Cathy Lenihan JRO Transformation Lead
Dr Catherine Lenihan has joined Oxford Academic Health Partners (OAHP) as Transformation Lead for the Oxford Joint Research Office (JRO). Catherine comes on secondment from the MHRA, where she works as Head of Regulatory Strategy and EU.
The new role has been created by the OAHP, with support from the NIHR RRDN Strategic Fund, to drive a significant programme of change for the Oxford JRO. This supports health research studies delivered jointly between university and NHS or commercial partners.
Catherine will lead a six-month transformation project focused on improving clinical research set-up times, aligning processes and governance, and strengthening joint working. Her appointment follows a recent Oxford JRO Away Day, where nine priority areas for improvement and development were agreed. These will position the Oxford JRO to support the Government’s ambition, set out in the Life Sciences Sector Plan, to reduce clinical trial set-up times to under 150 days.
At the MHRA, Catherine was responsible for reforming UK clinical trials regulations to enable innovation, ensuring they work in the best interests of research teams and trial participants. She was previously a cancer researcher at Barts Cancer Institute.
Catherine said, “At the MHRA, much of my job involves helping different teams to come together, understand what they want to achieve and how to do that effectively. I’m looking forward to working across Oxford to support teams to apply the clinical trial regulations in ways that make the most sense for their studies – and hopefully in ways that reduce some of their administrative workload.”
Dr Harriet Teare, Chief Operating Officer of the Oxford Academic Health Partners, said: “This new role is a critical step in moving our JRO transformation programme into its delivery phase, so we can start to pilot the new ways of working set out by the partners. Catherine’s unique insights will support us to overcome some of the significant challenges and bottlenecks we face in rapidly setting up high-quality patient-facing studies.”
The Oxford JRO works across the University of Oxford, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust.