MHRA Chief Executive to step down

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The Chief Executive of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), Dame June Raine, will step down in the Autumn following five years in the role.

Dame June will remain in the position until then to support the new Chief Executive’s transition into the role.

Leading the MHRA – a five year journey

Professor Graham Cooke, interim chair of the MHRA board, remarked that Dame June’s “leadership of the MHRA over the last five years, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, has been exceptional.”

“It has been an enormous privilege to have led the MHRA through a time of change which is unprecedented in UK medical products regulation. I am especially proud that during the last five years the Agency has built a new vigilance system, strengthened international and national partnerships, and delivered regulation which has enabled ground-breaking innovation, from gene therapy for sickle cell disease and the world’s first COVID vaccine, to being close to eradicating polio, and from medical device software to AI diagnostics,” Dame June commented.

While she is stepping down from her current role, Dame June shared that she still hopes to contribute “to patient safety and public health in other ways.”

Previous roles

The MHRA highlighted Dame June Raine has been Chief Executive Officer of the MHRA since August 2019. Her previous role in the agency was as Director of Vigilance and Risk Management of Medicines.

Her educational background includes training in medicine in Oxford after completing a master’s degree by research in Pharmacology. An interest in drug safety led to a career in medicines regulation, involving roles in assessment, management and strategic development within the UK national authority. In 2012, Dame June was elected as the first chair of the European Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee, MHRA added.

Until recently, she also held the role of co-Chair of the World Health Organization (WHO) Advisory Committee on Safety of Medicinal Products. MHRA also noted that Dame June’s key interests are in monitoring the outcomes of regulatory action, risk communication and patient involvement in the regulatory process.

This news follows the agency’s announcement last month that it had approved a new, “safer” alternative to corticosteroids when treating Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD).