Adjunct Professor John Skerritt joined the Department of Health in May 2012 and is currently the Deputy Secretary, Health Products Regulation Group. As a Deputy Secretary, he contributes to the stewardship of Australia's health system, as well as having direct responsibility for both the Therapeutic Goods Administration and the Office of Drug Control.

John is a former Deputy Secretary in the Victorian Government and has extensive experience in medical, agricultural and environmental policy, as well as regulation, research management, technology application and commercialisation.

Prior to this role, John was the Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (a Commonwealth statutory authority), a Ministerial appointee on the Gene Technology Technical Advisory Committee, and Chair of the Board of the International Water Management Institute.

During the 1990s he held senior management positions in CSIRO and Cooperative Research Centres. He has significant experience on boards of international and national organisations and has more than 25 years of experience in negotiating and leading international technical and commercial collaborations. He is currently Vice-Chair of the International Coalition of Medicines Regulatory Authorities and the Scientific Advisory Council of the Centre for Innovation in Regulatory Science.

John is an Adjunct Professor of the Universities of Queensland and Canberra, has a PhD from the University of Sydney, and is a graduate of the Senior Executive Programs of London Business School and of the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) Business School in Switzerland. He was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering and a Fellow of the Institute of Public Administration of Australia (Vic).