The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 277 No 7483 p717
22/29 December 2007

Society summary

Thirteen members designated as fellows of Society

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s panel of fellows has designated 13 new fellows of the Society. The new fellows, whose names were reported to the December Council meeting, are

• Gerald Alexander
• Jamshed Anwar
• Paul Simpson-Blake
• Henry Chrystyn
• Jean Cunliffe Coote
• Soraya Dhillon
• Sandra Gidley
• Norman Alexander Lannigan
• Ian Mathison
• Walter Eric Sneader
• Beth Hope Taylor
• Lincoln Ling Hong Tsang
• Anthony Leslie West

Official Notice

Gerald Alexander graduated from Aston University in 1971 and registered in 1972. He was involved in the management of various community pharmacies until 1981 and was a proprietor pharmacist from 1981–2007. He has been a member and chairman of various committees since 1981, including: Barnet, Enfield and Haringey LPC; Haringey FPC and FHSA; the All London Pharmacy Mental Health Group; the NPA; and the NPA Health Education Foundation.

Since 2002 he has been a member of the Society’s Council, and was vice-president during 2005–07 and has chaired many Council committees during this time.

Jamshed Anwar is professor of computational pharmaceutical sciences at the Institute of Pharmaceutical Innovation, University of Bradford. He is a pioneer in developing and applying in silico methods to problems in drug delivery. Before his appointment at the IPI, he was at King’s College London and has also spent periods at the University of Pennsylvania, US, and the Institute of Atomic and Molecular Physics in the Netherlands.

Earlier in his career he held a laboratory leader’s position with Glaxo Group Research. He was awarded the Pfizer Award in 1999 for his seminal studies on molecular simulations of pharmaceutical systems, and is also a recipient of the RP Scherer Award (1986).

Paul Simpson-Blake is the senior assistant editor of Martindale. A graduate of “The Square”, he has been involved in the writing and editing of Martindale for 25 years, as it has evolved to reflect the more clinically oriented pharmacy practice of today. He is also a health informatician, and has played a role in applying the insights of health informatics and evidence-based medicine to Martindale content.

He helped to write and maintain the suite of UNIX-based programs used to edit, manipulate, and typeset Martindale data, as well as being instrumental in the development of the XML-based format used to encode the data for Medicines Complete and other electronic products.

Henry Chrystyn registered in 1974 and practised as a hospital pharmacist while reading for an MSc and a PhD. In 1988 he entered academia and was appointed professor of pharmacy practice in 1993. At the University of Bradford he introduced postgraduate courses for hospital and community pharmacists and the DPharm.

His research teams have focused on two themes: pharmaceutical care and inhaled therapies with extensive integration of the pharmaceutical sciences with practice. He has published more than 100 full papers. At present he is head of pharmacy at the University of Huddersfield and an executive editor for the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology.

Jean Coote is a clinical pharmacy area specialist and teacher practitioner/honorary lecturer for clinical pharmacy education, in association with the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow.

She led the development of a clinical pharmacy training course now used in the West of Scotland.

She has held chief pharmacist/senior management posts within NHS Argyll and Clyde and Glasgow and Clyde, developing patient services that support NHS strategy.

She is a member of various committees, including the Scottish Intercollegiate Guideline Network, area pharmaceutical committees, and the area intermediate care development group. She is involved in the safer use of medicines, clinical work, teaching and research in various areas such as chronic pain, rheumatology, IV drug administration and medicines management.

Soraya Dhillon registered in 1979 and is head of the school of pharmacy at the University of Hertfordshire. She was awarded an MBE in last year’s New Year’s honours list for services to health care. She is chairman of Luton and Dunstable Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and was previously director of taught postgraduate studies at the London School of Pharmacy.

She has led on the development of postgraduate education in London and established links in Europe and overseas. She has published widely in pharmacokinetics and clinical pharmacy.

Sandra Gidley graduated in 1978 and worked in a wide range of community pharmacy settings between 1979 and 2000 from a small family businesses to supermarkets. In May 2000 she was first elected to Parliament as the Liberal Democrat member for Romsey and was re-elected in 2001 and 2005.

During her time as a front bench spokesman for health and a member of the Health Select Committee she has been an advocate for community pharmacy. She is an officer of the All Party Pharmacy Group and sat on the Carter Working Party in 2007.

Norman Lannigan is lead pharmacist acute care and innovation within NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, having previously held chief pharmacist posts in Edinburgh and Perth. Before this he held posts in Glasgow as deputy principal pharmacist and as area quality control pharmacist for Argyll and Clyde Health Board. A graduate of the University of Strathclyde in 1979 he went on to complete a PhD in pharmaceutical analysis.

He is currently an honorary professor in the school of pharmacy at the Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen and a visiting professor in the Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences. His career in hospital pharmacy and past chairmanship of the Hospital Pharmacy Group Committee was highlighted with the award of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s Charter Silver Medal in 2000.

Ian Mathison, who registered in 1963, is professor of medicinal chemistry and the dean at the Ferris State University College of Pharmacy in Big Rapids, Michigan. He has served as external examiner for the University of Sains Malaysia School of Pharmacy and as a consultant for the World Health Organization to Malaysia’s Ministry of Education.

He serves on several national advisory councils on pharmacy education and practice in the US. He initiated educational exchange programmes between the University of Bath and the University of Angers in France to enrich students’ global understanding of the practice of pharmacy.

Walter Sneader is immediate past head of the school of pharmacy at the University of Strathclyde, where he began his lecturing career in 1967. He is known internationally for his work on the history of drugs, having had four books on the subject published.

His most recent book is ‘Drug discovery: a history’ (Wiley, 2005), which covers the field from Neanderthal times, through the ancient and medieval worlds, right up to the beginning of the 21st century. Dr Sneader now runs a website that deals with the history of drugs.

Beth Taylor has worked with community health and social care services for many years in Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham, and more recently across London and the South East. She has been involved in the development of innovative pharmacy services, particularly within sexual health, and also supported the introduction of nurse and pharmacist prescribing and patient group directions.

She is currently the national implementation lead for Pharmacists with a Special Interest in England. Mrs Taylor was a member of the NHS Modernisation Board (and later the NHS Health and Social Care Network) from 2000 to 2006 and was awarded an OBE for services to pharmacy in 2002.

Lincoln Tsang is a partner in the London office of Arnold & Porter LLP, practising as a life sciences lawyer. He serves as a non-executive director of the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control, a commissioner of the British Pharmacopoeia Commission, chairman of the Bioindustry Association’s Regulatory Advisory Committee, member of the Ministerial Industry Strategy Group New Technology Panel and member of the Council of the London School of Pharmacy.

He was head of biologicals/biotechnology of the Medicines Control Agency and an adviser to the European Medicines Agency, European Directorate for Quality of Medicines and the World Health Organization.

Tony West registered in 1974, and is currently the chief pharmacist and clinical director (pharmacy and medicines management) at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust in London, a post he has held since the formation of that trust in 1993.

He is also a visiting professor at the London School of Pharmacy, a member of the council of the Guild of Healthcare Pharmacists, and has held several positions within GHP including president and chairman of practice. From January 2008 he will join the board of the European Association of Teaching Hospital Pharmacists.