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Raffaella Ravinetto, PharmD, PhD, has a thirty-year experience in commercial and non-commercial clinical research, humanitarian programmes, pharmaceutical policies, and research ethics review. She holds a University Master Degree in Pharmacy from the University of Torino, Italy; a Postgraduate Diploma in Tropical Medical Biology from the Institute of Tropical Medicine (ITM), Antwerp, Belgium; and a PhD in Biomedical Sciences from the KU Leuven, Belgium.

After a seven-year experience as Clinical Research Scientist in the private pharmaceutical sector, she worked as a pharmacist in humanitarian programs run by different NGOs in the Balkans and in Africa. In 2002 she joined Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF), where she held different positions, focusing on access to/quality of essential medicines, while performing field assessments in Africa and Latin America. From 2006 to 2016, she was the head of the Clinical Trials Unit of the Institute of Tropical Medicine (ITM) Antwerp, the coordinator of the Switching the Poles Clinical Research Network, and the scientific coordinator of QUAMED (Quality Medicines for All).

She is currently the Head of the Public Health Department of the ITM, as well as a professor in pharmaceutical public health. She is also the chairperson of the ITM Institutional Review Board; the chairperson of the MSF Ethics Review Board; an extraordinary professor at the School of Public Health, University of Western Cape, South Africa; and a senior editor of the BMC Medical Ethics.

Her main areas of interest include pharmaceutical policies and equitable access to quality-assured health products, with a particular focus on the context of low- and middle-income countries; and research ethics, particularly in relation to resource-constrained settings and vulnerable populations. She was the president of MSF Italy from 2007 to 2011.