Françoise Weber is appointed as ANSES's Deputy Director General for Regulated Products

Starting on 1 July 2015, ANSES has been entrusted by the French government and the Parliament with the issuance, amendment and withdrawal of marketing authorisation decisions for plant protection products, fertilisers and growing media. These new responsibilities include a phytopharmacovigilance scheme to ensure monitoring of the post-authorisation impact of these products on humans and the environment, as well as new powers of control. These new responsibilities were taken on in early July, at which time ANSES set up a new in-house organisational structure whose main goals include: independence of scientific expert assessment, the capacity to rapidly gather signals in the field for public health purposes and improved overall effectiveness of the market authorisation issuance system.  

As an integral member of the General Directorate, Françoise Weber's mission will be to direct and coordinated the Agency bodies involved in this system and to guarantee the coherency and relevance of the activities undertaken in this area. She will be in charge of signing marketing authorisation decisions for the products, through delegation of authority by the Director General, as well as of renewals, amendments, suspensions and withdrawals, in accordance with the European and French regulatory framework.

To carry out her work, she will receive support from:

• the Regulated Products Assessment Department (DEPR) which scientifically assesses the risks and efficacy of active substances and regulated products;
• the recently created Market Authorisations Department (DAMM), which is in charge of issuing authorisations and monitoring them, as well as conducting inspections and compliance control initiatives for marketed products;
• the units in charge of schemes for surveillance and vigilance with regard to the impact of various products on human health, the environment (water, air, soil), fauna and flora, in order to draw conclusions regarding the authorisations. The goal is to implement the phytopharmacovigilance (PPV) scheme that was created on the legislative level.

In her area of expertise, Françoise Weber will be the primary contact with the supervisory ministries, her counterparts throughout Europe and the world, and with European bodies, in order to ensure complementarity between the activities of the Agency, government authorities and the other European countries.

For her appointment, Françoise Weber declared: "My mission fits perfectly into the founding principles of ANSES: diligence and independence of scientific risk assessment through the careful examination of each request for pesticide authorisation, and transparency and vigilance in the face face of with numerous demands: preserving the health of workers and the public, protecting the environment and ensuring the efficacy of agriculture."

A medical doctor, Françoise Weber also holds a degree in statistics and epidemiology. After having worked as a general practitioner (1982-1987), she then went on to manage several pharmacovigilance departments in the private sector. In 2000, she joined the Directorate General for Health where she was responsible for public health policy for medical devices. In 2003 she joined the French Health Products Safety Agency (originally AFSSAPS, now ANSM) as Director of the medico-economic evaluation department and Deputy Director of the commission on transparency's secretariat general. In 2005, Françoise Weber was appointed as an Adviser with the Office of the Minister of Health, then in late 2006 as Deputy Director of this same office, where she supervised issues in public health and safety. In May 2007, she became Deputy Director of the Office of the Minister of Labour, where she was in charge of occupational health, working conditions, equality and the family.

In late 2007, she took the helm of the French Institute for Public Health Surveillance (InVS), then in 2014 she was appointed as Deputy Director General for Health.

Since 2012, Dr. Françoise Weber has chaired the Board of Administrators of the ECDC (European center for disease control and prevention) in Stockholm.