Wellcome’s new head on the future of clinical research funding

After more than a decade under the stewardship of Jeremy Farrar, the Wellcome Trust has switched from having a director to a chief executive officer. So, what changes are afoot for the independent funder worth some £38bn? The BMJ asks the new man in charge, John-Arne Røttingen John-Arne Røttingen, like his predecessor, the infectious disease specialist Jeremy Farrar,1 is a doctor. He’s also a former global health ambassador for his home country of Norway and led its state funding body, the Research Council of Norway. “I’m a physician scientist. I’ve been really motivated by this sort of science—that’s why I started studying medicine,” he tells The BMJ . He studied medicine at the University of Oslo and, among other qualifications, holds an MSc from the University of Oxford. His research has covered basic science, epidemiology, clinical trials, health services research, and global health policy. Notably, he led the steering groups for the Ebola vaccine trial in Guinea and the Covid-19 WHO Solidarity trial. “Through the Ebola outbreak of West Africa [in 2014-16], I became really engaged with the need for a long term commitment on the issue of innovation and access to medicines—and how we find models for innovating where there are no commercial …