Precious Matsoso

Precious Matsoso is the director of the Health Regulatory Science Platform in the Division of Wits Health Consortium at the University of Witwatersrand and the former director-general of the National Department of Health of the Republic of South Africa. She is co-chair of the World Health Organization (WHO) Digital Health Technical Advisory Group. Matsoso has more than twenty-five years of executive management experience, having held leadership strategic positions at national and international level, covering areas of public health policy and programs. She has been director general of the National Department of Health for nine and a half years, during which she was responsible for bringing about various policy and legislative reforms.  She served as the head of the medicines regulatory agency in South Africa for more than six  and a half years. She has been the chair of the Ministerial Advisory Committee on e-Health, chair of Technical National Health Council, and chair of Policy Review Committee of the South African National AIDS Council.

She was the World Health Organization (WHO) Director of Public Health Innovation and Intellectual Property. Prior to this, she served as the Director of Technical Cooperation for Essential Medicines and Traditional Medicines. She has been appointed to various international governance and advisory bodies. She served as a member of the WHO executive board for a three-year term. During this period she served as the vice-chair and chairperson successively. She was appointed by the Secretary General of the United Nations as a member of a UN High-Level Panel on Access to Health Technologies, a panel comprised of eminent leaders from the public and commercial worlds. She served as the Chairperson of the Independent Oversight and Advisory Committee (IOAC) of the World Health Organization’s Emergencies Programme and continues to be a member. She was the member of the Lancet Global Health Commission on High Quality Health Systems. She is currently serving as a member of the UNITAID Board.