Sir Andrew Dillon, (born 9 May 1954) is a British executive, who was chief executive of the

National Institute for Health and Care Excellence The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is an executive non-departmental public body of the Department of Health and Social Care in England that publishes guidelines in four areas: * the use of health technologies withi ...

(NICE) from 1999 to 2020. His earlier career was spent as an administrator and manager in the

National Health Service The National Health Service (NHS) is the umbrella term for the publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom (UK). Since 1948, they have been funded out of general taxation. There are three systems which are referred to using the " ...

(NHS).

Early life

Dillon was born on 9 May 1954 in Sale,

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county tow ...

, England. He was educated at

St Ambrose College St Ambrose College is a Christian Brothers' Roman Catholic boys' grammar school in Hale Barns, Altrincham, Greater Manchester, England. It was founded in 1946 by Dr Joseph Robertson. In 2012 the school became an academy, and was completely re-b ...

, an all-boys

grammar school A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching Latin, but more recently an academically oriented secondary school ...

Hale Barns Hale Barns is a village near Altrincham in Greater Manchester, England, south-west of Manchester city centre, 2 miles west of Manchester Airport and close to the River Bollin. At the 2011 census, the village had a population of 9,736. Medieval ...

, Cheshire, and at North Cheshire College of Further Education. He studied at the

University of Manchester , mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity , established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univ ...

, graduating with a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University o ...

(BSc) degree.

Career

Dillon joined the

(NHS) after graduating from university. He was a general manager of the Royal Free Hospital from 1986 to 1991, and the chief executive of

St George's Healthcare NHS Trust St George's University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, formerly called St George's Healthcare NHS Trust, is based in Tooting in the London Borough of Wandsworth, and serves a population of 1.3 million across southwest London. A large numbe ...

from 1991 to 1999.

NICE

He joined

NICE Nice ( , ; Niçard dialect, Niçard: , classical norm, or , nonstandard, ; it, Nizza ; lij, Nissa; grc, Νίκαια; la, Nicaea) is the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes departments of France, department in France. The Nice urban unit, agg ...

as its founding chief executive in 1999 and retired in 2020. In September 2013 he wrote an open letter to

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...

in which he said companies should be sure that all expenses spent on research were necessary in order justify the high prices demanded for new products assessed by health technology assessment (HTA) bodies such as NICE: "If it really does cost £1.2bn to develop a new drug, the question the

pharmaceutical industry The pharmaceutical industry discovers, develops, produces, and markets drugs or pharmaceutical drugs for use as medications to be administered to patients (or self-administered), with the aim to cure them, vaccinate them, or alleviate symptoms. ...

must be able to answer is this: are you absolutely confident that it needs to?". He was said by the Health Service Journal to be the 34th most powerful person in the English NHS in December 2013. and among The 25 most influential people in biopharma today. As of 2015, Dillon was paid a salary of between £185,000 and £189,999 by NICE, making him one of the 328 most highly paid people in the British public sector at that time.

Personal life

Dillon is married to Alison Goodbrand and they have two daughters. In 2015, Dillon was elected a

Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences Fellowship of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci) is an award for medical scientists who are judged by the UK Academy of Medical Sciences for the "excellence of their science, their contribution to medicine and society and the range of th ...

(FMedSci).

References

External links

Official biography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dillon, Andrew Administrators in the National Health Service 1954 births People from Sale, Greater Manchester Living people People educated at St. Ambrose College Alumni of the University of Manchester Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Knights Bachelor Fellows of the Academy of Medical Sciences (United Kingdom)