Staff Profile

Role

Dr Teresa Fortune is the Chief Operating Officer at the NIHR Innovation Observatory and as such supports the Director Professor Dawn Craig and the Senior Leadership Team in the development, strategic management and delivery of our remit working across all technical areas and stakeholders. 

Teresa draws on extensive experience of the health innovation landscape, including the NHS, wider NIHR and the facilitation of partnership working to realise health and life sciences innovation and to build the economy in the UK. She supports the Innovation Observatory to develop the infrastructure needed to develop the skills, tools, resources and expertise to deliver and build on the IO's cutting edge remit. 

Initially a Post doctoral geneticist (University of Glasgow), Teresa has facilitated health improvement and economic growth by supporting innovation across clinical, academic, commercial and third sector partners along the bench to bedside pathway. Prior to joining the Innovation Observatory in August 2021 Teresa was Head of Innovation at South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Trust where she established the Innovation Team. Her interest lies in overcoming barriers to clinical innovation and ensuring impactful health improvements. 

About the NIHR Innovation Observatory  

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The NIHR Innovation Observatory is a world leading health and care innovation scanning centre providing data-driven insights to foster innovation and equitable access to high quality care. We aim to transform health systems and improve population health by providing advanced data-driven insights that foster innovation and equitable access to high quality care. At the core of our work is the development of data-driven methods to identify, capture and synthesise intelligence on new health innovations. We develop and share cutting edge methods in horizon scanning, building capacity in the systems across the public, voluntary and industry sectors. 

We deliver essential intelligence and insights about medicines and MedTech innovation to the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE), NHS England, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), the NIHR, the UK Health Security Agency, the Department for Health and Social Care and industry - allowing these organisations to prepare for policies, regulation and frontline delivery for new, emerging and disruptive technologies.