Dr. Christa Wirthumer-Hoche

Head of Austrian Medicines and Medical Devices Agency

Christa studied biochemistry at the Technical University in Vienna and did her doctoral thesis at the Institute of Medical Physiology in 1983.
First at the Austrian Institute for Drug Control (1983 – 1998), her area of responsibility was the quality assessment of medicinal products, and from 1998 at the Federal Ministry of Health and Women’s Affairs, she was Head of the Marketing Authorisation Department for Medicinal Products.
Since the founding of the new Austrian agency on 1 January 2006, she has been Head of the Institute for Market Authorisation and Lifecycle Management of Medicinal Products. Since October 2013, she has been Head of the Austrian Agency for Medicinal Products and Medical Devices at AGES (Austrian Agency for Health & Food Safety), and a leading member of BASG (Federal Office for Safety in Health Care).
Since 1994, she has been a member of several European committees and working groups, and was elected Chair of the EMA (European Medicines Agency) Management Board from March 2016 – March 2022.
As a guest lecturer, she teaches the subject “Regulatory Affairs of Medicinal Products” at several European universities.