Press Release

Date: 15 February 2012 Contact: nicole.roe@abhi.org.uk John Wilkinson appointed Director of Medical Devices at MHRA The Medicine and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) announced the appointment of John Wilkinson OBE as Director of Medical Devices on the 8th of February 2012. Johns role will be to lead the safety of medical devices along with playing an integral role in reviewing future medical devices regulation. John has had extensive experience in the medical device industry including 4 years as chief executive of Eucomed, the European medical technology industry association and director-general of ABHI prior to that. Mr. Wilkinson said: As the new MHRA Director of Medical Devices, my aim is to ensure high levels of patient safety whilst creating the right environment for medical devices to develop at a pace which continues to improve peoples lives and contributes to a sustainable development of our health services, ABHI welcomes John Wilkinsons appointment as Director of Medical Devices and is supportive of the increased attention the MHRA has placed on devices. Peter Ellingworth, chief executive of ABHI, has said: ABHI has been calling for a Device Division to be established at the MHRA for a number of years and as such we welcome Johns appointment. With the Revision of the Medical Device Directives about to get underway I am pleased to see the MHRA placing extra focus on medical devices. As the Revision of the Medical Device Directives continues the MHRAs input into the European Commission will be crucial making this appointment even more important. I look forward to working with John to ensure that we maintain a regulatory regime that delivers safe treatments to patients at the appropriate time. -EndsNotes to Editor:
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The MHRA is the government agency responsible for ensuring that medicines and medical devices work, and are acceptably safe. No product is risk-free. Underpinning all our work lie robust and factbased judgements to ensure that the benefits to patients and the public justify the risks. We keep watch over medicines and devices, and take any necessary action to protect the public promptly if there is a problem. We encourage everyone the public and healthcare professionals as well as the industry to tell us about any problems with a medicine or medical device, so that we can investigate and take any necessary action. The Association of British Healthcare Industries (ABHI) is the industry association for the medical technology sector in the UK. ABHIs mission is to champion the benefits and use of safe and effective medical technologies to deliver high quality patient outcomes. With over 240 members, ABHI leads the advocacy of the industry in order to advance access to medical technology. Their membership includes some of the leading multinational businesses in the sector in the UK right the way through to small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs).

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