Find out more about the committee members by reading their biographies.
Prof Stephen G O'Brien BSc (Hons) PhD MBChB FRCP MRCPath (chair)
Biography
Stephen is an academic clinician with an interest in leukaemia research. Following graduation and general medicine experience in Manchester he trained in haematology, completing a PhD in the molecular biology of leukaemia, at the Hammersmith Hospital in London.
He treated the first UK patients to receive imatinib and continues to be closely involved with ongoing trials of tyrosine kinase inhibitors in chronic myeloid leukaemia. As well as looking after NHS patients with haematological malignancies, Professor O’Brien is the Chief Investigator for the National Cancer Research Network’s SPIRIT trials in CML, involving over 1,000 patients in 150 UK hospitals and is a member of the NCRN Haem Onc Clinical Studies Group.
Richard Nicholas (vice chair)
Biography
Biography to follow.
Iftab Akram
Biography
Iftab is a specialist optometrist and currently the lead optometrist for Mid Yorkshire NHS Trust. His experience in Ophthalmology includes the specialties: macula, medical retina and glaucoma. He is also the optometry clinical lead for a primary care network in Chesterfield. He continues to work on an ad-hoc basis in community optometry practice and has recently commenced work with the NHS England Special School Eye Care service.
He has previously held a clinical supervisor role with the University of Bradford supporting the Optometry programme. He has also worked for the national diabetic eye screening programme.
He has completed a number of College of Optometrist’s approved higher qualifications and aiming to complete his MSc soon.
Dr Alex Cale
Director, MC Healthcare Evaluation
Biography to follow.
Mike Chambers
Biography
With degrees in mathematical philosophy (University of Cambridge), demography (LSE) and health economics (University of York), Mike Chambers is currently founder and director of MC Healthcare Evaluation. From 2006 to 2015 he worked for GlaxoSmithKline as Director of Health Economics and latterly as Head of Reimbursement and Value Demonstration.
Previously he worked in the UK NHS (district information officer), at London Hospital Medical College (lecturer in department of epidemiology and medical statistics), MEDTAP International (contract research in economic evaluation) and as head of health economics at Amersham Health/GE Healthcare.
His main research interests have been in the development and application of principles of evidence-based medicine and in the methods and processes of health technology assessment, in particular the use of economic modelling and real world evidence to inform decision-making.
Dr Dawn Cooper
Biography
Dawn is a health economic manager at Cook Medical with extensive experience within the medical device industry.
Dawn leads cross-functional global health economic and outcomes research projects across a range of therapy areas. Locally, for UK and Ireland, Dawn leads projects to enable reimbursement and commissioning.
Prior to working within the device industry, Dawn completed her BSc (Hons) in cellular molecular pathology at the University of Bristol and PhD in bowel cancer research at the University of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne.
More recently Dawn has completed her MSc in evaluation of health care intervention and outcomes in collaboration with NICE at the London School of Economics (LSE) and Political Sciences.
Dr Mark Corbett
Biography
Having worked at the University of York’s Centre for Reviews & Dissemination since 2008, Mark has extensive experience of conducting and appraising systematic reviews and health technology assessments across a wide range of diseases and interventions. He has been involved in producing over 20 technology appraisal reports for NICE and NIHR (covering single, multiple, fast-track, diagnostic and highly specialised technology appraisals), usually taking the lead role in evaluating the clinical effectiveness and safety evidence. Mark previously worked for many years as a trial administrator at Oxford University’s Clinical Trial Service unit.
Mark’s main research interests are in improving systematic review methods, particularly with respect to the assessment of biases and applicability issues in included studies. In 2019 he completed a PhD on quality assessment methods used in systematic reviews. He is an associate editor for the Systematic Reviews journal and lectures on systematic reviews at the University of York.
Dr Prithwiraj Das
Biography
Prithwiraj is a pluripotent people leader in life sciences industry (access, commercial, medical) and management consulting (strategy and operational).
He builds, takes pride in being part of, and leads award-winning high-performing teams; recruiting, growing, and retaining excellent individuals in direct teams, and getting the best out of teams in matrix structures.
He has led population-health, primary care, secondary, and tertiary care, as well as rare disease portfolio and pipeline responsibilities across pharma product lifecycles - from 5+ years pre-launch to 10+ years post-loss-of-exclusivity. He continues to serve as a Technology Appraisal Committee member with NICE since 2016.
Prithwiraj brings a breadth of global experience with deep local expertise in UK and Ireland markets – spanning over nearly 20 years of industry, consulting, and clinical experience – with proven industry-side credibility, consulting-side execution agility, and patient and health system focus.
He qualified as a medical doctor in 2005, completed his Masters in International Health Policy at the LSE in 2008, and has taken on executive education at CJBS in 2019.
