EU drugs agency faces gap at top awaiting new boss

The European Medicines Agency could be leaderless for much of next year, after a series of missteps and a row over pay that stalled the appointment of a replacement for its outgoing executive director.

A fresh advertisement for the post was finally published at the weekend, after multiple delays, but a new head of agency - Europe’s equivalent of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration - is unlikely to be in place before mid-2011.

“There will be a gap,” Thomas Lonngren, the outgoing executive director, told Reuters in a recent interview.

“Now I have only got a few months left and a procedure like this takes quite a long time, so we cannot expect (a replacement) until June or July next year.”

The absence of a leader comes at a sensitive time for the London-based watchdog, which faces strategic choices about how it cooperates with other regulators around the world as the development of drugs becomes increasingly globalised.

But industry experts said the agency, which employs some 500 staff, is less subject to political pressures than its U.S. counterpart, suggesting the absence of an executive director may not disrupt day-to-day decisions on new drug approvals.

Divisional heads are expected to step into the breach to fill the role until a permanent replacement for Lonngren comes on board.

Lonngren, a Swedish pharmacist, has been the executive director of the agency since January 2001 and is currently serving a second five-year term, which expires at the end of 2010.

The European Commission, the Brussels-based bureaucracy responsible for selecting his successor, first advertised the post in January. But that posting had to be cancelled due to incorrect translations.

A second advertisement was then published, but was again pulled, following a row about the pay grade for the position, which the Commission planned to downgrade to AD14 from AD15 on the official European pay scale.

After much wrangling, the latest advertisement - which appeared a few weeks later than Lonngren had expected - maintains the executive director position at the existing grade of AD15.

That means the successful applicant will receive 176,000-199,000 euros ($246,000-$278,000) a year, rather than the 155,000-176,000 payable for grade AD14.

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By Ben Hirschler

LONDON (Reuters)