term by the Secretary of State for the Department of Health and Social Care) and eight non-executive directors, together with the chief executive and chief operating officer. The chair since September 2020 is Stephen Lightfoot, who is also chair of Sussex Community NHS Foundation Trust and non-executive chair of Sussex Primary Care Limited. Sir Michael Rawlins was the chair from 2014 to 2020. Covid-19 interventions On vaccines On 2 December 2020, the MHRA became the first global medicines regulator to approve an RNA vaccine when it gave conditional and temporary authorization to supply for use of the Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine codenamed BNT162b2 (later branded as Comirnaty). This approval enabled the start of the UK's COVID-19 vaccination programme. The regulator's public assessment report for the vaccine was published in 15 December. The MHRA went on to give conditional and temporary authorization to supply of further vaccines: AZD1222 from Oxford University and AstraZeneca on 30 December, mRNA-1273 from Moderna on 8 January 2021, and a single-dose vaccine from Janssen on 28 May 2021. The approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was extended to young people aged 12–15 in June 2021, 5–11 in December 2021, and from six months in December 2022. The status of the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine was upgraded to conditional marketing authorisation on 24 June 2021. The MHRA confirmed in September 2021 that supplementary "booster" doses of these vaccines would be safe and effective, but stated that the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation had the task of advising if and when they should be used in this way. Later that month, the MHRA said the Moderna vaccine could also be given as a booster dose. In August and September 2022, the MHRA approved the first bivalent COVID-19 booster vaccines. On tests In January 2021, the MHRA expressed concern to the UK government over plans to deploy lateral flow tests in schools in England, stating that they had not authorised daily use of the tests due to concerns that negative results may give false reassurance. The government suspended the scheme the following week, citing risks arising from high prevalence of the virus and higher rates of transmission of a new variant. Criticism In 2005, the MHRA was criticised by the House of Commons Health Committee for, among other things, lacking transparency, and for inadequately checking drug licensing data. The MHRA and the US Food and Drug Administration were criticised in