Appeal panel membership

Non-executive directors

All non-executive directors are members of the appeal panel. You can read their profiles on our Board page.Read the profile o

Industry representatives

Adrian Griffin

Adrian is vice president of health technology assessment (HTA) and access policy at Johnson & Johnson. He has worked in the life sciences industry for over 25 years. His experience is mainly in the fields of health economics, outcomes research, and reimbursement policy, across the pharmaceutical, medical device, and diagnostic sectors.

Adrian is actively engaged in numerous multi-stakeholder forums, where key issues of HTA and access policy are debated and shaped. These include the HTAi Policy Forum and initiatives that have brought regulators and HTA agencies together with companies, improving transparency and appreciation of different stakeholder perspectives.

Adrian served on NICE's technology appraisal committee between 2003 and 2020. He was on the board of directors for the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) between 2013 and 2015.

Kawitha Helme

Kawitha is a market access executive with significant pharmaceutical industry experience across country, regional and global roles including senior leadership positions. Currently, she is an independent consultant providing strategic market access expert advice.

In her previous role, Kawitha was responsible for leading the market access strategy across Europe, Middle East and Africa for the Oncology-Haematology portfolio at Janssen. Prior to that, Kawitha headed up the UK and Ireland Access Directorate and was a board member in the affiliate leadership team in Amgen Ltd. She led the health economics, local market access and field-based NHS partnership teams and was responsible for unlocking patient access for Amgen's portfolio of medicines. She was also responsible for developing company strategic policy positions on HTA through her membership in the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry Value and Access Group.

Kawitha served as an industry member in the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) New Drugs Committee from January 2019 to December 2020. She reviewed and developed preliminary HTA advice for numerous appraisals in her capacity as a committee member.

Paul Robinson

Paul is the European patient engagement lead at Merck Sharp & Dohme (MSD), where he is the interface between the company and patient organisations at the EU level. He qualified in medicine at the Royal London Hospital and held clinical posts in cardiology, mainly in East London, before moving into the pharmaceutical industry to run clinical trials.

Paul's involvement in health technology assessment has included crafting some of the very early MSD submissions to NICE, and subsequently serving 10 years on a technology appraisal committee. He lectures on health technology assessment at King's College London and the University of Hertfordshire.

Paul is senior lecturer/honorary consultant in clinical pharmacology at Barts Health NHS Trust. He is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, the British Hypertension Society and the Faculty of Pharmaceutical medicine.

Rachel Russell

Rachel is a director in Pfizer's UK Health Economics and Market Access department. She develops strategic approaches to market access, reimbursement and patient access and delivers projects to help shape the future health technology assessment policy environment. Rachel also leverages health economic information to deliver health technology assessments to NICE, across the breadth of Pfizer's portfolio, through a team of health economists.

Rachel started her career at Wellcome, in the atherosclerosis field, and has been at Pfizer for 25 years. She previously held a number of positions within Pfizer's UK commercial organisation (medical affairs and internal consulting arm) and its research and development organisation. She led a variety of pre-clinical projects across a number of therapeutic areas, which culminated in her becoming head of the primary pharmacology department.

Paul Trueman

Paul is global vice president of market access at Smith & Nephew. He has worked in health economics and health services research for over 25 years, with roles in industry and academia.

Paul started his career in health economics at GlaxoSmithKline before moving to roles of increasing responsibility with Johnson & Johnson. After 10 years of industry experience, Paul moved into the academic sector. He was director of the York Health Economics Consortium at the University of York and then professor of health economics at Brunel University.

During this time, Paul contributed to numerous NICE guidelines and was also a member of the technology appraisal committee. He joined Smith & Nephew in 2011 and now has global responsibility for health economics and market access functions.

David Tyas

David is a senior director at Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) and is part of the global team developing evidence for BMS products undergoing health technology appraisal.

Previously, David led the BMS Health Economic & Outcomes Research team for UK and Ireland function responsible for all the HTA submissions to NICE, Scottish Medicines Consortium, All Wales Medicines Strategy Group and National Centre for Pharmacoeconomics. He also represented the Bristol-Myers Squibb HTA policy strategy with the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry.

David has been active in health technology appraisals for 18 years and studied health economics at York University.

