Prof Patrick Kennedy

Bio

Professor Kennedy is a leading liver specialist and his work in viral liver disease is known internationally. Trained at University College Dublin, he completed post-graduate training in London and was appointed as a Senior Lecturer at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry in 2009. He has produced novel work redefining the disease phase in Chronic Hepatitis B (CHB) and the main focus of his research work is around broadening treatment candidacy and the development of individualised treatment strategies for viral liver disease. He is widely published in the field; with >100 peer reviewed academic articles (h-index 46) and >10,600 citations, in addition to multiple book chapters, he has also edited a textbook on Hepatogastroenterology.

As a Consultant Physician and Hepatologist, Professor Kennedy has a special interest in the management of liver disease in young people and developing personalised treatment approaches. He works closely with premiership football clubs and manages liver disease in professional sportspeople and elite athletes from the UK and abroad. He is an expert advisor for the WHO and was part of the HBV clinical guideline development group and he was also a member of the European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL) HBV clinical practice guidelines (2025) and has served as a member of NICE on the viral hepatitis clinical guideline committee. He provides expert opinion for the United Kingdom Advisory Panel (UKAP) on blood-borne viruses and is the current chair of the British Viral Hepatitis Group and former Lead for the British Association for the Study of the Liver (BASL) HBV special interest group. More recently, he has served as an expert advisor on the infected blood inquiry and is on the Scientific and Medical advisory Board for the Hepatitis B Foundation.

Professor Kennedy works closely with industry and provides expert opinion on drug development programs. He is the Chief/Principal Investigator for a number of investigator-led and commercial phase 1, 2 and 3, clinical trials of novel therapies in viral liver disease. At present, he leads studies on the development of novel therapies in HBV and hepatitis delta virus (HDV). In addition, he is passionate about patient education and ensuring patients play a central role in their own medical management. Professor Kennedy is the inventor of HepB&Me, a management app; a current area of his research is expanding the utility of patient management tools to empower patients and improve care.