New chief executive to helm HSA from December

SINGAPORE - The Health Sciences Authority (HSA) has appointed a new chief executive who will assume the role in December.

Adjunct Associate Professor Raymond Chua Swee Boon will officially begin his duties on Dec 13.

He is now the deputy director-general of health (health regulation) at the Ministry of Health (MOH), and will stay on in this role even after taking on his new appointment, said MOH and HSA in a joint statement on Sept 12.

He is also an adjunct associate professor at the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health at the National University of Singapore (NUS), and the Centre of Regulatory Excellence in Duke-NUS, the statement added.

Before coming to MOH, he was the group director of the Health Products Regulation Group at HSA.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, he served as deputy commander of the Medical Operations Task Force, and oversaw the enforcement of control orders and facilitated the establishment of Covid-19 facilities, among other things.

He will take over at the helm from Dr Mimi Choong May Ling, who will retire from the public service on Dec 13.

Dr Choong took on the top job at HSA 10 years ago, when then chief executive John Lim Chien Wei headed back to MOH to become deputy director of medical services (industry and research matters).

In their statement, MOH and HSA said Dr Choong has played a key role in positioning HSA as a leading international scientific organisation, and helped it become the first regulator in the world to be accorded the World Health Organisation’s maturity level 4 (ML4) status in 2022.

ML4 is the highest maturity level in WHO’s classification of regulatory authorities for medical products.

The statement said: “MOH and HSA wish to express our deep appreciation to Dr Mimi Choong for her leadership and contributions during her 10 years as CEO and extend a warm welcome to Adjunct Associate Professor Raymond Chua as the new CEO of HSA.”