Dr David Foreman
Biography
David is a consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist who has combined a clinical and academic career. Current interests include the impact of information within a public policy and public mental health framework. This includes their use within policy instruments and developing scalable approaches to psychopathology. These have derived from a long-standing interest in perinatal mental health and infant psychiatry, as well as measurement and detection of common psychiatric disorders especially ADHD. He also has a long-standing interest in biomedical ethics.
He is now demitting from the committees of the Perinatal and Child and Adolescent Faculties of the Royal College of Psychiatrists after 6 years. His roles there included data, early years and liaison between the two committees. He continues his academic connection to IoPPN, King's College. He has retired from full-time NHS work, but continues to see patients in private practice.
Dr Rob Forsyth
Biography
After qualifying from Cambridge and Oxford, Rob trained in Nottingham and Newcastle with subspecialty training in Vancouver. His research interests centre on translational research in paediatric acquired brain injury and rehabilitation and epilepsy.
Rob is an active acute paediatric neurologist. His clinical responsibilities include co-ordination of the inpatient acquired brain injury service. He was UK national training advisor in paediatric neurology 2003-9. He is editor of the Oxford Specialist Handbook in Paediatric Neurology (third edition 2017). He was on the editorial boards of Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology 2005-11 and European Journal of Paediatric Neurology 2013 to present. He is currently secretary of the European Paediatric Neurology Society.
Dr Pedro Saramago Goncalves
Biography
Pedro is Senior health economist at the Centre for Health Economics, University of York. He has a first degree in Applied Mathematics and a postgraduation in Biostatistics from the University of Lisbon. Also, Pedro holds a MSc and a PhD in Health Economics, both from the University of York.
Pedro has over 15 years of experience in health technology assessment, health economics and health services research. He has an extensive research portfolio, including both applied and methodological research, with expertise in statistical analysis of primary data, evidence synthesis, Bayesian methods, decision modelling, survival analysis and value of information analyses.
Mr John Hampson
Biography
John has been a Public Health Specialist since 2004 working in a Primary Care Trust (PCT) and latterly for the public health department of the local authority. He initially trained as a pharmacist and has over 20 years’ experience working in various hospitals in a variety of roles including formulary work, clinical pharmacy and in academia.
The main focus of his public health role is in evidence-based practice and involves critical appraisal of the literature for policy and strategy development at county and regional levels. As a registered pharmacist, he also provides medicines management advice to the public health departments in the local authorities of Cheshire and Merseyside.
Previous research interests have included antimicrobial therapy, diabetes and pharmacoepidemiology.
Dr Steven Lloyd
Biography
Dr Steven Lloyd is a practising GP of many years’ standing. Prior to this he trained as maxillofacial surgeon. He has been a Clinical Commissioning Group chair, and most recently an executive medical director of a large Clinical Commissioning Group with a portfolio covering Primary Care Commissioning, Medicines Management and Clinical Policy, Strategic Long-term Conditions Commissioning and General Practice Information Technology Commissioning.
He has been Derbyshire executive senior responsible officer for the delivery of Covid and flu vaccination delivery and Covid Community Treatments Programmes. In addition, he has led transformational programmes on system footprints and contributed to a number of programmes and work streams at regional and national level and is a member of the East Midlands Clinical Senate Council.
Iain McGowan
Biography
Iain qualified as a mental health nurse in 1998 and has worked in nurse education since 2001. He is a former board member of the Northern Ireland Practice and Education Council for Nursing and Midwifery.
His research interests include health economics, post-traumatic stress disorder and heroin use. He is currently a member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Psychiatry and Mental Health, and former editor in chief of the editorial board of the International Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.
Iain was awarded a post-graduated diploma in Applied Health Economics from the University of Wales in 2018. From September 2019 he's studying for his PhD in Health Economics and Policy at the University of Lancaster.
Ugochi Nwulu
Biography
Ugochi is an applied health researcher with experience of evaluating health services and interventions in a number of healthcare settings, but mainly secondary care. Her areas of interest are in patient safety, quality improvement and variations in healthcare. She is currently completing a PhD at Hull York Medical School, which is part of an evaluation of an integrated care clinic providing proactive anticipatory care for patients with moderate to severe frailty.
Ugochi uses her experiences as a gynaecology patient to advocate for women in similar positions. She has been a lay member on a NICE guideline update committee (NG88, 2018) and a specialist lay member of a quality standards advisory committee for the same guideline. She is currently a member of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) Women’s Network and scientific advisory committees, as well as a lay examiner for the RCOG part 3 membership exams.
Stella O'Brien
Biography
Stella works with digital technology and researches the management and implementation of knowledge-based systems.
She volunteers for a several charities and organisations in the arena of health and social care. She appraises research proposals for NIHR, CRUK, and other funders. She contributes a patient and public perspective to the development of living guidelines for NICE, several research projects, and NHS programmes.
