Christina DiArcangelo Puller comes from an executive
background having worked in drug development
with some of the biggest names in biotechnology and
pharmaceuticals.
Her résumé lists organisations like Pfizer, Johnson &
Johnson, AstraZeneca, MedImmune and Biogen. Across
those multinational corporations, she has earned 21 years of
experience and a world-class reputation.
Then her ‘traditional’ colleagues as she calls them, made
light of her ambitions in medical cannabis and CBD. That
was three years ago, and we bet they’re not laughing now.
“It’s a weird path. I transitioned into the CBD space three
years ago. It was kind of by accident. I had been paying
attention to research and I had seen stuff coming out of
Israel and Australia and the US – not as much from the
US three years ago. Now we’ve started to take a lead on
research which is fantastic, but three years ago, it really
wasn’t something you talked about. My colleagues on the
traditional side made fun of me because they thought I
was crazy!
“I am a traditional biotech person who wants to help
patients and can see there’s a value here and it needs to
be studied so we have to do research just like in anything
else.”
Christina’s extensive biopharma background explored
several drug development projects, one of which was
Remicade, an antibody used to treat a host of conditions.
“Juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, paediatric Crohn’s, Crohn’s,
psoriatic arthritis, pancreatic cancer… there were a
multitude of things we were developing Remicade for, and
so that was a really excellent experience for me. Since then
I’ve worked on a lot of drugs and I’ve seen a lot of the side
effects.”
Four years ago, on October 13, 2015, Christina’s father lost
his battle with cancer. In the year that followed, Christina’s
path changed as she not only came to terms with his
passing but was inspired by it.
“In the traditional biopharma space, I
could never get involved with politics.
That’s a no no... Now I’m lobbying, I’m
meeting with politicians, I’m speaking
out on behalf of patients in front
of the public and testifying on their
behalf.”
“I originally started Affinity Patient Advocacy as a cancer
non-profit to help patients because my dad had passed
away from stage four liver and stomach cancers. I became
his advocate. That was the silver lining in a very negative
situation. I knew he was going to die. Leading up to it I
knew it was going to happen, I knew I was going to have to
try to figure out a way to live without my dad. My son was
only three-and-a-half at the time.”
It was at this point when Christina, a confident public
speaker, was presented with a challenge – to make a
keynote speech from a personal perspective for a local
resource, rather than her usual professional podium.
“It was very difficult for me. Most of the time when I’m
speaking at something, it’s professional – I suit up – in this
instance for the first time ever in my career I was able to
talk from my heart about the struggles I had coping with
his passing.”
Fast forward to 2019 and Christina is CEO and founder
of Affinity Bio Partners; CEO and Board President of
Affinity Patient Advocacy; CEO and co-founder of AI
Health Outcomes of which the CannaBot is an artificial
intelligence brainchild. In her spare time, Christina co-
hosts YouTube show ‘Coming Out With Cannabis’ and
is a Board Member of the American Society of Cannabis
Medicine (ASCM).
Her role is still research-focused, but she can voice her
educated opinion on matters now as a woman in business,
and also as an advocate, something a career in Big Pharma
could never afford her.
“In the traditional biopharma space, I could never get
involved with politics. That’s a no no. You know how it
works, they pay for lobbyists and you have to stay out of
it – especially in clinical research. With medical cannabis
and CBD, I can get involved with politics. I advocated on
behalf of patients before city council, for decriminalisation
proceedings, working on a federal level with the American
Society of Cannabis Medicine, so I’m down The Hill quite
often.
“Now I’m lobbying, I’m meeting with politicians, I’m
speaking out on behalf of patients in front of the public
and testifying on their behalf.”