June Raine

June Raine came to Somerville in 1971 to study Physiology. She then went on to do an MSc in pharmacology before taking her medical degree in 1978 and becoming a member of the Royal College of Physicians.

Raine’s interest in drug safety led to career in public health, and in 1985 she joined the Department of Health and Social Security in the Medicines Division, whose work moved to the newly formed MHRA in 2003. In 2006 she was appointed as the Director of Vigilance and Risk Management in the Medicines Division. In 2012 she was elected as the first chair of the European Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee and she is also co-Chair of the WHO’s Advisory Committee on Safety of Medicinal Products. She has particular interests in risk communication. She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2009, and in 2019 she became Chief Executive of the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), playing a crucial role in approving the vaccines against Covid-19. Recently Raine has been leading a programme of work on medicines for women’s health.

Did you know? In 2020 June Raine spoke on behalf of the MHRA when it gave emergency authorisation for use of the very first COVID-19 vaccine, developed by BioNTech/Pfizer.