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Joe Collier (clinical pharmacologist)

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Joe Collier
FRCP
Born1942 (age 81–82)
NationalityBritish
EducationSt George's Hospital and Medical School
Known for
SpouseRohan
Scientific career
FieldsClinical pharmacology
WebsiteOfficial website

Joe Collier FRCP (born 1942), is a retired clinical pharmacologist and emeritus professor of medicines policy at St George's Hospital and Medical School in London, whose early research included establishing the effect of aspirin on human prostaglandins and looking at the role of nitric oxide and angiotensin converting enzyme in controlling blood vessel tone. Later, in his national policy work, he helped change the way drugs are priced and bought by the NHS, and ensured that members of governmental advisory committees published their conflicts of interest.

In 1986 he became a whistleblower when he revealed to the Commission for Racial Equality that software used for medical-school admissions selection at St George's was creating a lower score for women and those with non-European names so reducing their chance of being called for interview. Initially shunned within the institution, he was publicly thanked several years later for bringing the procedure to attention. His work led to reviews of admissions policy to medical schools throughout the UK.

For 35 years he worked for the Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin and became its editor in 1992. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, past president of the International Society of Drug Bulletins and former member of the British Medicines Commission.

Early life

Joseph Collier was born to pharmacologist H. O. J. Collier and actress Patience Collier. They also had two daughters, who later became the textile designers Sarah Campbell and Susan Collier.[1][2]

Career

Collier studied medicine at St George's medical School in London from 1964 and worked there until his retirement in 2007.[3][4] He was the school's first clinical pharmacologist and in 1998 was appointed professor of medicines policy.[5][6] Amongst his lecturers were David Webb,[3] Sir Patrick Vallance,[7] and Emma Baker.[8]

Research

Royal College of Surgeons of England, where Collier did his early research

During his early career he interspersed his junior medical training with two days a week at a laboratory, situated in the Royal College of Surgeons in Lincoln's Inn Fields, run by John Vane.[9] In 1971, he co-authored a paper with Rod Flower showing that therapeutic doses of aspirin reduced prostaglandin E and F in human semen.[10][11]

He later looked at the role of nitric oxide and angiotensin converting enzyme in controlling blood vessel tone. In 1987, he set out with Patrick Vallance to investigate whether human blood vessels demonstrated endothelium-dependent relaxation, a term coined in 1980 by Robert F. Furchgott and John V. Zawadzki after discovering that a large blood vessel would not relax when its single-layered inner most lining was removed. They subsequently showed that the occurrence was mediated by what they called endothelium-derived relaxing factor, later found to be nitric oxide, and it was subsequently shown to occur in a variety of animals. Using veins from the back of a human hand, Collier and his team reproduced Furchgott and Zawadzki's findings.[7] They then demonstrated that the human arterial vasculature is actively dilated by a continuous release of nitric oxide.[12]

Commission for Racial Equality

File:St-George s-Hospital.jpg
St. George's Hospital, Tooting

Collier became a whistleblower in 1986 when, following his report published jointly with psychiatrist A. W. Burke, he informed the Commission for Racial Equality that software used for medical-school admissions selection at St George's had been developed to mimic methods of examiners, and was consequently creating a lower score for women and those with non-European names so reducing their chance of being called for interview.[13][14] It led to questions on what might be happening in other London medical schools; St. George's already had a higher than average intake of students with non-European names. Collier was initially shunned within the institution and denied a due professorship. As attitudes changed, his position improved; he was promoted to professor and eventually the medical school publicly thanked him.[13][14][15] He discussed his experience in an article in the British Medical Journal in 1999 when he recalled that he "was ostracised, became invisible, told I [he] had brought the organisation into disrepute”.[15] Changes in admissions procedures have since been made and Collier has since been acknowledged for contributing towards greater equality in recruitment practices.[15][16]

National policy

In his national policy work, he has raised awareness of how drugs are priced, brought to the market and regulated, in addition to how they are evaluated, licenced and promoted, and how drug safety advice is produced and revised.[6]

In 1993, he was appointed lead adviser on medicines to Parliament’s Health Select Committee. In 1998, he was appointed to the Medicines Commission.[6] He was one of the specialist scientific advisors who helped change the way drugs are priced and bought by the NHS. In 2007, Collier contributed to the report by the Office of Fair Trading, which recommended that drug prices to the NHS should be in accordance with their clinical value.[17] In addition, he worked to ensure that members of governmental advisory committees published their conflicts of interest.[18][19]

Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin

Collier began working for the Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin (DTB) in 1969. In 1972, he became its deputy editor and member of the DTB’s Advisory Council, after at first being associate editor. He succeeded Andrew Herxheimer as editor of the bulletin in 1992, and over the following 12 years shaped the bulletin in response to new challenges of the time, including the growth in electronic information, evidence-based guidelines, a growing demand to engage the public and healthcare workers and the establishment of the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE).[6][20]

