WADDP Director appointed to SAHPRA Board
- Faculty Communications
Professor Yahya Choonara is appointed to the South African Product Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA) Board by the Minister of Health, Dr Joe Phaahla.
SAHPRA’s mandate is to regulate all health products for human use and also those applied for in case of veterinary applications in terms of their safety, efficacy and quality. This include vaccines, complementary medicines, medical devices and in vitro diagnostics (IVDs), and clinical trials. Furthermore, SAHPRA has the added responsibility of overseeing radiation control in South Africa.
“I am honoured to serve the country in this role and to have the Minister’s confidence in me to contribute to the work of SAHPRA, said Prof. Choonara.
As a Board member, he will contribute to overall good governance, oversight and strategic direction for SAHPRA with membership to the Technical, Operational and Regulatory Strategy (TORS) advisory committee to help re-engineer operational models where needed for the Backlog and BAU operational environments, monitor the technical environment and outputs to ensure compliance to the core mandate of SAHPRA.
The appointment is effective from 01 January 2022 to 31 December 2024.
Professor Yahya E. Choonara is Chair and Head of the Department of Pharmacy and Pharmacology, Director of the Wits Advanced Drug Delivery Platform (WADDP) research unit and NRF Chair in Pharmaceutical Biomaterials and Polymer-Engineered Drug Delivery Technologies at Wits University. His research is at the forefront of producing targeted and personalized medicines to treat infectious, hereditary and lifestyle diseases in which he continues to make a major impact on generating scholarly activity and intellectual property. He received many prestigious awards recognizing his pioneering research in the areas of targeted drug delivery, drug-eluting devices, nanomedicines, neuro-therapeutics and bio-inspired tissue engineering scaffolds. He is an author of >306 ISI-accredited publications, mentored >110 postgraduates and postdocs as well as a leading inventor of 43 patents in the field.