies were doing to make their medicine available to these people. The aim of the Index is to stimulate positive change by publicly encouraging pharmaceutical companies for their efforts and rewarding them for improvements. Wim is a regular speaker on this topic at conferences and other events. Read an interview with Wim Leereveld on the history of the Foundation. 

Ed Monchen
Chief Operating Officer

Ed has a background in developing strategies and  raising funding for new innovative business concepts. As an Entrepreneurial Manager, he has worked in the Netherlands and abroad for various start-up and blue chip companies (HP, Aon). 

Since 2008, he is active in the field of sustainable development and co-developed People 4 Earth, a new sustainability framework.     Ed studied Management Science and Industrial Engineering at the Technical University Eindhoven.

Suzanne Wolf
Communications

Suzanne’s fields of expertise are communications and marketing, 15 years of both strategic and hands-on experience at internationally listed companies such as O2 and Philips, as well as in a major Dutch health-care organization, gives her an in-depth and broad insight in how good communications work. 

Suzanne has a bachelor in Political Science and a master in Communications Science at the University of Amsterdam.  

Sara Brewer
Assistant

Sara’s background is in global health and development, having focused on vulnerable populations and access issues in select African, South Asian, and Eastern- and Western European countries. With an MSc in International Development Studies from the University of Amsterdam, ... 

...she has conducted strong, academically rigorous evaluations and reports for various development projects,and has worked in utilizing innovative ICT strategies to strengthen health systems and increase access to HIV prevention and harm reduction services among vulnerable populations in Central Asia. 

During her MSc studies in Medical Anthropology, she focused on Pharmaceutical Anthropology, investigating the social lives of medicines and specifically cultural constructions related drug use and drug treatment therapy in Western Europe. An established writer, she has written internationally published reports, strategy papers for international institutions and governments, various articles, and is active in various social media outlets. She has also taught undergraduate courses in health and development, and supervised graduate students in medical anthropology. She holds a BA in International Relations from San Francisco State University with an emphasis in International Political Economy.

Suzanne Edwards
Research

Suzanne is a Pharmaceutical Policy Consultant specialising in market failures and policy incentive mechanisms. Prior to working with the Access to Medicine Foundation, Suzanne was a freelance analyst involved in the research and publication of the Access to Medicine Index 2010.

Suzanne holds a post-graduate degree from the London School’s of Economics and Political Science / Hygiene and Tropical Medicine with a focus on Pharmaceutical Economics. She previously worked for the pharmaceutical industry and has undertaken a number of missions for NGO’s in development, conflict and post-conflict healthcare delivery settings in Africa.

Samia Saad
Research

Samia works as a Technical Consultant in health and pharmaceuticals policy with governments, multi-laterals, civil society organizations and the private sector. Her work has sought to address social inequalities through better access to medicines and health care policies in low and middle income countries. 

Most recently Samia coordinated and delivered baseline pharmaceutical assessments for all seven Medicines Transparency Alliance (MeTA) pilot countries: Ghana, Jordan, Kyrgysztan, Peru, Philippines, Uganda and Zambia. Prior to that, she spent several years working with the UK bioscience and pharmaceutical industries and as an academic researcher. Samia holds a postgraduate degree in International Health Policy & Economics from the London School of Economics & Political Science.

Anne Gosselin
Research

Following a Masters in Public Health with a specialisation in Health Economics in Paris, Anne completed a Magistere in International Cooperation in the Universidad Complutense in Madrid. She studied access to medicines in developing countries, with a focus on innovation economy and intellectual property issues. 

Prior to this Anne worked as a desk researcher for international cooperation projects andconducted health economics empirical studies in France, concerning health systems and out-of-pocket payments. Additionally, Anne has extensive experience in volunteering for international NGOs in access to healthcare programs, with vulnerable populations like migrants and sex workers in various European countries.

Niamh Herlihy
Research

Following her initial studies in Pharmacology, Niamh completed an MSc in Immunology and Global Health at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. She was awarded a fellowship from the Combat Diseases of Poverty Consortium to carry out her research in Rapid Diagnosis Tests for malaria in Kisumu, Kenya. 

Niamh continued working in immunological research at Beaumont Hospital in Dublin alongside working as a parliamentary assistant in the Irish Houses of Parliament. Niamh has spent a year working as a UN Volunteer Intern at the World Health Organization in Kampala, Uganda in the Family and Reproductive Health unit focusing particularly in the areas of sexual and gender based violence and maternal and child health. She has spent much time volunteering in Eastern and Southern Africa as well as Haiti and Nicaragua. 

Arjet Borger
Partnerships

Arjet graduated from the VU University Amsterdam with a degree in Health Science. For her master’s thesis she investigated the factors influencing the pharmaceutical sector to increase effort regarding access to medicine and the extent to which the pharmaceutical industry attributes benchmarking mechanisms such as the Access to Medicine Index as an influencer. 

Prior to joining the foundation she worked as a policy advisor for a non-profit organisation in the area of sexual and reproductive health.