Former National Institutes of Health boss Harold Varmus has been appointed the new director of the National Cancer Institute, replacing John Niederhuber.

The $5.1 billion cancer institute is the largest of NIH’s 27 institutes and centres.

“We are extremely fortunate that he accepted the position as NCI Director,” said Francis Collins, NIH Director. “Harold brings unmatched expertise at all levels — not only in cutting edge scientific research, but also as a leader in the development of strategies for improving patient care, education and training, and in designing novel public-private partnerships.”

Varmus headed up the NIH during the Clinton administration, between 1993 and 1999, and advised Barack Obama during his successful run for the presidency.

He shared the 1989 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine for his work on retroviral oncogenes and became president of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center after leaving the NIH