Joe Collier (clinical pharmacologist)

Joseph Gavin Collier FRCP (born 1942) is a British retired clinical pharmacologist and emeritus professor of medicines policy at St George's Hospital and Medical School in London, whose early research included establishing the effect of aspirin on human prostaglandins and looking at the role of nitric oxide and angiotensin converting enzyme in controlling blood vessel tone and blood pressure. Later, in his national policy work, he helped change the way drugs are priced and bought by the NHS, and ensured that members of governmental advisory committees published their conflicts of interest.

In 1986 he became a whistleblower when he revealed to the Commission for Racial Equality that software used for medical-school admissions selection at St George's was intentionally discriminating against women and ethnic minorities, by creating a lower score for women and those with non-European names so reducing their chance of being called for interview. Initially shunned within the institution, he was publicly thanked several years later for bringing the procedure to its attention. His work led to reviews of admissions policy to institutes of higher education throughout the UK.

He was editor of the Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin from 1992 to 2004, president of the International Society of Drug Bulletins from 2002 to 2005 and was a former member of the UK Medicines Commission from 1998.