As Director General, Thomas leads IFPMA’s mission to encourage the development of sustainable solutions that enable innovation and improve global health.

Over the past two decades, Thomas has been instrumental in developing collaborative solutions for some of the greatest global health challenges. These include HIV/AIDS and antimicrobial resistance, as well as the industry’s response to pandemics.

He is frequently called upon to comment on industry’s contribution to global health in the world media and at international fora.

Since he joined IFPMA, Thomas has pioneered collaborative solutions to tackle antimicrobial resistance (AMR), chairing the AMR Industry Alliance and launching the AMR Action Fund. This is a USD 1 billion venture begun in July 2020 to fund the development of between two and four new antibiotics by 2030.

Thomas represents the innovative pharmaceutical industry in the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator initiative, set up in April 2019. In 2022, together with industry CEOs and building on the lessons learned from COVID-19, he led the development of the Berlin Declaration. This is a vision for equitable access in global pandemic response that invites multilateral organizations as well as the G7 and G20 to agree to a social contract for future health security.

He is Chair of the Business at OECD Health Committee and serves as Industry Co-Chair of the APEC Biopharmaceutical Working Group on Ethics.

Prior to joining IFPMA, Thomas was Secretary General of Interpharma, the association of Switzerland’s research-based pharmaceutical industry. He was a member of the board of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) for many years.

His first career was as a journalist, when he was London correspondent for the Basler Zeitung and Der Bund, and he often writes opinion pieces for the media. He also served as a Swiss career diplomat posted to Paris (OECD) and Vienna (IAEA, UNIDO).

Thomas has a master’s degree in economics from the University of Basel and another in politics from the London School of Economics. He is an alumni of the Geneva Graduate Institute for International Studies.