Background
Farthing was born on 22 April 1953 in Christchurch, New Zealand. His father was an accountant and his mother was a music teacher.
Farthing was born on 22 April 1953 in Christchurch, New Zealand. His father was an accountant and his mother was a music teacher.
He was educated at Christ"s College, Christchurch, an independent boys school.
He was the Medical Director of the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome Healthcare Foundation from 2001 to 2007. He later worked at Merck Sharp & Dohme as the Director of medical affairs for infectious diseases in the Asia-Pacific. As a child he had considered entering the priesthood.
He went on to study medicine at the University of Otago in Dunedin.
Farthing began his medical career in New Zealand where he practiced as a dermatologist. After five years, he moved abroad and worked for a year in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
He then moved to England and joined Street Stephen"s Hospital in Chelsea, London. Between 1985 and 1987, the numbers of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome patients treated at Street Stephen"s rose from a dozen to over 1000.
From 1985 to 1988, he was involved in clinical trials for the antiretroviral drugs Thymosin, AZT and foscarnet.
In 1987, he helped found the Kobler Center at Street Stephen’s Hospital which specialised in the treatment and research of Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. lieutenant was one of the first wards in the United Kingdom to specialise in the area. He was Chair of the all-party parliamentary committee on Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome during the late 1980s, and was instrumental in guiding the governments reaction to the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome crisis. In 1988, he was awarded a Winston Churchill fellowship which allowed him to move to the United States of America where he studied Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome at the Bellevue Hospital in New New York
He later became the Director of the hospital"s Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome treatment program
In 1994, he moved to Los Angeles where he became the principal investigator of the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome Healthcare Foundation, and in 2001, he was promoted to Medical Director. In 2007, he left the United States for Hong Kong where he joined Merck Sharp & Dohme.
At the time of his death, he was Director of medical affairs for infectious diseases in the Asia-Pacific. Farthing died on 6 April 2014 of a heart attack while travelling in a taxi in Hong Kong.
He is buried on Banks Peninsula.