MOH’s Director-General of Health Kenneth Mak joins as CRIS’ Chairman

Professor Kenneth Mak will take over as the new Chairman of the Consortium for Clinical Research and Innovation (CRIS) from May 15. 

He will replace Professor John Lim, who has served as Chairman of CRIS for five years, according to an official statement released by CRIS. 

As a subsidiary under Singapore’s Ministry of Health (MOH), CRIS was set up in 2020 to consolidate national-level clinical research and translation programmes. 

The agency currently manages six national programmes in clinical trials, healthcare innovation, precision medicine, cancer and cardiovascular research, and cell and gene therapy manufacturing. 

Prof Mak currently serves as the Director-General of Health at MOH, and the Board Chairman for the recently formed Communicable Diseases Agency (CDA). 

He also concurrently serves on the Governing Board of one of the three public healthcare clusters in Singapore, National University Health System (NUHS); as well as two medical schools, namely Nanyang Technological University’s Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine and Duke-NUS Medical School. 

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Bringing together clinical and public health  

Prof Mak’s role at MOH was a new one that emerged after Singapore’s fight against the Covid-19 pandemic – where he played a key role in advising the taskforce.  

According to MOH as previously reported by Channel NewsAsia, the role of the Director-General of Health served as “the main overseer of both clinical and public health of Singaporeans.” 

Subsequent efforts were made by MOH after the pandemic to “enable clinical services and public health to be institutionalised and built up within the ministry.”  

These efforts included the formation of CDA, maintaining a permanent crisis strategy, and setting up a Healthcare Reserve Force. 

Commenting on his appointment at CRIS, Prof Mak said: “I look forward to working with the team to further strengthen Singapore’s clinical research capabilities to benefit the healthcare ecosystem.  

“Together, we will continue to create synergies and value-add to the healthcare system, bridge the gap between scientific breakthroughs and healthcare impact, and harness the economic benefits of our research and translation efforts.” 

The official statement released by CRIS alluded to a strong foundation laid by Prof Lim in "overseeing the development of CRIS as a unified platform for national clinical research and innovation efforts, as well as the expansion and increasing impact of its six national programmes.”