Lay representatives

David Chandler

David is chief executive of the Psoriasis and Psoriatic Arthritis Alliance (PAPAA), a UK patient charity, and an experienced patient advocate. He has promoted the patient and public perspective since the 1990s, following his retirement from commercial business due to the onset of psoriatic arthritis. Since then, across numerous committees, David has been involved in many aspects of patient advocacy and involvement. His approach is based on his own experiences and those of people has met and supported during his varied working and voluntary activities.

David previously worked at the National Eczema Society and the international non-governmental organisation Teaching-aids at Low Cost (TALC). He has been a lay member of the NICE technology appraisal committee and a Commission on Human Medicine (CHM) Gastroenterology, Rheumatology, Immunology and Dermatology expert advisory group (GRIDEAG). He has also provided lay and patient input to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

David was a public and patient research reviewer for the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). This included reviewing research proposals in low and middle income countries from a community engagement and involvement perspective.

Professor Jonathan Cohen (chair)

Jonathan is Emeritus professor of infectious diseases at Brighton and Sussex Medical School (BSMS) and visiting professor at Imperial College School of Medicine. His main research interests have been in severe bacterial infections and the causes, diagnosis and management of sepsis. This is a field in which he has an international reputation.

Jonathan trained in medicine at Hammersmith Hospital and later became chairman of the Department of Infectious Diseases and Microbiology. He was then appointed as the foundation dean of BSMS in 2003.

Jonathan is currently president of the International Society for Infectious Diseases, a trustee of Arthritis Research UK, a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Lister Institute and a non-executive director at Kings NHS Foundation Trust. He served as vice chair of the Medical Schools Council and was a member of the panel for the 2008 and 2014 Research Assessment Exercises.

Rosemary Harris

Rosemary was a practising solicitor before joining the Law Society to investigate complaints against solicitors from clients. She left to set up her own advisory practice, lecture, and undertake conciliation as a consultant to the Law Society. After volunteering as an independent custody visitor and spending 10 years as a member of a Research Ethics Committee, Rosemary has concentrated on voluntary roles with a range of medical organisations.

Rosemary has been a member of NICE's interventional procedures advisory committee since 2011. She sits on committees of the Royal Colleges of Physicians and Pathologists and is a panel member for independent reviews of individuals and hospital services with the Royal Colleges of Surgeons and Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. She undertakes a variety of lay roles with the National School of Healthcare Science and Health Education England West Midlands, and she is a lay assessor for the United Kingdom Accreditation Service. She is also involved with the scoring of clinical excellence awards to medical consultants within the NHS on behalf of the Department of Health and Social Care.

Rosemary was previously a member of the Examination and Assessment Committee of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the patient liaison group of the Royal College of Anaesthetists. She was instrumental in the appointment of lay examiners for the MRCOG Part 3 Examination of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and is currently a lay examiner there. She has been a lay examiner in the UK and abroad for the Royal College of Surgeons of England.

Catherine White

Catherine has been involved with healthcare and clinical research since 2007. She is currently a clinical trial advisor for Imperial College, London, blog editor for the European Association for Palliative Care, and co-chair of NIHR’s Impact Advisory Board.

She has been a volunteer with the charity ICUsteps since 2007. Previous roles include a lay member for South Warks Clinical Commissioning Group and a chair for NICE Guideline 204 Babies, Children and Young People’s Experience of Healthcare (published in August 2021).

Dr Malcolm Oswald

Dr Malcolm Oswald was a lay member of NICE Technology Appraisal Committee D from 2013 to 2023, evaluating a wide variety of medicines. An important part of the role is ensuring that the voices of patients are heard and taken into account by the committee, and that decisions are made fairly.

Malcolm joined the committee after completing a PhD in Bioethics and Medical Jurisprudence at the University of Manchester where he considered how resources should be allocated to healthcare in a democracy so as to provide health benefit whilst being fair.

Malcolm is Director of social enterprise Citizens Juries c.i.c. bringing a cross-section of the public together to deliberate and make recommendations on public policy questions. Since founding Citizens Juries in 2016, he has designed and run 15 citizens’ juries in partnership with the Center for New Democratic Processes (formerly The Jefferson Center).

Prior to this, Malcolm spent over 30 years working in health informatics, latterly as a specialist in information governance on national projects, working on who should access patient data and for what purposes. He is an Honorary Research Fellow in Law at the University of Manchester, speaking at conferences and presenting lectures and seminars to students on citizens’ juries, public engagement, healthcare resource allocation, and information governance.

