Find out more about the members of technology appraisal committee D by reading their biographies.
Dr Megan John
Chair
GP partner
Megan completed undergraduate medical and surgical studies at Imperial College London, with an additional business management degree focussing on health care management. Her medical studies started in the same year as the inception of NICE. This motivated Megan to pursue evidence based medicine and analysis in the provision of NHS therapies, and addressing equity of access to health care, as her continued fields of special interest.
She holds a lead role for priorities and policy with Frimley Health and Care Integrated Care System (ICS) and the wider Thames Valley Region. She is also their clinical lead for individual funding requests and the Evidenced Based Intervention program.
Since completing her training Megan has worked as a general practitioner and practice partner, with special interests in health care service commissioning, cross sector leadership and collaboration, minor surgery, dementia and sexual health. She has also previously been a member of the NIHR late stage funding committee.
Megan started with NICE as a committee member on technology appraisal B before moving in 2021 to committee D as its chair.
Dr Stephen Smith, BSc MPhil MB BChir PhD MRCP
Vice Chair
Stephen is a clinical academic working at the University of Cambridge and EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute. His clinical training is as a clinical pharmacologist and dermatologist at Addenbrookes in Cambridge.
Martin Bradley
Pharmacist at Guy's and St. Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust
Martin qualified as a pharmacist in 2003 and has worked as a formulary pharmacist within South East London since 2012, assisting local Committees reviewing the potential introduction of new medicines to the local health economy. He currently works at Guy's and St. Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust and assists with the production and review of local medicine treatment pathways and guidelines in South East London.
Dr Matt Bradley
Value Evidence and Outcomes, Global Therapy Area Head for Immuno-Inflammation
Biography coming soon.
Elliott Dash
Senior Intensive Care Nurse
Elliott Dash is a Senior Intensive Care Nurse currently working in the Guys and St Thomas Trust in London. He has worked for the majority of his career in Australia in various tertiary centres offering complex mechanical respiratory and cardiovascular support for those in multi-organ failure. Elliot is currently working in the St Thomas’ East Wing Level 6, which specialises in the management of the severe respiratory failure cohort of patients, often requiring mechanical extracorporeal support. He is progressing through a Masters of Public Health at the University of Queensland, with a special interest in health policy with the intersection of epidemiological data and economic analysis.
Professor Sofia Dias
Professor of health technology assessment at the University of York
Sofia is professor of health technology assessment and part of the leadership team that delivers technology assessment reports for NICE through York's NIHR funded technology assessment reviews programme. She is a statistician with interests in Bayesian methods for evidence synthesis and their application to decision making. Of particular interest are methods for network meta-analysis (indirect and mixed treatment comparisons), bias-adjustment, synthesis of related outcomes and population-adjusted treatment comparisons.
Professor Rachel Elliott
Professor of health economics at the University of Manchester
Rachel is a professor of health economics in the Manchester Centre for Health Economics at the University of Manchester. She is also the co-director of the Manchester Clinical Trials Unit and a UK registered pharmacist. She has many years of experience in applied health economics research across a range of disease areas. Study designs include patient and practice-level cluster trials, stepped-wedge designs, quasiexperimental methods supported by large database and routine data interrogation, economic modelling and simulation, close working with clinical and patient expert panels. and use of routine data.
She is one of the academic leads for Datalab, a University of Manchester, Health Innovation Manchester and NICE collaboration to develop the use of routine data to develop and evaluate guidelines and digital health technologies. She has been member of a NICE technology appraisal committee since 2006.
Andrew Fox
Senior research fellow in statistics at the School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR), University of Sheffield
Andy is a senior research fellow in statistics at the School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR) within the University of Sheffield. he is part of the leadership team for ScHARR-Technology Assessment Group, which conducts independent research to support health policy decision making.
His research interests include methods for evidence synthesis, network meta-analysis, single-arm trials in indirect treatment comparison, survival extrapolation and structured expert elicitation.
Chris Herring
Lead divisional pharmacist for surgery at Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
Chris is the lead divisional pharmacist for surgery at Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. He manages a team of pharmacists and medicines management technicians optimising medicines for patients undergoing surgery.
He holds a postgraduate diploma in clinical pharmacy and a practice certificate in independent prescribing.
Chris has nearly twenty years experience working within several acute hospital trusts throughout his career in the UK and Australia. In his previous roles he has led pharmacy services for medicines management, formulary development, clinical trials, medicines information services, research ethics and R&D.
Dr Andrew Hitchings
Senior lecturer in clinical pharmacology at St George's, University of London, and honorary consultant in neurointensive care at St George's University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Andrew trained in clinical pharmacology, general (internal) medicine, and intensive care medicine in London. In addition to his clinical training, Andrew gained substantial experience in clinical trials research, medicines management, and medical education.
