Professor Fatima Suleman.
UKZN’s Pharmaceutical Sciences Associate Professor, Fatima Suleman has been appointed, by the Utrecht University in The Netherlands, as the Prince Claus Chair of Development and Equity for the theme Affordable (Bio)Therapeutics for Public Health. She will hold the position until September 2018.
To formally accept the position, Suleman delivered a lecture titled: “Affordability and equitable access to (Bio)Therapeutics for public health”. The lecture was delivered on May 16 at the Utrecht University Hall.
During her tenure, Suleman will be conducting research in affordable (bio)Therapeutics in collaboration with scholars at Utrecht University, other scholars in The Netherlands and the World Health Organization (WHO).
Suleman will spend her appointment in Utrecht working within the strategic research theme of Life Sciences. Her Chair will be within the Faculty of Science, in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences.
The Chair she will hold, Affordable (Bio)Therapeutics for Public Health, has strong links to the research conducted in that department, in particular in the Utrecht Centre of Excellence for Affordable Biotherapeutics and the WHO Collaborating Centre for Pharmaceutical Policy and Regulation.
The Utrecht WHO Collaborating Centre for Pharmaceutical Policy and Regulation is located at the Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Clinical Pharmacology of Utrecht University.
In addition to her appointment to the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Suleman also has ties with Drake University in the United States. She is interested in equity and access to medicines, pricing and reimbursement policies and essential medicines, especially for chronic conditions which cause huge suffering.
She is also the Chair of the National Pricing Committee for Medicines in South Africa and has taken part in various international committees on drug pricing including a current position on an informal panel at WHO on Fair Pricing. In addition, she was a member of the WHO Expert Committee on the Selection and Use of Essential Medicines, the WHO Expert consultation on improving access to and use of similar biotherapeutic products in May .