Yajing Zhu
Head of Department, Real-world Evidence, Obesity & Liver Novo Nordisk
Dr. Yajing Zhu is a strategic leader at the forefront of data-driven healthcare innovation, spearheading real-world evidence (RWE) strategies in Obesity and Liver diseases at Novo Nordisk. With deep expertise in real world data, advanced analytics, digital health product development (SaMD), and cross-sector research collaborations, she drives evidence generation strategies that bridge clinical research and real-world patient outcomes in routine care.
Trained as a statistician (PhD, London School of Economics), Dr. Zhu has held various roles in the pharmaceutical industry (Roche, Novo Nordisk) as principal data scientist, evidence generation leader, digital product owner across multiple therapeutic areas, such as neuroscience, oncology, cardiometabolics, and academic positions at the University of Cambridge. She leads cross-functional teams and direct reports to design and scale high-impact, end-to-end RWE pipelines.
A recognized leader in industry-academia collaboration, Dr. Zhu has served as co / principal investigator for multiple methodology projects. Her rare cross-sector experience informs her innovative approach to bring data to impact.
Seminars
Join this interactive roundtable to reshape how we measure and reward innovation in obesity therapeutics through cardiometabolic endpoints. As the field moves beyond weight loss alone, this session will bring together regulators, payers, clinicians, and patient advocates to align on new success metrics that reflect the full value of obesity treatments.
- Standardising evidence beyond BMI by aligning regulators and payers on multi-organ cardiometabolic benefits such as imaging data and body composition metrics as critical endpoints for approval and reimbursement
- Balancing clinical and patient priorities through trial designs that capture both hard outcomes like cardiovascular risk reduction and quality-of-life improvements in mobility and daily functioning
- Demonstrating compelling value to payers by modelling long-term economic benefits, including cost savings from comorbidity improvement in conditions like NAFLD and metabolic syndrome
- Exploring how RWE and comparator strategies can address fragmented EU HTA expectations, as well as what post-launch validation data payers are demanding
- Leveraging RWE to accelerate drug development with a lifecycle lens
- Exploring treat-to-target paradigms and patient-centric endpoints to enhance reimbursement potential
- Looking beyond trials by using RWE to identify high-risk populations and support precision medicine to accelerate market access
