Shirley Sylvester MD

Dr. Shirley V. Sylvester is a Senior Medical Director for Women’s Health with the Office of the Chief Medical Officer (OCMO) at Johnson & Johnson. She works with a team to drive change toward reducing maternal mortality in the United States and globally. As a leader of the Women’s Health team, she is responsible for providing strategic and scientific expertise in the development and implementation of programs that support the overall aims of Women’s Health at Johnson & Johnson and partnering with external stakeholders to develop a policy agenda which supports women’s health. Dr. Sylvester also works across the J&J Enterprise and externally to identify and act on opportunities that leverage J&J’s collective assets to positively impact women’s health through ethically-based, science- and data-driven approaches; and acts as a subject matter expert in health matters related to women, providing guidance to stakeholders on topics related to women’s health.
Dr. Sylvester joined Johnson & Johnson in 2013 where she most recently led the creation of the global medical affairs strategy behind the development of Hepatitis B compounds for the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson (Janssen). She established external collaborations with key stakeholders, including scientific societies, patient advocacy groups and academic institutions to advance the scientific agenda and to deepen Janssen’s commitment to “Make Hepatitis History.” She also co-led the clinical development of investigational compounds in partnership with Janssen Research & Development.
In previous roles at Johnson & Johnson, Dr. Sylvester served as Medical Director for compounds in Hepatitis C and Multi-Drug resistant TB in the United States. In these roles, Dr. Sylvester provided brand oversight on all medically related aspects of the compounds, including the design and execution of phase IIIb and IV studies in support of the medical affairs strategy.
Prior to joining Johnson & Johnson, Dr. Sylvester had a long history of working in the public sector, having partnered with NGOs, USAID, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, WHO, PAHO, ministries of health and other global constituents. Through these collaborations, she helped to design and implement several public health programs around the world focused on Post-Partum Hemorrhage (PPH) Prevention and other maternal health issues, Immunizations, HIV/TB control, Chagas disease and management of complications from obstetric fistula among others.
Dr. Sylvester holds a MD degree from Universidad de Cartagena with focus on Family Medicine and a Master of Public Health with a specialty in Global Health and Infectious Diseases from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.