Since 2016, Andrew has practised as an intensive care consultant in a busy regional neurointensive care unit at St George's Hospital, London, where he also chairs the trust's drugs and therapeutics committee. He is chief examiner for the final year of the medicine programme at St George's, University of London, and leads teaching in clinical pharmacology and prescribing.
He is a member of the assessment board for the UK Prescribing Safety Assessment and chairs a question writing group for the Membership of the Royal College of Physicians written examinations.
Dr Robert Hodgson
Research fellow at the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination, University of York
Biography to follow.
Dr Bernard Khoo
Senior clinical lecturer in endocrinology at University College London and Royal Free London NHS Trust
Bernard originally trained in the University of Cambridge and obtained a PhD in Zoology as part of the M.B. PhD programme. He then obtained his specialist accreditation in endocrinology and diabetes at St Bartholomew's Hospital, during which time he was appointed Wellcome Trust Advanced Fellow from 2003 to 2006. Since 2009, he has been appointed as senior clinical lecturer and honorary consultant in endocrinology at UCL Medical School and Royal Free Hospital.
His particular specialist interests are in adrenal neuroendocrinology and neuroendocrine tumours, as well as genetic endocrine disorders. He is the lead endocrinologist for the European Neuroendocrine Tumor Society (ENETS) Centre of Excellence Royal Free neuroendocrine tumour multidisciplinary team.
Dr Ivan Koychev
Consultant neuropsychiatrist at the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Ivan is a consultant neuropsychiatrist at the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. He has interests in the diagnosis and management of neuropsychiatric presentations of cognitive, movement disorders, epilepsy and central nervous system tumours.
He is also a senior clinical researcher at the University of Oxford, where his work focuses on the identification of and intervention in preclinical Alzheimer's disease. He has a particular interest in the repurposing of drugs targeting metabolic compounds for dementia, as well as in the development of digital technology solutions for early diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease.
Ivan completed an integrated clinical academic training in Old Age and General Adult Psychiatry funded by the National Institute of Health Research in the Thames Valley and London Deaneries. Prior to this he completed a PhD at the University of Manchester focusing on clinical trial methodologies for the development of cognitive enhancers for schizophrenia spectrum disorders.
Dr Guy Makin
Senior lecturer in paediatric oncology at Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital
Guy trained in paediatric oncology in Bristol, Sheffield and Manchester, and completed a PhD in molecular pharmacology of neuroblastoma at the University of Manchester. Since 2002 he has been a clinical senior lecturer and honorary consultant paediatric oncologist at Royal Manchester Children's Hospital.
Guy is co-director of the Manchester Clinical Trials Unit (MCTU) and the national lead for the Paediatric Experimental Cancer Medicines Centre network. Guy is particularly interested in ensuring equity of access to novel treatments across the UK, and in bringing new drugs for children to the clinic more rapidly.
Dr Philip Mallender
Senior health economist at Medtronic
Philip is a senior health economist at Medtronic with extensive experience within the medical device industry. Philip leads cross functional projects to create environments that enable reimbursement and commissioning of Medical Devices within the UK and republic of Ireland.
Prior to working within the device industry Philip completed his PhD in Chemistry at The University of Manchester followed by post-doctoral research at Imperial College London, before moving into scientific positions within industry.
Philip holds an MSc in International Health Technology Assessment, Pricing and Reimbursement from The University of Sheffield.
Professor David Meads
Associate professor of health economics at the University of Leeds
David is a health economist in the Academic Unit of Health Economics, University of Leeds. He has many years of experience in conducting economic evaluations alongside clinical trials, decision-analytic modelling and stated preference studies. He is lead economist on a number of National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), charity and industry-funded projects. Areas of special interest are surgery and haematology.
David leads teaching of an 'Economic evaluation for health technology assessment' module and supervises several PhD students. He regularly contributes to the NIHR Research Design Service and is a member of an NIHR Programme Grants for Applied Research sub-panel.
Giles Monnickendam
Consultant and independent researcher in health economics, health technology assessment methods and policy
Giles began his career as a public sector economist, working for HM Treasury. He spent a number of years working in commercial roles in the life sciences industry, before moving to consultancy.
Giles has a BSc Economics from the London School of Economics, an MSc Economics from University College London and an MSc in Health Economics Policy and Management from the London School of Economics. His research interests include methods for the evaluation of potentially curative health technologies and use of surrogate endpoints in health technology assessment, with an international perspective.
Dr Nathan Moore
Biography to follow
Dr Malcolm Oswald
Lay member
Malcolm's undergraduate degree was in economics. He completed a PhD in Bioethics and Medical Jurisprudence in 2013. His thesis explores how, in a democracy, we should decide how resources are allocated to health care, analysing competing theories from philosophy, economics and other disciplines. In 2011, he co-authored the Royal College of General Practitioners' guidance on ethical commissioning ('Making Difficult Choices').
