Dr. Javier Guzman is MSH’s Technical Director of the USAID-funded MTaPS Project. Javier has worked in public health policy and practice for 17 years as a physician, researcher, analyst, and policymaker. Trained as a physician, he worked for several years in planning and implementation of primary health care projects in Colombia and subsequently as a Post Graduate Clinical Fellow in Paediatrics at the Royal London Hospital. In 2015, he joined the Colombian government, first as Director of Medicines and Health Technologies at the Ministry of Health and then as Director General of the Colombian Food and Drug Surveillance Institute, where he led the development and implementation of the organization’s 2016–2018 strategic plan and also the modernization of information systems related to market authorization, inspections, and quality control, thereby improving accountability, transparency, and efficiency.
Previously, as Director of Research for global health nongovernmental organizations in the United Kingdom and Australia, Dr. Guzman managed portfolios of multi-million dollar health consulting and research projects focusing on pharmaceutical policy, pharmaceutical systems strengthening, and diseases that disproportionately affect low- and middle-income countries.
In addition to his medical degree, Javier has an MSc in Health Policy, Planning and Financing from the London School of Economics and Political Science and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and an MBA (Executive) from the Australian Graduate School of Management.