Freda Lewis-Hall serves as Pfizer’s chief medical officer and leads Pfizer Medical, the division responsible for the safe, effective and appropriate use of Pfizer medicines and vaccines around the world. Besides providing science-grounded medical information to prescribers and patients, Pfizer Medical is also responsible for the company’s office of patient affairs, its centers of excellence on pediatric care, clinical trial diversity and healthy aging, its enterprise benefit-risk communications, and its worldwide compassionate access program. Before joining Pfizer in 2009, Freda held senior leadership positions in medical affairs and product development with Vertex, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Pharmacia and Eli Lilly and Company. Prior to joining the biopharmaceutical industry, she served as vice chairperson and associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Howard University College of Medicine and was an advisor to the National Institute of Mental Health. She graduated from Johns Hopkins and earned her medical doctorate at Howard University College of Medicine. She launched her medical career as a practicing physician and then focused her academic research on the effects of health care disparities and the impact of mental illness on families and communities. Freda is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. She is a frequent speaker on issues such as improving patient safety and outcomes and reducing stigma and healthcare disparities. She appears regularly on health-related television programs in major global markets, including CBS-syndicated shows such as The Doctors and Dr. Phil. She also shares health and medical information through GetHealthyStayHealthy.com. Freda was the inaugural Chair of the NIH’s Cures Acceleration Network Review Board. She currently serves on the boards of Tenet Healthcare Corporation, Save the Children, Harvard Medical School and the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute. She is a director of the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and a member of the Advisory Council for the NIH’s National Center for Advancing Translational Science.

Freda Lewis-Hal has broad interests in the Infectious Diseases and Life Science. Her research thus far has focused on pediatric care, clinical trial diversity and healthy aging.