Werner Christie

Werner Hosewinckel Christie (1949-) is a Norwegian politician for the Labour Party. He was Norways first Minister of Health (Department of Health and Social Affairs) 1992-1995, serving in Dr. Brundtlands Cabinet 1992-1996. Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland is a former Chair on World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), and a later Director General of WHO.

Werner Christie is educated as a Medical Doctor (University of Oslo 1979)with degrees also in social science. (Sociology; University of Oslo 1969, Philosophy; Univeristy of Bergen 1971 and political Science; University of Oslo 1972.)He also has more than 13 years experience as a part-time farmer.

Dr. Christie served as the first Chair of the steering group of WHO’s Stop TB, www.stopTB.org, a global public private partnership. He chaired the Biotechnology Advisory Board of Norway (www.bion.no) from 2000 - 2004.

He has worked as a public health officer and hospital manager in Norway and has done research and published a textbook in the planning and management of primary health care. He has served on a number of boards for health care providers, investors and start-ups, including European Federation of Biotechnology ( www.efb-central.org ) and ScanBalt network of Biotech networks (www.Scanbalt.org ). He was for 5 years a special advisor in medical and Biotechnology for the Norwegian Trade Council (www.innovationnorway.no), and served two years in that function in San Francisco (1999-2001). He is from 2007 board member of Public Advice International Foundation, (http://www.pa-international.org/) . From 2008 he is board member of EduMonde SA, an educational media venture, and member of the Presidium of the UN International Ecological Safety Cooperative Organization (www.uniesco.org.)

In 2001 he started his own fulltime consulting business, “World Health Connections”, focusing on entrepreneurship and investment strategies in Medical and Biotechnology as well as health care development and advising both private and public enterprises.He was May 2004 appointed as Science and Technology Counsellor for the Royal Norwegian Embassy, Beijing, where his work is mainly focused on energy, environment (www.neec.no ), building, medical, marine and bio- science and technologies as well as welfare and health reform issues.