Co-founders & Director
The clinician-academic founding partnership behind MD Acumen Ltd. Director Professor Rajesh Varma — Professor of Cardiovascular–Renal–Metabolic (CVRM) Medicine and Women’s Health, NHS GP Partner, Cambridge Visiting Researcher, NICE Osteoporosis Guideline Committee Member. Co-founder Professor Tham Nimal-Raj — Chancellor of New Vision University (UK Campus), Founder and Chair of Essex Medical Society, senior NHS clinician with four decades of UK practice.
Last editorial review: 14 May 2026 · Next scheduled refresh: 1 December 2026.
How the co-founders bring two institutions to MD Acumen
MD Acumen Ltd was founded on a clinician-academic partnership that, by design, integrates three institutional bridges into one operating educational platform. The Director, Professor Rajesh Varma, is a Hertfordshire NHS GP Partner, Cambridge Visiting Researcher, and NICE Osteoporosis Guideline Committee Member — the curriculum authority and the editorial-currency anchor. The Co-founder, Professor Tham Nimal-Raj, is Chancellor of New Vision University (Tbilisi, Georgia) — UK Campus, the academic-awarding partner for the MD Acumen-NVU PGCert programmes, and is independently the Founder and Chair of the Essex Medical Society, the operational co-coordinator of the Acumen Observership Programme. The two founders work together against a single editorial standard: post-graduate-level UK primary-care education anchored to pivotal-guideline currency, delivered through a credentialled European Higher Education Area route, and supported by a structured UK clinical-attachment programme for international medical schools.
Why these two co-founders. The MD Acumen platform requires three institutional bridges to operate at the standard it sets — a clinical authority who writes the curriculum and signs every editorial revision; an academic-awarding body that confers the FHEQ Level 7 / EQF Level 7 credentials; and an operational clinical network that supports the parallel Observership Programme. Professor Varma supplies the first. Professor Nimal-Raj, through his roles at NVU UK Campus and the Essex Medical Society, supplies the second and the third.
Professor Rajesh Varma — Director and curriculum author
Professor Rajesh Varma
Director · Curriculum author · Professor of CVRM Medicine and Women’s Health · NHS GP Partner · Dual CCT (O&G and Primary Care) · Cambridge Visiting Researcher · NICE Osteoporosis Guideline Committee Member
Clinical practice. NHS General Practitioner Partner and GP Trainer at The Colne Practice, Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, with over twenty years of UK primary-care clinical practice. Extended-scope expertise across the diabetes-cardiorenal-metabolic, menopause-andropause, and clinical-headache domains, with osteoporosis and metabolic bone health as a parallel research focus. Active prescribing under the full UK community formulary with particular focus on the SGLT2-GLP-1 portfolio, HRT and fezolinetant, and the CGRP-era armamentarium. Dual CCT specialist in Obstetrics and Gynaecology and in Primary Care (GMC 4196453).
Academic appointments. Professor of Cardiovascular–Renal–Metabolic (CVRM) Medicine and Women’s Health at New Vision University, Tbilisi, Georgia. Visiting Researcher, Department of Public Health & Primary Care, University of Cambridge. Curriculum author for all three MD Acumen-NVU PGCert programmes (DCRM, Menopause & Andropause, Clinical Headache Management), the Mastery — MRCGP AKT Statistics programme, and the Pivotal Guideline Bundle 2024–2026 resource. Holds the editorial-currency discipline against the 1 December quarterly refresh cadence; signs off every page revision under the six-stage Director-led peer-review gate.
Regulatory and guideline-development role. Member of the NICE Osteoporosis Guideline Development Committee (committee member list) — contributing to the published-guideline body that the MD Acumen curriculum itself anchors to. This membership is the canonical example of the editorial-currency feedback loop: the Director sits at the table where pivotal guidelines are written, and the credentialled curriculum he authors is anchored to those same guidelines.
Doctoral research. PhD, University of Birmingham (2009) — An investigation of basic science and clinical research methodologies to benefit clinical practice. Research methodology training underpinning the editorial discipline that the MD Acumen platform requires.
Credentials. Membership of the Royal College of General Practitioners (MRCGP). Professional registration with the General Medical Council — GMC 4196453. Dual CCT specialist in Obstetrics and Gynaecology and Primary Care. PhD (Birmingham, 2009). Specialist-level postgraduate qualifications across the curriculum domains.
Research interests. Postgraduate medical education methodology; the integration of agentic AI into clinical-education content authoring; real-time guideline-currency systems anchored to Tier-1 journal feeds; the cardiovascular-renal-metabolic continuum and its translation into primary-care decision-support; the timing-of-initiation hypothesis in menopause hormone therapy prescribing; the CGRP-era pharmacology of migraine prevention; osteoporosis risk-stratification and fracture-prevention pathways in the perimenopausal and andropausal patient. Selected publications and forthcoming presentations are listed at /research/publications.
Forthcoming presentation. European Society of Cardiology Congress 2026, Munich, 31 August 2026 — Digital phenotyping and additive multimorbidity scoring to operationalise very-high-risk secondary prevention in primary care. Moderated Poster Presentation (Cardiovascular Risk Detection in Primary Care). Co-authors from the University of Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine.
