Professor Sir Michael Rawlins takes over as Chairman of the UK's Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency on 1 December and his appointment will be for three years.
Professor Rawlins will take over from Sir Gordon Duff who announced his intention to step down earlier this year, following his election as Principal of St Hilda’s College, Oxford.
Until recently, Professor Rawlins was Chairman of the National Institute of Health & Clinical Excellence (NICE), a role from which he stood down in 2013. He is also currently Chairman of Biobank.
Professor Rawlins said: 'It will be a tremendous honour to take up the agency’s chair, whose vital work as the UK’s regulator of medicines and medical devices is underpinned by first-class science and research carried out at each of the agency’s centres; the Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD), the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control (NIBSC) and MHRA.'
Professor Rawlins is also an Honorary Professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University of London, and Emeritus Professor at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. He was the Ruth and Lionel Jacobson Professor of Clinical Pharmacology at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne from 1973 to 2006. At the same time he held the position of consultant physician and consultant clinical pharmacologist to the Newcastle Hospitals NHS Trust. He became a member of the Committee on Safety of Medicines in 1980 and was vice-chairman (1987–1992) and chairman (1993–1998). He was appointed chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and served until 2008.
