Ben Doak | Independent Adviser
Independent Adviser

Ben Doak MSc DIC, has built a significant career working in England’s National Health Service (NHS) at a national level for more than 20 years. Most recently, he was the Head of Innovative Treatments, part of NHS England’s National Specialised Commissioning Directorate. In this role, Ben’s primary role was to fulfil NHS England’s commissioning responsibility to ensure that, where applicable, specialised services were in place to deliver cell and gene therapies licensed by the UK medicines regulator, the MHRA, and recommended by NICE in the NHS in England. His achievements in post included establishing the function and setting the strategy for national adoption of cell and gene therapies. He oversaw the expansion of CAR-T services from 9 to 20 hospitals, and the introduction of several new treatments including Breyanzi and Aucatzyl for blood cancers, Zolgensma, Upstaza and Libmeldy for rare diseases and Hemgenix (for haemophilia B) and Casgevy, the CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing therapy for beta-thalassaemia and sickle cell disease. Ben has worked in innovation through various roles in his career, including working with surgical innovations in NICE’s interventional procedures programme, overseeing the placement of innovations in treatment pathways through NICE clinical guidelines and streamlining commercial activity for new technologies in NHS England’s Commercial Medicines Directorate. Ben maintains an active interest in horizon scanning for cell and gene therapies.