Biography

Cary James began his civil society career in the grassroots HIV movement in London. He went on to become Head of Health Improvement Programmes at the Terrence Higgins Trust (THT), one of Europe’s largest HIV and sexual health organisations. There he led HIV Prevention England – the official government funded national HIV prevention programme. He contributed to the establishment of the world’s first national HIV self-sampling programme as well developing a free online HIV self-test service.

Through a whole-system approach and innovation in prevention, testing, diagnostics and treatment, during this time, England saw a 20% increase in HIV testing, 37% decrease in new HIV diagnoses and a reduction in new HIV infections - the first decrease in UK history and a turning point in the epidemic.

He is the former chair of European [Hepatitis/HIV] Testing Week and is currently an advisory board member of INTEGRATE - a programme to integrate early diagnosis and linkage to prevention and care of viral hepatitis, HIV, TB and STIs in Europe; as well as other expert groups and strategic partnerships. He is also a faculty member of the European AIDS Clinical Society’s online HIV Clinical Management course, presenting the module on key populations.