Professor Thomas Clausen is the Chief Scientist at the European Union Drugs Agency (EUDA). Before starting at the EUDA in 2025, he has worked for the past 20 years at the University of Oslo, Norway. Professor Clausen is a medical doctor of training, and opioid addiction and the treatment and responses have been his primary field of interest in his research and teaching. The prevention of overdoses is a moving target, and our best approach is with appropriately scaled evidence based approaches across the domains; treatment provision, harm reduction and prevention.

Dr. Dan Ciccarone is the Justine Miner Professor in Addiction Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. He has over 25 years of experience in multi-disciplinary research in the drugs field. Using observational techniques, he has developed a deep understanding of drug consumption patterns, especially regarding opioids and stimulants in the North American setting. Using epidemiology and economics, he has explored aspects of drug supply and their relationships with consumption, risk-taking, and medical consequences. As an addiction medicine specialist, he worked to advance US national policies on harm reduction and to develop national clinical guidelines. Regarding technology, he has worked on a medical device for the detection/reversal of overdose, helped advance immunoassay and FTIR drug testing, and created laboratory studies on drug acidity (as it relates to venous sclerosis) and smoking simulations. He was the founding Medical Director of Remedy Alliance, the US’s largest not-for-profit wholesale distributor of naloxone.

Founder and Executive Director of the PREKURSOR Foundation, a leading harm reduction organisation in Poland. With almost 20 years of experience in the drugs field she has been a strong advocate for human rights-based drug policies and person-centered, comprehensive services for people who use drugs. She has played a major role in planning and implementing harm reduction interventions nationwide. Co-Chair of the Steering Committee of the Eurasian Harm Reduction Association and a member of the Advisory Committee of the Correlation-European Harm Reduction Network.