FPM welcomes four new members to the PCG

“I am passionate about the speciality of pharmaceutical medicine, bringing new medicines to patients, and I am also interested in the wider aspects of healthcare innovation. I am excited to be joining the PCG and to play a more pro-active role in shaping and communicating the work we are all doing in pharmaceutical medicine – setting standards and raising awareness within the medical community and beyond, ultimately reaching our patients.”

Birge Berns is a pharmaceutical physician with a background in clinical medicine, focusing on rheumatology/immunology and oncology, and with more than 25 years’ experience in global R&D.

She received her medical qualification and MD from the University of Erlangen/Nürnberg, Germany, and gained her postgraduate clinical training in the UK National Health Service, before joining the pharmaceutical industry with Hoechst/Aventis in 1993. For the last 15 years she has worked in a variety of R&D leadership roles at Johnson&Johnson, spanning all aspects of early and late development, including clinical, strategic, regulatory and market access. She is now working as a Senior Partner with TranScrip.

Birge has been an active member of the Faculty since 1993 and maintains academic links to the Institute of Cancer Research UK and Imperial College Business School.

“It is with genuine excitement that I join the FPM Policy and Communications Group. Pharmaceutical medicine has played a critical role in benefiting the health of the public, as evidenced in the recent response to the COVID-19 pandemic. I’m keen that we build on this to better engage the public in understanding the values and core principles of the Faculty – that ultimately, pharmaceutical physicians make the care of their patients their primary concern.”

Michael Holmes is an Associate Professor at the University of Oxford where he explores translational applications of human genetics in large biobanks, including identifying and characterising potential therapeutic targets. He is in his final year of consultant training in the Pharmaceutical Medicine Specialty Training programme. Michael is a recently appointed Associate Director in the NHS Genomic Medicine Service Alliance, tasked with embedding genomics to transform patient care in the NHS. He will shortly be joining the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) technology appraisal committee as a pharmaceutical physician.