Known to frequently question evidence and arguments accepted by others, under his editorship in 1998, the DTB opposed the Department of Health’s view and supported the provision of sildenafil on the NHS.[6]

Other roles

Collier is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. He was elected president of the International Society of Drug Bulletins in 2002 and is a former member of the British Medicines Commission.[4][6]

Personal and family

In 1968, Collier married Rohan.[4] Their eldest son, Daniel, died suddenly in 2013. They have two other sons and a grandchild. Following retirement Collier has become an active blogger and fluent in French.[8]

Selected publications

Papers

Books

References

  1. ^ Levy, Paul (30 June 2011). "Susan Collier: Award-winning textile designer best known for her work for Liberty and Habitat". The Independent. Retrieved 19 June 2020.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  2. ^ "Dr H.O.J. Collier: Obituary". British Journal of Pharmacology. 81 (1): 11–12. January 1984. ISSN 0007-1188. PMC 1986965.
  3. ^ a b Reynolds, L. A.; Tansey, E. M., eds. (2008). Clinical Pharmacology in the UK, c. 1950–2000: Industry and Regulation (PDF). Wellcome Witnesses to Twentieth Century Medicine. Vol. 34. London: Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL. p. 90. ISBN 978-085484-118-9.
  4. ^ a b c Goodwin, C. (12 July 2003). "Joe Collier". The Lancet. 362 (9378): 178. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(03)13888-3. ISSN 0140-6736. PMID 12867137.
  5. ^ "History — Welcome to the Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics Unit". St George's, University of London. Retrieved 29 June 2017.
  6. ^ a b c d e f "Joe Collier's editorship of DTB". Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin. 42 (6): 47–48. 1 June 2004. doi:10.1136/dtb.2004.42647. ISSN 0012-6543 – via BMJ Publishing Group.
  7. ^ a b Blackman Daniel J.; Morris-Thurgood Jayne A.; Atherton John J.; Ellis Gethin R.; Anderson Richard A.; Cockcroft John R.; Frenneaux Michael P. (2000). "Endothelium-Derived Nitric Oxide Contributes to the Regulation of Venous Tone in Humans". Circulation. 101 (2): 165–170. doi:10.1161/01.CIR.101.2.165. PMID 10637204.
  8. ^ a b Collier, Joe. "The Joe Collier Blog". The Joe Collier Blog. Retrieved 25 June 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  9. ^ Jeffreys, Diarmuid (2005). Aspirin: The Remarkable Story of a Wonder Drug. New York: Bloomsbury. pp. 226–231. ISBN 1-58234-386-1.
  10. ^ Craig, Gillian M. (February 1975). "Prostaglandins in reproductive physiology" (PDF). Postgraduate Medical Journal. 51 (592): 74–84. ISSN 0032-5473. PMC 2495714. PMID 1089972.
  11. ^ Flower, Rod (2012). "9. The Discovery of Prostaglandins". In Thompson, Gilbert R. (ed.). Nobel Prizes That Changed Medicine. Imperial College Press. p. 187. ISBN 978-1-84816-826-8.
  12. ^ Barba, Gianvincenzo; Mullen, Michael J.; Donald, Anne; MacAllister, Raymond J. (1999). "Determinants of the Response of Human Blood Vessels to Nitric Oxide Donors In Vivo". Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics. 289 (3): 1662–1668. ISSN 0022-3565. PMID 10336566.
  13. ^ a b Cassidy, Jane (1 August 2009). "Name and Shame" (PDF). British Medical Journal. 339: 267. doi:10.1136/bmj.b2693. PMID 19633039.
  14. ^ a b Lowry, Stella; Macpherson, Gordon (5 March 1988). "A blot on the profession". British Medical Journal. 296 (6623): 657–658.
  15. ^ a b c "Error and institutionalised racism". British Medical Journal. 318 (7184): 0. 6 March 1999. ISSN 0959-8138. PMC 1115062.
  16. ^ Sheikh, Aziz (October 2001). "What's to be done about racism in medicine?". Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. 94 (10): 499–500. ISSN 0141-0768. PMC 1282200. PMID 11581340.
  17. ^ Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Health Committee (2008). "Introduction". National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence: first report of session 2007-08, Vol. 1: Report, together with formal minutes. Vol. 1. The Stationery Office. p. 10. ISBN 978-0-215-03796-1.
  18. ^ Spencer, J A; van Zwanenberg, T D (July 1989). "Prescribing research: PACT to the future" (PDF). The Journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners. 39 (324): 270–272. ISSN 0035-8797. PMC 1711886. PMID 2556539.
  19. ^ Collier, J. (13 April 1985). "The pharmaceutical price regulation scheme: a time for change". Lancet (London, England). 1 (8433): 862–863. doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(85)92218-4. ISSN 0140-6736. PMID 2858718.
  20. ^ "2. The NHS". Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics in a Changing World: Report of a Working Party. London: Royal College of Physicians. 1999. p. 8. ISBN 1-860160891.

Further reading

External links

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