USP chairman of the Board of Trustees Duane M. Kirking, Pharm.D., Ph.D., announced that Roger L. Williams, M.D., CEO and chair of the Council of Experts for the United States Pharmacopeial Convention (USP), will step down on June 30, 2014, in accordance with previously agreed contractual commitments.
“Dr. Williams has made strong contributions to USP through his leadership,” Dr. Kirking said. “During his tenure, USP's public health activities and impact have increased significantly, with USP’s quality standards now used in more than 140 countries. In addition, USP’s presence in the world has expanded through laboratories, offices and training centers in the U.S. and in six other countries” (India, China, Brazil, Switzerland, Ethiopia and Ghana).
Dr. Williams joined USP in early 2000. As chief executive officer, Dr. Williams provides strategic leadership for USP at the direction of its Board of Trustees. Dr. Williams also serves as chair of the Council of Experts, USP’s scientific standards-setting body, which continuously revises USP’s seven compendia of standards, including the United States Pharmacopeia and the National Formulary, USP on Compounding, Medicines Compendium, Herbal Medicines Compendium, Dietary Supplements Compendium and Food Chemicals Codex. Dr. Williams also leads USP’s outreach efforts to national and international bodies that share USP's public health mission.
Dr. Williams is USP’s fourth ceo. His predecessors were Dr. Lloyd Miller (1950-1970), Dr. William Heller (1970-1990) and Mr. Jerry Halperin (1990-2000). He is the 15th chair of the Council of Experts, the first being a physician, Dr. Lyman Spalding, who chaired the USP Committee of Revision (now the Council of Experts) beginning in 1820. Dr. Williams also is a physician with a career that focused on the pharmaceutical sciences first at the University of California, San Francisco (1977-1990), then at FDA (1990-2000).
The Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees plans to announce the selection of an executive search firm and a search committee by the end of January 2013.