Professor Darren Ashcroft holds the Foundation Chair in Pharmacoepidemiology at the University of Manchester and is the founding Director of the Centre for Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety. His major research interests focus on clinical epidemiology and pharmaceutical outcomes research, with a particular interest in the comparative safety and effectiveness of pharmaceuticals and biotechnolgy products, drug policy and risk management program evaluation, and epidemiological methods using electronic healthcare databases. He has many years of experience working with large electronic healthcare databases in the UK, particularly the Clinical Practice Research Datalink (www.cprd.com). He is currently a co-investigator on the MRC-funded Psoriasis Stratification to Optimise Relevant Therapy (PSORT) consortium.