Stella acts as a reviewer for several journals. She was the BMJ’s Patient Reviewer of 2022. She’s an active contributor to the Cochrane Collaboration including the citizen science platform, Cochrane Crowd.
Stella chairs or co-chairs several committees: these include advisory committees to the NIHR Executive Board and The Healthcare Improvement Studies Institute (THIS Institute, Uni of Cambridge).
Dr Clare Offer
Biography
Biography to follow.
Dr Amit Parekh
Biography
Amit is a Consultant Radionuclide Radiologist at University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust. Alongside his medical degree, he holds a first-class honours degree in Physiological Science and a post graduate certificate in medical education, both from the University of Bristol.
Amit’s main clinical interests are the use of PET CT in the imaging of dementia and SPECT/CT in the imaging of parathyroid adenomas. Amit setup and leads the FDG and Amyloid PET CT service across Dorset for Dementia and chairs the regional dementia multidisciplinary team meeting. He also led the development of an innovative contrast enhanced SPECT/CT service for parathyroid adenoma localisation in Dorset which has dramatically improved the localisation of parathyroid adenomas in the region.
Amit has a strong interest in medical education. He setup the Dorset Radiology Training Programme and was appointed the first Training Programme Director for Radiology in Dorset. He has led the expansion of Radiology Registrar training across Dorset and setup a new radiology registrar training centre in West Dorset. Amit also has a strong interest in global medicine and has volunteered in many low-income countries. Whilst volunteering in Myanmar, he developed a highly commended two day X-Ray course and delivered the course nationwide to radiology residents at multiple universities. .
Dr Kate Ren
Biography
Kate is part of the leadership team for ScHARR-Technology Assessment Group, which conducts independent research to support health policy decision making.
Her research interests include methods for evidence synthesis, network meta-analysis, single-arm trials in indirect treatment comparison, survival extrapolation and structured expert elicitation.
Professor Andrew Renehan
Biography
Andrew holds honorary degrees in dentistry from Trinity College, Dublin and medicine from University of Manchester. He did his PhD in cancer sciences at the Paterson Cancer Research Institute, Manchester. His main clinical and research field is specialist colorectal surgery, especially cancers of the anus, rectum, and peritoneum.
He is currently chair of the European Association of the Study of Diabetes Cancer Study Group and previous member of the International Agency for Research in Cancer Weight Control and Cancer handbook group. He is a deputy theme lead within the Manchester NIHR Biomedical Research Centre and a member of various NIHR Research Collaboratives. He was previously a member of the Cochrane Collaborative Colorectal Cancer Group and a member of our colorectal cancer diagnosis and management guideline development group.
Dr Arpit Srivastava
Biography
Arpit is a GP and clinical director for a Primary Care Network in Swindon.
He has been at the forefront of a team uniquely tasked with managing a primary care network of GP surgeries under the ownership of a secondary care trust. He has focused on strategy and leadership to support GP surgeries in difficulty. Within his roles as a clinical lead, he has expertise in digital innovation, prescribing performance and clinical IT systems.
He has a portfolio of other roles including a primary care digital lead for Bath, Swindon and Wiltshire ICB. He is an associate of the European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC) providing mentoring support for doctors and allied healthcare professionals.*
Arpit gained his medical qualification from the University of Bristol (MBChB). He undertook post-graduate training in the South West of England. He is a Member of the Royal College of General Practitioners.
Elizabeth Thurgar
Biography
Elizabeth is a health economist with over 15 years’ experience in the design, build and critique of economic models. Elizabeth currently works with pharmaceutical clients as a consultant and has a special interest in early economic modelling. She also has experience working at BMJ-TAG, one of nine independent evidence review, and assessment groups funded by the National Institute for Health Research.
Elizabeth has a background in economics, with a BSc Economics from the University of Nottingham, an MSc Commerce (Economics) from the University of Melbourne, and an MSc Health Economics from City University in London.
Dr Satish Venkateshan
Biography
Satish is medical director - medical affairs in Regeneron. He is a specialist pharmaceutical physician and a Fellow of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine (FFPM). He is also Member of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (MRCSEd) and holds MBBS medical degree from the University of Mysore.
He moved into the industry in 2011. He has also worked for the NHS over several years prior to joining the industry. He has held roles of increasing responsibilities across the companies he has worked in the industry starting with Astellas, Eisai, MSD and now in Regeneron. Some of the roles, including his current position, have responsibilities across Europe and beyond in addition to the UK. He has predominantly worked in Urology and Oncology specialities focused on medical affairs. He has been part of several new medicine launches across urology and oncology, spanning several tumour types. He has worked on both innovative small molecules and biologics predominantly monoclonal antibodies (including bispecific antibodies in development).
He is keen to see the medical benefits of science adopted in systems accessible to patients most in need to improve their well-being.
More information
Find out more about the committee and read papers from previous meetings.