After his PhD, Malcolm set up a social enterprise called Citizens' Juries c.i.c.. He works with the Jefferson Center (who developed the method) to design and run citizens' juries in the UK. Malcolm's previous background was specialising in information governance, working mostly for national bodies in England and Scotland, specifying the rules that control who accesses confidential patient information in systems.
Professor Chris Parker
Consultant clinical oncologist at the Royal Marsden Hospital in Sutton
Chris is a consultant clinical oncologist, specialising in prostate cancer, at the Royal Marsden Hospital in Sutton.
He has led clinical trials studying active surveillance for localised disease, post-operative radiotherapy for locally advanced disease and radium-223 for bone metastases.
He is a former chair of the National Cancer Research Institute Prostate Cancer Clinical Studies Group.
Dr Rebecca Payne
National professional advisor in urgent primary care at the Care Quality Commission
Rebecca is the national professional advisor in urgent primary care at the Care Quality Commission, a post she has held since 2017. She combines this role with regular shifts working as an out of hours GP in Orkney and teaching at Bangor and Cardiff Universities.
She brings a broad range of clinical and leadership experience, having been chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners from 2015 to 2018, and has held previous roles in clinical leadership in Aneurin Bevan and Betsi Cadwaladr University health boards. During the COVID-19 pandemic she was seconded to be the primary care clinical lead for the Welsh video consulting rollout. She is a senior fellow of the Faculty of Medical Management and Leadership and is a qualified coach and mentor.
She has worked in a diverse range of clinical settings including in-hours and out-of-hours general practice in urban, rural and island settings, online general practice and military general practice.
Carole Pitkeathley
Biography to follow
Dr Raju Reddy
Consultant paediatric anaesthetist at Birmingham Children’s Hospital
Raju has been a full time consultant paediatric anaesthetist at Birmingham Children’s Hospital since 2008 with a special interest is paediatric cardiac anaesthesia. He is a Secondary care consultant adviser to the board at Berkshire West CCG since December 2015. He is also a member of the NICE Indicators advisory committee and a clinical member for the NHS England Individual funding request (IFR) panel.
Raju holds a MBA degree from Warwick Business School and has a keen interest in NHS finance. He is especially interested in NHS costing and Healthcare Resource Group (HRG) coding and worked on cost saving projects related to this as part of his CCG role.
He worked as a clinical lead for the Cost Recovery Support Team of the UK Department of Health for 15 months in 2015-16 and briefly as a CQC specialist adviser. He has also been part of a national delivery group for "Future Focused Finance" (FFF) which aims to improve the joint working between clinicians and finance professionals.
He has worked as a visiting consultant paediatric anesthesiologist at CS Mott Childrens Hospital, University of Michigan, USA for a year in 2007.
Dr Ben Searle
GP Partner
Ben is a GP Partner across a five site, 25,000 patient, training practice in Durham. He is the quality improvement and audit lead focussing on medication optimisation and utilising new communication technologies to improve patient care.
Ben is a researcher at Newcastle University. He has interests in Care Home Medicine and Health Economics.
Professor John Watkins
Consultant epidemiologist with Public Health Wales and Cardiff University
John is a Consultant Epidemiologist with Public Health Wales and Cardiff University where he is involved in research and teaching, particularly in the areas of Epidemiology and infectious diseases such as Influenza and most recently COVID-19. He was the lead for teaching of Epidemiology and Public Health on the Medical Undergraduate Programme at Cardiff University's School of Medicine for over 10 years. His main areas of research interest include health care quality and the complexity of healthcare delivery, infectious respiratory disease - especially influenza and its prevention. He is a specialist adviser to the Welsh Government, on Influenza and pandemic planning, where he has chaired its Influenza Advisory Group and more recently mathematically modelling and care homes working groups that are advisory to SAGE addressing the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. John was a member of the working group set up by the UK Department of Health to update the UK Influenza Pandemic plan. In 2009 he was one of 200 scientists from around the world who took part in the WHO's workshop in developing the Global Research Agenda for Influenza.
John was a member of NICE's Technology Appraisal Committee A from 2009 to 2019 and is the immediate past chair of AWMSG on which he has been a member for 10 years. In addition he is a member of the Welsh Government's Cancer Implementation Group
In 1986 John helped set up the GP sentinel practice network for influenza and a number of other conditions and has, ever since, been proactive in expanding and improving Influenza and respiratory disease surveillance in Wales.
His research has included studies on the impact of infectious respiratory disease, vaccine effectiveness and usage and the historical impact of pandemic disease.
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