Professor Tim Higenbottam
DSc, MD, MA, FRCP, FFPM, MIoD

Senior Partner

Email: tim.higenbottam@transcrip-partners.com

Prof Tim Higenbottam brings over 25 years of experience in Academic Respiratory Medicine and Pharmaceutical Medicine. Working in Papworth and Addenbrookes hospitals, he and John Wallwork were responsible for the first successful lung transplant in Europe. He introduced the trans-bronchial lung biopsy to diagnose infection and rejection of the transplant lung. This led to the characterisation of the inflammatory response in the rejecting lung and the recognition of the pathological basis of chronic rejection, obliterative bronchiolitis.

Tim introduced Prostacyclin therapy for pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) in the 1980s. He also provided the study design that led to marketing approval in 1995. He discovered the use of inhaled nitric oxide in PAH which was approved for neonatal PAH in 2001. A pivotal proof of concept study (PoC) perform in 1997 when Tim was Professor of Medicine in Sheffield enable Pfizer to launch the pivotal studies for approval of sildenafil for PAH which was approved in 2005.

Working in Clinical Science for AstraZeneca R&D, Tim led the process to link the selection of molecular target for new therapies to the major unmet needs in COPD and Asthma. This work also involved the development of the tools for clinical development in the form of outcome measures and study design for PoC.

In Chiesi Farmaceutici Tim was Corporate Director for Clinical Development. Here he was accountable for all the human studies and ran on average 36 studies per years for approval of Respiratory Therapies. Again study design in phase II and III were a focus of his work particularly comparative studies of inhaler therapy. Organisationally he built strong departments of Statistic/Data-management and Clinical Pharmacology to support this work. He also led the introduction of an outsourcing department and change management in clinical operations.

Presently he is supporting two projects in the Innovative Medicine Initiatives (EU and Pharmaceutical Industry Joint Undertaking) and is the chairman of the Professional Standards Committee of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine of the Royal College of Physicians.