8 SOMERVILLE MAGAZINE
A Prepared Mind Few people played a more decisive role in the UK’s response to Covid-19 than June Raine. As Interim CEO of the MHRA (she was confirmed in the role in Feb 2021), June steered the vaccines through testing and manufacture to achieve a mass rollout that set the pace for the rest of the world. Here she tells the story of an extraordinary year and the scientific training that prepared her for it.
What first sparked your interest in a position in medicine regulation and how did your career take you there? Well, I qualified back in 1976, at a time when the main pathways available to women doctors were radiology, pathology, anaesthetics or general practice. After an MSc in pharmacology and some reflection, I chose to start in general practice. But I still had a penchant for the research world – one which Oxford kept alive for me thanks to that real sense you have, when living there, of research and academia being all around you.
Everything I do scientifically comes back to those first principles I learned at Somerville.
Serendipity stepped in next when David Graham Smith, the Professor of Clinical Pharmacology, suggested I consider regulation. He told me it was at the cutting edge scientifically and I might find the process of developing new drugs a good way of having a direct impact on public health. As he predicted, I saw the value of the work almost as soon as I started. At that time HIV was just becoming a global threat, and I witnessed first-hand how these new antiretroviral cocktails turned HIV from a death sentence into a disease you could live with and even, in time, cure. Right from the beginning, regulation captured my imagination as a means of translating robust scientific methodologies into tangible health benefits – and I’ve been here ever since!
June Raine
You mention the atmosphere in Oxford as having influenced your decision to pursue regulation. To what extent, if any, did Somerville prepare you for that path? Oh, it was everything! Like many others, I’m sure I couldn’t do what I do now without Somerville’s influence; it really did shape my intellectual and ethical disposition fundamentally. First of all, I think there’s an idea that, if you’re a Somervillian, you have an open mind; you ask questions, never take things at face value and, when the situation arises, you’re there to be counted. The second thing Somerville gave me was scientific rigour. I was fortunate enough to be taught by Jean Bannister – and what a paragon she was! We all respected her work on cardiovascular physiology immensely, but it
