Danish Medicines Agency lands new European chairmanship

Nikolai Brun, Director of Medical Evaluation & Biostatistics, has been elected chair of the Task Force on Big Data in the pharmaceutical area. The task force is a collaboration between the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the Heads of Medicines Agencies (HMA) which is to identify advantages and challenges of using big data for the development of medicine.

The Danish Medicines Agency has once again been assigned a European top post in the pharmaceutical area after Thomas Senderovitz, Director General of the Danish Medicines Agency, was elected Chairperson of the HMA Management Group in March this year. Now the Danish Medicines Agency will also be chairing the joint HMA/EMA Task Force on Big Data, represented by Nikolai Brun, Director of Medical Evaluation & Biostatistics at the Danish Medicines Agency.

Big data and data protection

The EU’s and the member states’ Big Data Task Force was established last year in May, among other things with the purpose of mapping and characterising big data sources and finding out how to use big data to develop new and better medicines while protecting the data of citizens.

Nikolai Brun took up the chairmanship on 19 June and takes over from Thomas Senderovitz who has been filling two chairmanships for a short period.

"I am very happy about the appointment and pleased that the chairmanship remains Danish. I have been an active member of the task force since its establishment, so I have been involved every step of the way, and I look forward to continuing the exciting and important work of finding solutions and best practices for how to use big data to develop better and more effective and safe medicines tailored to the individual patient while protecting the citizens’ data", said Nikolai Brun.

Read more about the Big Data Task Force: HMA/EMA Joint Task Force on Big Data.