Steve Cutler

Chief Executive Officer, ICON plc

Expertise: The Global Clinical Research Market

Dr. Steve Cutler was appointed Chief Executive Officer of ICON in March, 2017. Steve has over 23 years’ experience within the pharmaceutical and CRO industry and joined ICON from Kendle where he held the position of Chief Executive Officer, having previously served as Kendle’s Chief Operating Officer. Prior to Kendle, Steve spent 14 years with Quintiles where he served as Senior Vice President, Global Project Management; Senior Vice President, Clinical, Medical and Regulatory; Senior Vice President, Project Management - Europe; and Vice President, Oncology - Europe as well as regional leadership positions in South Africa and Australia. Prior to joining Quintiles, Steve held positions with Sandoz (now Novartis) in Australia and Europe.

Recent media contributions:

Dr. Nuala Murphy, President of Global Specialty Solutions

Dr. Nuala Murphy

President Global Development & Commercialisation Solutions

Expertise: COVID-19 clinical operations

Dr. Murphy currently leads the Global Specialty Solutions group which offers services spanning the full lifecycle of development, from early phase to commercialisation. Prior to this she served as President of ICON Clinical Research Services (since 2014) and also held the position of Executive Vice President of clinical and data operations globally. Dr. Murphy has over 20 years’ experience within the pharmaceutical and CRO industry. She joined ICON in 2012 from Quintiles where she led a clinical and data management workforce (since 2009). Dr. Murphy also has over a decade of experience in therapeutics having led the CNS and internal medicine project management divisions for Quintiles. She served in the field of late phase clinical research at Benefit International and during her tenure, published extensively in eminent peer reviewed journals. Having graduated from Trinity College Dublin, Dr. Murphy was awarded a PhD in neurochemistry, from the Department of Cardiovascular Studies in Leeds and conducted post-doctoral research in the Department of Neuropharmacology at the Collège de France in Paris.

Recent media contributions:

Tom O'Leary

Chief Information Officer

Expertise: Innovation

Prior to this he held the position of Global Head of Data Management at ICON Clinical Research. He joined the company in Feb-2001 as Manager of Data management in Dublin. He subsequently went on to set-up ICON's process improvement initiative "IMPROVE" and returned to Data Management to become EU VP of Data Management before becoming Global Head of Data Management in 2006.

Recent media contributions:

Barry Balfe

Mr. Barry Balfe

President Global Operations (Large Pharma)

Expertise: Resourcing for Clinical Trials

Mr. Barry Balfe is President of Global Operations (Large Pharma). Mr. Balfe previously served as President of ICON Functional Services (IFS). Mr. Balfe has been with ICON for over fifteen years and has held a number of senior roles, predominantly within the FSP organisation, where he has successfully grown this business and has developed and led a number of new strategic partnerships. Mr. Balfe was previously EVP, Global Business Development. As part of the FSP team, Mr. Balfe served as Senior Vice-President, Global Program Management where he oversaw operational design, planning & delivery within FSP' resourcing & FSP businesses. He initially joined ICON’s Business Development team in 2003, before taking on the leadership of FSP' US Business in early 2007 and subsequently overseeing FSP' European Operations. Mr. Balfe holds a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry, having studied at Dublin City University and Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Toulouse. He subsequently studied pharmacoepidemiology and pharmacovigilance at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the University of London.

Recent media contributions:

  • This spotlight feature in International Clnical Trials examines how pharmaceutical companies are increasing their functional service partnership expenditure at a rapid rate, and the key considerations in selecting and executing the FSP model which are being overlooked.