Chairman of Garvan, Mr Bill Ferris AC, welcomed The Hon Jillian Skinner (Minister for Health and Minister for Medical Research), as well as incoming Executive Director Professor John Mattick, at this year's Annual General Meeting, held on 1 May, 2012. In his address he outlined what he sees emerging as 10 key issues / questions for resolution in the two Health and Medical Research reviews that are currently taking place - one at State, the other at Federal level.

Chairman outlines key Health and Medical Research issues at  Garvan AGM

CHAIRMAN’S ADDRESS TO 2012 GARVAN AGM 

Welcome  The Hon Jillian Skinner (Minister for Health and Minister for Medical Research), Sr Annette Cunliffe (Leader of the Sisters of Charity), Sr Helen Clarke, Professor John Mattick (Executive Director, Garvan Institute), fellow Board members past and present of the Institute and Foundation, St Vincent's Hospital colleagues, valued Garvan supporters and staff.

In each of the past 10 years, when I have enjoyed the privilege of chairing this AGM, I have marvelled at the number and nature of Garvan discoveries.  This year is no exception and I urge you all to read this excellent annual report from cover to cover.

I do want to publicly give a big thank you to two of our directors who retired from the Garvan board during 2011:   Martin Hoffman  (initially 96-99 as Chief Operating Officer, and then from 2001 to 2011 as a Director and Treasurer) and  Nick Curtis, previous Chair of St Vincent's Hospital and Director of Garvan. Both Martin and Nick gave generously of their time and ideas.

Warren Scott takes over the Honorary Treasurer position from Martin so please test him out today with some tricky accounting questions. I am at the same time very pleased to welcome our 2 new board members, Daniel Petre, successful media and IT investor, author, and philanthropist who has endowed 2 cancer research Chairs at Garvan (so far) and Dr Annette Pantle, who among other things is Group General Manager, Clinical Governance and Chief Medical Office for St Vincent's Health Australia.  We are already benefiting from their experience and expertise.

There were many prestigious awards made to our faculty and staff during 2011; too many to speak of today, but given the Minister’s presence, I will mention just a couple.  Cancer Institute NSW presented the 2011 Premier’s Fellow of the Year Award to Dr Alex Swarbrick, and the 2011 Premier’s Scholar of the Year Award to Dr David Chang.

  Last year I spoke of John Shine’s extraordinary contributions to world science and in particular to the Garvan.  I am especially thankful that John extended his directorship through the end of calendar 2011 enabling us to complete our comprehensive and successful search for his successor, Professor John Mattick, whom I have asked to make some comments later today under the heading “Looking Ahead”.

To all our faculty and staff I extend our congratulations and thank yous for the continuing excellence that is Garvan.

In my written report I made brief mention of the two current Health and Medical Research reviews, of critical importance to the research sector and to Garvan.  One is the NSW review chaired by Peter Wills, tasked by Minister Skinner earlier this year to advise and recommend re changes/improvements for NSW State funding of research activities. This Review was well timed and welcomed by the sector; Garvan made a strenuous submission and no surprise that Peter and his panel completed a comprehensively professional report for the Minister.

Following on the NSW Review, perhaps even stimulated by it, the Federal Government has called for a national review of Health and Medical Research, tasking a panel to make recommendations how best to fund Health and Medical Research nationally for the next decade.  I am one of 6 panel members appointed by the Feds to complete this report by December.  Being the least qualified of the 6, but having now considered several hundred of the submissions, let me share with you what I see emerging as 10 key issues / questions for resolution:

I have taken more time than usual for which I apologise. But given the importance and currency of this Review, I wanted to share these matters with you; indeed anyone in the room who wishes to question, comment or add to this list, please do so in the Q&A today or send me an email.

 In closing, let me say that I remain extremely excited about the prospects for Garvan. We are well positioned with the inheritance from John Shine, with the new and passionate leadership of John Mattick, and with the ever strengthening backing of our stakeholders. Ours is an exciting period ahead!