Researcher and academic profile links
Professor Tham Nimal-Raj — Co-founder, NVU Chancellor, Founder of Essex Medical Society
Professor Tham Nimal-Raj
Co-founder · Chancellor, New Vision University (UK Campus) · Founder & Chair, Essex Medical Society · Senior Partner, Sai Medical Practice · Professor of Family Medicine and Anatomy · Fellow of the Royal Society of Health · Former Council Member of the British Medical Association
Clinical practice. Distinguished senior clinician with over four decades of experience in the UK National Health Service. Senior Partner at Sai Medical Practice, and previously Chief Clinical Officer within NHS Clinical Commissioning Groups with executive responsibility for clinical commissioning, primary-care development, and regional service redesign. Clinical specialism in hypertension, diabetes, and community diagnostics — the cardiometabolic backbone of UK primary care.
Academic leadership. Chancellor of New Vision University — UK Campus, the academic-awarding partner for the MD Acumen-NVU PGCert programmes. In this role, he is the pivotal figure bridging international medical education, overseeing clinical rotations and academic standards for the next generation of medical professionals trained through the UK Campus route. Professor of Family Medicine and Anatomy — a prolific educator and author who has written several textbooks on anatomy and ultrasound, and is a frequent invited speaker at international medical conferences.
Founder, Essex Medical Society. Founder and Chair of the Essex Medical Society (EMS), a regional learned society which serves as a vital forum for clinical intelligence and professional development for physicians and surgeons across Essex. Under his guidance, EMS has become the operational clinical partner for the Acumen Observership Programme in Mid & East Essex — providing the host GP teaching surgery network, the named cohort coordinators, and the Monday academic-seminar delivery infrastructure that underpins the four-week observership for international medical students.
Authorship and conference presence. Author of several textbooks on anatomy and ultrasound. Frequent invited speaker at international medical conferences. Career spans the full breadth of clinical, academic, and entrepreneurial leadership across UK general practice and regional medical education.
Entrepreneurial track record. Career marked by a maverick entrepreneurial spirit that has seen the successful launch of multiple medical enterprises — contributing the operational, governance, and partnership-building experience that the MD Acumen platform requires to scale credibly across UK and international partner-university markets.
Credentials. Fellow of the Royal Society of Health. Former Council Member of the British Medical Association (BMA). Professorial appointment in Family Medicine and Anatomy. UK General Medical Council registration. Forty-plus years of NHS continuous practice.
Institutional bridges
| Institution | Role | Contribution to MD Acumen |
|---|---|---|
| New Vision University — UK Campus | Chancellor | Academic-awarding partner for the MD Acumen-NVU PGCert programmes (FHEQ L7 / EQF L7, ECTS-conformant) |
| Essex Medical Society | Founder & Chair | Operational clinical partner for the Acumen Observership Programme — host network, coordinators, Monday seminar delivery |
| Sai Medical Practice | Senior Partner | NHS general-practice clinical practice base; cardiometabolic and community-diagnostic clinical authority |
| NHS Clinical Commissioning Groups (former) | Chief Clinical Officer | Regional service-redesign and clinical-commissioning experience informing the partnership architecture |
One platform, three institutional bridges, two co-founders
The division of operational responsibility between the two co-founders is deliberate and clean. It maps to the three institutional bridges that MD Acumen requires to operate.
| MD Acumen function | Lead | Institutional bridge |
|---|---|---|
| Curriculum authorship and editorial-currency discipline | Professor Rajesh Varma | The Colne Practice (NHS GP); Cambridge (research methodology); NICE (guideline-development feedback loop) |
| FHEQ Level 7 / EQF Level 7 award and ECTS conformance for the PGCert programmes | Professor Tham Nimal-Raj | New Vision University — UK Campus (Chancellor) |
| Operational clinical network for the Observership Programme | Professor Tham Nimal-Raj | Essex Medical Society (Founder & Chair) |
| Forward research, publications, and pivotal-guideline currency | Professor Rajesh Varma | NICE Osteoporosis Committee; Cambridge Visiting Researcher; NVU professorial chair in CVRM Medicine and Women’s Health |
| Regulatory, governance, and partnership-development | Joint | Both founders — Rajesh as MD Acumen Director, Tham as NVU UK Campus Chancellor and former NHS CCO |
Working alongside the co-founders
The MD Acumen operating team works alongside the co-founders on programme delivery, NVU governance interface, the parallel Acumen Observership Programme through Essex Medical Society, and the dynamic evidence-layer maintenance that keeps the curriculum current. Programme-specific clinical leads and external examiners are appointed at each cohort intake under New Vision University (Tbilisi, Georgia) — UK Campus academic governance. The faculty CV register is maintained as a governance document and is provided to NVU and to partnership officers during the dossier-exchange phase of a partnership conversation.
See also: /academy/faculty for the public-facing faculty page, and /observership/universities for the Memorandum of Understanding framework under which Essex Medical Society co-coordinates the four-week observership for international medical schools.