Q1 PA&E Roundtable Event: Patient Stories Without a Fixed Address

Rebecca Cowens-Alvarado, MPH, is a strategic healthcare and pharmaceutical leader with more than 25 years of experience advancing patient advocacy, oncology engagement, and health system collaboration. She currently serves as Director of U.S. Advocacy Relations – Oncology at Bayer Pharmaceuticals, where she works across medical, commercial, and external partners to ensure patient perspectives are meaningfully and responsibly reflected in strategy, initiatives, and communications.

​Rebecca’s career has been defined by a commitment to elevating the patient voice to inform decision-making, improve access, and strengthen stakeholder alignment. Her expertise spans advocacy partnerships, patient insight generation, health equity initiatives, and cross-functional leadership within complex healthcare environments. She is recognized for translating patient and caregiver experiences into actionable insights that enhance both internal and external narratives.

​Prior to Bayer, Rebecca held executive leadership roles at American Cancer Society and TurningPoint Breast Cancer Rehabilitation, where she led nationally recognized survivorship, access, and patient-centered initiatives. With a background in epidemiology and biostatistics, she brings a distinctive blend of public health expertise, stakeholder engagement, and patient-focused communication to her work.

Stephanie Kenney is Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, Atrium Therapeutics. She has over 25 years of leadership experience spanning preclinical biotechnology and global commercial biopharmaceutical organizations and brings deep expertise in corporate strategy, investor and financial communications, commercial launch readiness, and global reputation management. She leads the company’s integrated corporate affairs strategy inclusive of internal and external communications, brand communications, patient advocacy group engagement and policy shaping activities.

​Previously, Stephanie served as Vice President, Corporate Affairs at Hansa Biopharma, leading global corporate affairs and investor relations activities, supporting the CEO and CFO through multiple successful financing rounds, strengthening engagement with the investment community, and enhancing the company’s financial communications and reporting. She also led the company’s global ESG strategy and reporting including its first Double Materiality Assessment, and advanced policy shaping and patient advocacy initiatives to support access and market development.

​Stephanie spent more than a decade at AstraZeneca, where she held several senior corporate affairs leadership roles across global and U.S. businesses. She has led and built high-performing global corporate affairs teams across disciplines including investor relations, patient advocacy, policy and government affairs, corporate and brand communications, sustainability/ESG, and internal communications. And, is recognized as a collaborative leader with disciplined execution, and the ability to operate effectively at the intersection of science, strategy, people, and capital markets. Stephanie holds a Bachelor of Science in Communications from Mansfield University.

​Dr. Anthony Yanni, a veteran healthcare professional and pharma executive, is a transformative leader known for advocating and executing patient centricity in global healthcare practices. In his most recent industry role as Senior Vice President and Global Head of Patient Centricity at Astellas Pharma, Anthony was pivotal in integrating patient perspectives and real-world needs into pharmaceutical innovation, development, and delivery.

​A medical practitioner for 15 years, he held crucial roles such as Chief Medical Officer and Chief of Internal Medicine in a Northeastern US health system. His clinical experience led him to recognize the significance of focusing on the patient, not just the disease, resulting in truly meaningful innovations.

​In 2024, Anthony published his first book, A Bandana and A Bluebird – The Path to a Patient Centric Healthcare System in which he details, through patient vignettes and programmatic examples, the progress made toward achieving a more patient focused system of care as well as the challenges that remain.