Professor Sir Alasdair Breckenridge was a highly respected and globally acclaimed clinical pharmacologist, international scientist, and visionary regulatory professional during his lifetime.

His most notable engagements include his service as Foreign Secretary of the British Pharmacological Society from 1985 to 1991, as well as his close involvement in the administration of the UK National Health Service at unit, regional and national levels. He became the inaugural Chairman of the UK Medicines and Health products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) in 2003 and served in this position for ten years until 2013.  During this time, he was an active participant of the annual international Summits of Heads of Regulatory Agencies and hosted the meeting in the UK in 2010. He was knighted in 2004 at the New Year Honours for Services to Medicine.

After stepping down from the MHRA, Sir Breckenridge was appointed Chair of the Emerging Science and Bioethics Advisory Committee, which provided advice to UK health departments on emerging healthcare scientific developments and their ethical, legal, social and economic implications. He also chaired the Scientific Advisory Council of the UK-based Centre for Innovation in Regulatory Science (CIRS), as well as the CoRE’s Advisory Board.

Sir Breckenridge’s national involvement extended into the larger, international landscape. For many years, he served on a number of official committees of the World Health Organization and was similarly involved with the International Union of Pharmacology. He is globally recognised for his contributions, as he was awarded with the Paul Martini Prize in Clinical Pharmacology and the Poulson Medal of the Norwegian Pharmacological Society.