Noël Wathion

Noël Wathion is Head of Patient Health Protection with the EMA. Originally he qualified as a pharmacist from the Free University of Brussels. After some time in retail pharmacy, he joined the Pharmaceutical Inspectorate (Ministry of Social Affairs and Public Health) in Brussels as a Chief Inspector, acting as the Secretary of the Belgian Medicines Commission.

He joined the EMA in August 1996 as Head of Sector for Regulatory Affairs and Pharmacovigilance and was appointed Head of the Human Medicines Evaluation Unit in September 2000. The following year he became Head of Unit for the Post-Authorisation Evaluation of Medicines for Human Use.

The Patient Health Protection Unit contributes to patient health protection from the multiple perspectives of pharmacovigilance, risk and crisis management, patient and health care professional information, inspections (for both human and veterinary medicinal products), and appropriate regulatory compliance. The unit is also in charge of community procedures for both centrally and non-centrally authorised products.