Hassaan Al-Wohaibi, executive director at the Saudi Food and Drug Authority

Hassaan Al-Wohaibi has been the executive director at the Saudi Food and Drug Authority (SFDA) since December 2017.
He gained a bachelor’s degree in pharmacy in 2001 and a master’s degree in business administration in 2007, both from King Saud University.
Al-Wohaibi began his career in 2001 as an in-patient pharmacist and in August 2005 he joined a hospital run by the Ministry of National Guard Health Affairs as its medical application analyst.
In October 2007, he moved to the SFDA as senior pharmacist in its drug sector’s licensing department. During his time with the authority, Al-Wohaibi has held several positions including being manager of regulatory affairs, and later director of the same department, and in November 2014 he became director of the authority’s products licensing department.
He has also been part of a number of key SFDA projects such as the Drug Establishments National Registry e-system that aims to create a national database including local and international companies, manufacturers, agents and wholesale distributors in the Kingdom.
The SFDA on Sunday approved the conducting of an international refereed clinical trial for the treatment of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in five major hospitals of Saudi Arabia.
The trial is being run to obtain data related to the efficacy and safety of different antivirals in the treatment of COVID-19 and is being carried out in cooperation with the World Health Organization and other local health bodies in the Kingdom.