Ladies and Gentlemen, dear Guests, dear members of the German Association for Regulatory Affairs,

Today we would like to award the Walter Cyran Medal for the fifth time. As I am chairing the board of the DGRA I have the pleasure to make a speech to the honour of the new medallist.

The DGRA named this medal after Walter Cyran. Walter Cyran was born in 1907 in the University City of Tübingen, where he died in 2000. He studied pharmacy and food chemistry at the university of Tübingen.
After World War II he took over leading positions in the ministry of the interior of Württemberg-Hohenzollern, as it was called then and later on in the country of Baden-Württemberg.
He held a professorship at the universities of Freiburg, Karlsruhe, and Tübingen and was a member of several gremia responsible for the development of a modern drug law. He became well known for his publications on pharmacy and drug legislation issues

He was the founder and chief editor of the standard commentary on the German drug legislation, the so called “Kloesel/Cyran”. In a similar fashion he became known and famous for the “Cyran/Rotta”, a similarly important publication for the pharmacy legislation in Germany.
This and several other items I am not intending to list today let us to name the medal after Walter Cyran. The medal is awarded to honour persons for their outstanding merits in drug regulatory affairs.
 
The board of the German Association for Regulatory Affairs has decided to award this years Walter Cyran Medal to Dr Manfred Haase, the head of the division of bacteriology at the Paul Ehrlich Institute and Co-opted member of the CHMP

Dr. Haase is a Member of the Scientific staff of the Federal Agency for Sera and Vaccines, Paul-Ehrlich-Institut (PEI), in Langen, Germany. Since 1973 he has worked in the biologicals approval field. During his career he was and still is involved in the decision making process of  licensing of biologicals at a European level.

In 1992 he received the title "Direktor and Professor"  of the Paul-Ehrlich-Institut.

Since January 1998 he has been a member of the Committee for Proprietary Medicinal Products (CPMP). Already since 1995, when the CPMP met for the first time, he served as  deputy to the delegate. He took important responsibilities in provision of support  to CPMP/EMEA in relation to the development, evaluation and surveillance of biological medicinal products, in particular vaccines and blood products.  Endorsed by his institute‘s colleagues and assessors he was in a position to accept several Rapporteur- Co-Rapporteurships for biologicals.

Since 1986 he has served as a national representative in CPMP‘s Biotechnology Working Party (BWP). In February 2001 he was appointed Vice-Chairman of the Biotechnology Working Party. In this position he identified new areas of specific expertise needed by CPMP/BWP (e.g. for new vaccines, plasma derived and recombinant blood products, TSE/CJD) and to support  BWP  in its task to closely monitor the development of new methodologies for assessing and preventing emerging public health hazards and minimise identified risks.

He has contributed considerably to the development of EU guidelines, especially those concerned with the development and control of vaccines, monoclonal antibodies and blood and plasma products. He was appointed rapporteur for a range of new guidelines embracing quality and safety aspects of biologicals at EMEA/CPMP as well as  WHO level
He was a Member of the ICH Expert Working Group on Quality of Biotechnological Products and EU Rapporteur on stability testing issues.

In May 1998 he was appointed Chairman of the CPMP Working Group on Blood Products (BPWG)
He is also Chairman of the Paul-Ehrlich Institute's Group on European Regulatory Affairs and, last but not least, one of only 5 co-opted members of the CHMP.
It can be said without hesitation that he is one of the key regulators in biotechnology worldwide.

And with this I would like to stop.

The German Association for Regulatory Affairs today awards at the historic place of the former Parliamentary building of the German Federal Republic the “Wasserwerk” the 2006 Walter Cyran Medal to Dr Manfred G. Haase for his outstanding merits in Regulatory Affairs and, in particular, biotech products.

Preisträger Cyran-Medaille Dr. Manfred Haase (re)