Richard Hobbs

This article is part of the Pharma_Portal project of Spinwatch.

Richard Hobbs has been a Professor and Head of Primary Care and General Practice at the School of Medicine, University of Birmingham since 1991. Prior to that, he served as Associate Dean for Finance and Strategic Planning and for External Affairs. He sits on several scientific and research funding boards, including currently the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Diagnosis of Heart Failure Research Group; the Advisory Council to the Medical Research Council; the Secondary Prevention Panel for the British Heart Foundation and the NHS R&D HTA Commissioning Board.

As a consultant, he has worked on NHS policy including advisory roles for National Service Frameworks for CHD and for Heart Failure and for several NICE assessments. His medical society work has included Council of the British Cardiac Society, Chairmanship of both the European Primary Care Cardiovascular Society and the British Primary Care Cardiovascular Society; and founding board member of the British Society of Heart Failure.

In 2005, he was chairman for the Primary Care Cardiovascular Society (PCCS) and thanked the pharmaceutical industry for its continued support in his annual report. In the same year, the PCCS established a second Special Interest Group to represent GPs with special interests in cardiology and clinical practitioners which was supported by the British Journal of Cardiology, AstraZeneca and Servier. AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Kellogs, Medtronic, Merck Sharp & Dohme/Schering Plough, Merck Pharmaceuticals Omron, Pfizer, Provexis, Sanofi-Aventis provided sponsorship for the PCCS Annual Scientific Meeting in the same year.

In 2006, he chaired the steering committee for JEWEL I - a Pfizer-funded program showing that single-pill amlodipine/atorvastatin therapy (Caduet) is an effective treatment for hypertensive patients with additional cardiovascular risk factors, simultaneously reducing both hypertension and cholesterol levels.