Mr Hiiti Baran Sillo

Mr Hiiti Sillo is a Pharmacist by training and the Unit Head for Regulation and Safety within the WHO Department of Regulation and Prequalification, a position he has held since September 2021. 

He leads WHO’s global strategies for strengthening national and regional regulatory systems, promoting regulatory harmonization, convergence, networking, and reliance. He also oversees WHO’s work on safety monitoring of medical products and efforts to combat substandard and falsified medical products, including strengthening national quality control laboratories for medicines and vaccines. Mr Sillo previously served as Team Lead for Regulatory Systems Strengthening within the Regulation and Safety Unit.

Mr Sillo is currently the Vice-Chair of the Governing Board of the WHO Collaborating Centre for International Drug Monitoring and Uppsala Monitoring Centre (UMC) based in Uppsala, Sweden. He serves as the standing observer to the Assembly of the International Council on Harmonization (ICH) and the Management Committee International Medical Device Regulators Forum (IMDRF). He also represents WHO at the International Coalition of Medicines Regulatory Authorities (ICMRA).

Before joining WHO in January 2018, Mr Sillo was Director General of the Tanzania Food and Drugs Authority (TFDA), the predecessor of the Tanzania Medicines and Medical Devices Authority (TMDA), a role he held from May 2010. During his mandate as the Director General of TFDA, he served as the founding Chair of the Steering Committee of the East African Community Medicines Regulatory Harmonization Programme (2014-2016), Vice Chair of the WHO Member State Mechanism on Substandard Falsified Medical Products (2013-2017), Chair of the African Vaccines Regulatory Forum (2017), member of the WHO Strategic and Technical Advisory Group (STAG) on Anti-Microbial Resistance (2013-2016), member of the AU Task Team for Establishment of the African Medicines Agency (2015-2017) and member of the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) for the Review of the Global Fund’s Quality Assurance Policy for Pharmaceuticals (2008).

He has authored and co-authored peer reviewed scientific publications (list available on request) with a special focus on regulation of medical products.