Who's Speaking at the DIA-MHRA Global Summit 2026?

The inaugural DIA-MHRA Global Summit brings the UK's Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency together with DIA as equal co-hosts, convening regulators, industry, and academia on 16-17 November at Senate House, University of London. As a neutral convener, DIA is not positioning the Summit to produce regulatory or policy decisions, but to create space for the conversations that shape them. Four confirmed speakers already reflect that scope.

Lawrence Tallon, Chief Executive of the MHRA, opens the collaboration from the regulator's side, bringing the perspective of an agency balancing patient safety with the UK's ambitions to remain competitive in life sciences. Alongside him, DIA Chief Executive Marwan Fathallah represents the global, multi-stakeholder membership DIA has built across more than 80 countries, framing why a joint summit with a national regulator is a natural next step for an organisation built on neutral dialogue.

Professor Sir John Bell, Regius Professor of Medicine at the University of Oxford and a longstanding architect of UK life sciences policy, adds an academic and research-policy lens to the programme. His work has repeatedly focused on how the UK translates scientific strength into faster, more predictable pathways for new medicines, a theme likely to run through the Summit's regulatory science sessions.

Dame Kate Bingham completes the confirmed line-up. Best known for chairing the UK's Vaccine Taskforce during the COVID-19 pandemic, she brings a venture capital and drug development perspective on what it takes to move quickly from science to approved product without compromising rigour, a question every regulator and sponsor in the room will recognise.

Together, these four speakers preview a Summit built around a single question the life sciences industry keeps asking: how can regulators and industry move faster together without moving apart? Sessions across the two days will build on that question, with further speakers and the full agenda to be announced in the coming weeks.

For clinical operations, medical affairs, regulatory affairs, investment, and R&D professionals working across UK and global markets, the Summit offers a rare setting where a national regulator and an industry-neutral association share the same stage. More speaker announcements are on the way.

Registration and the full programme are available on the DIA-MHRA Global Summit page. Follow the conversation at #DIAMHRASummit2026.