Peer who led NHS review failed to declare shares in healthcare firms

The independent peer Lord Darzi, a senior adviser to the government on the NHS, failed to officially declare shareholdings in healthcare companies worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.

- David Conn

Ara Darzi is an eminent surgeon and professor at Imperial College London whose report on the NHS for the government in September informed the decision announced last week by the health secretary, Wes Streeting, to abolish NHS England. Darzi also has an extensive portfolio of private interests in commercial medical companies.

A Guardian investigation has found Darzi held shares and share options in four healthcare companies that he did not declare on his House of Lords register of interests. The information was missing from the register when Streeting appointed him to lead the investigation into the state of the health service.

Lawyers for Darzi said the omission was an "oversight", and that some of the information had been publicly available in US stock market filings. They said he had written to the registrar of Lords interests to request his entry be corrected.

The undeclared interests include $500,000 (£385,000) of shares and $800,000 of share options in Evelo Biosciences, a US-based healthcare venture where Darzi was a director. The shares were bought in 2022 and Darzi held them until June 2023, according to his now corrected register. Darzi's lawyers said he had never obtained benefit from the share options as he had never converted them into shares.