Sheba Joseph

Sheba worked in the financial services sector before training as a secondary school English teacher and a specialist in English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL). For 15 years she was the Adviser on the MERIT project within Gateshead Council, working with local universities and teacher training providers to encourage and support BAME applicants into teaching.

Sheba has been involved in healthcare roles as a lay representative since 2016 when she was the vice-chair of the Royal College of Surgeons’ Patient Lay Group. She has been involved with professional regulatory tribunals, as a teacher member with the National College for Teaching and Leadership (NCTL) and as a lay member with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) and the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC). She is currently a service user expert adviser with the HCPC and a lay revalidation reviewer with the GPhC.

Sheba has been a lay representative on various NICE guidance committees, using her experiences as a patient and carer to bring service user perspectives to discussions. She is a lay representative with Health Education England in the North-East. She has been involved as a patient and public voice partner with NHS England and NHS Improvement, within a steering group considering the updating of chaplaincy guidelines.

Sheba is a patient expert and fellow of the European Patients’ Academy for Therapeutic Innovations (EUPATI) and a member of the European Haemophilia Consortium Think Tank on future care pathways.

Health service representatives

Professor Peter Groves (chair)

Peter is a consultant interventional cardiologist at the University Hospital of Wales, and has a specialist interest in the regulation, health technology assessment and implementation of innovative medical technologies into clinical practice. 

Peter is honorary professor at Cardiff University and at the Queen Mary University London where he contributes expertise to the Cardiovascular Innovation Programme based at the William Harvey Research Institute. 

Peter is chair of Health Technology Wales, an organisation sponsored by the Welsh Government to identify, appraise and promote the adoption of medical technologies in NHS Wales.

Peter has worked with NICE since 2006 and has been a member on the Interventional procedures advisory committee, and chair of the Medical technologies advisory committee. Peter has worked with the MHRA since 2015 as a member and chair of the Devices expert advisory committee. 

Peter’s past roles also include Director of Cardiothoracic Services at the University Hospital of Wales (2002-2009), President of the Welsh Cardiovascular Society (2006-2010) and Council member of the British Cardiovascular Society (2006-2010).

Professor Kiran Patel

Kiran is the interim chief executive officer and chief medical officer for University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire. He is also a practising consultant cardiologist.

In the voluntary sector, Kiran is chair of trustees to the South Asian Health Foundation charity (which he founded in 1999). He was also a trustee for 3 terms at the UK Health Forum from 2003 to 2012. He is a mentor for the Social Mobility Foundation, which encourages and mentors students from deprived communities into the healthcare sector and further education.

He has worked with NICE, the Royal Colleges and the Department of Health in healthcare policy and strategy for over 2 decades. He has published papers and books and lectured extensively in the field of cardiology and more widely on social determinants and healthcare systems and strategy.

Christopher Rao

Chris is a Consultant Colorectal and General Surgeon at The Cumberland Infirmary in Carlisle. He qualified from Imperial College and completed his surgical training in London, becoming a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 2020. He has completed fellowships at St Thomas' Hospital, St Mark's Hospital and a Royal College of Surgeons Senior Clinical Fellowship in minimally invasive surgery at Frimley Park Hospital.

He completed a Wellcome Trust funded PhD in stem cell biology and tissue engineering at Imperial College in 2014. He was awarded a National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) funded Academic Clinical Fellowship and Honorary Clinical Research Fellowship at Imperial College London.

His research focuses on the evaluation of novel surgical technology and practice. He has co-authored over 80 peer reviewed publications and book chapters.

Dr Biba Stanton (chair)

Biba is a consultant neurologist at King's College Hospital and South London & Maudsley NHS Trusts, with a clinical interest in functional neurological disorder (FND), and behavioural symptoms in neurological disease. She runs a specialist clinic for FND at King’s College Hospital and is part of the Maudsley neuropsychiatry service. She also leads the inpatient tertiary neurology service at King’s.

Biba has a PhD in psychology from King’s College London, and a strong track record of publications in neuroimaging, neuropsychology, and behavioural neurology.  She is a principal investigator in FND trials. 

Biba is a Council Member at the Association of British Neurologists, where she also sits on the Education Committee and Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee.  She contributes to the NHS England National Individual Funding Request Panel.