Veronica L. Fowler, PhD Merck & Co., Inc.

Dr Veronica Fowler is the Senior Virologist within the Centre of Expertise for Adventitious Viral Agents (CoE-AVA) at Merck/MSD. CoE-AVA operates under three viral control pillars: “Prevention, Detection and Response and Recovery”. Veronica leads the “prevention pillar” responsible for designing and implementing evidence based viral mitigation strategies. Fundamental to viral mitigation, Veronica is responsible for designing and executing end-2-end viral risk assessments for existing and pipeline products including assessing the raw materials, cell banks/viral seed stock qualification and manufacturing process including the capacity to detect and remove viruses. In addition to this, Veronica is a virology technical expert providing global support to regulatory teams and works alongside the group director to develop the future viral prevention vision within Merck/MSD. Veronica has a PhD in Virology obtained in 2006 from the Royal Veterinary College, and prior to joining Merck/MSD in 2017 Veronica spent 15 years as a research scientist leading global translational projects in the field of vaccines and diagnostics for the most infectious viral diseases on Earth.