Health Economics

A health economics fellowship in the Program on the Economic Evaluation of Medical Technology at the Harvard School of Public Health is supported by Novartis Pharmaceuticals. This program is designed to support a doctoral student's research activities in the areas of health economics and health technology assessment. In today's healthcare environment, it is essential that the value of medical interventions are fully assessed in order to determine how best to allocate limited healthcare resources. The Novartis Health Economics Fellowship is designed to support outstanding Harvard scholars gain additional experience in state of the art research on the economic evaluation of medical technologies.

Modeling and Simulation

A drug-disease model translates quantifiable knowledge and beliefs about disease processes and drug action into predictions of measurable markers and responses of interest to drug development scientists, customers, and regulators. Novartis is committed to model-based drug development wherein the creation and application of disease models are central to the scientific process. The Novartis Modeling and Simulation Fellowship is a fellowship designed to build and support a pipeline of talent in the area of simulation modeling used to integrate the principles of biology, pharmacology, and statistics to predict and explain the quantitative consequences of decisions.

AWARD RECIPIENTS

2007-2008 Modeling and Simulation: Natalie Carvalho

The 2007-2008 recipient of the Novartis Fellowship in Modeling and Simulation is Natalie Carvalho, a 1st year doctoral student in the Decision Sciences track of the Ph.D. Program in Health Policy at Harvard University.

2007-2008 Health Economics: TBA

2006-2007 Health Economics: Rebecca Anhang Price

The 2006-2007 recipient of the Novartis Fellowship is Rebecca Anhang Price. Rebecca Anhang Price is a doctoral student in the Medical Sociology track of the Ph.D. Program in Health Policy at Harvard University. Rebecca's research interests include the effects of new clinical technologies on health care quality, and evaluation of the effectiveness of health communication programs, including direct-to-consumer advertising. Rebecca has conducted research with physicians and consumers and helped to plan and execute mass media campaigns to promote asthma, HIV and oncology drugs in the United States, and healthy lifestyles in the Middle East. Rebecca graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1998 with a BA in Communication, and received a Master of Science in Health Policy and Management from the Harvard School of Public Health in 2003.

2005-2006 Health Economics : Dr. Fernando Colmenero

The 2005-2006 recipient of the Novartis Fellowship was Dr. Fernando Colmenero. Dr. Colmenero entered the ScD program in 2003. Prior to that he had received his M.D. from the University of Buenos Aires . In May of 2006, Dr. Colmenero was posthumously awarded the ISPOR Best Contributed Podium Presentation Award for his work entitled, "An Audit of 106 Economic Analyses Contained in AMCP Dossier Submissions, 2002-2005" at the 11^th Annual Meeting of the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research. This research, representative of his larger work, addressed the quality of economic analyses in industry and their compliance with criteria recommended by the Panel on Cost-Effectiveness in Health Medicine.

"Fernando was universally loved and highly regarded by his Health Policy colleagues. Though his intellectual honesty, wide-ranging experience and knowledge, and ever-present curiosity were notable, his unassuming manner allowed him to inspire lively discussion with thoughtful questions. His warm, gentle smile was disarming, and his eyes often twinkled after one of his many jokes. Though involved in many projects, he made time for the people he cared about. His loss is deeply felt by those who had the privilege to call him their friend." - Jeremy Goldhaber-Fiebert.

2004-2005 Health Economics : Sun-Young Kim

In 2004-2005 the Novartis Fellowship was awarded to Sun-Young Kim. She received her MPH from Seoul National University in 2000 and entered the Ph.D. program in 2001. She received her doctorate in 2006 after defending her dissertation, "Hepatitis B Vaccine Economics," in which she developed and applied mathematical models to evaluate the cost-effectiveness, externalities, and affordability of different hepatitis B vaccination programs in various settings. Currently Dr. Kim is a research associate in the Program in Health Decision Sciences, working on the Grand Challenge 13 project funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

2003-2004 Health Economics : Dr. Yun-Hsin (Claire) Wang

The 2003 - 2004 recipient of the Novartis Fellowship was Dr. Yun-Hsin (Claire) Wang. Dr. Wang received her M.D. from National Taiwan University in Taipai, Taiwan in 2000. She then enrolled in the Master of Science program at the Harvard School of Public Health and majored in clinical epidemiology, receiving her MPH in 2001. This encounter with decision sciences piqued her interest in analytical approaches to medical technology evaluation. She entered the Sc.D. program and began investigating the role of behavioral risk factors in colorectal cancer incidence in the U.S. population. Her research focused on applying mathematical models for informing policy guidelines to two major public health issues: obesity and antibiotic resistance. In 2005 she completed her doctorate, and now works with both the Channing Laboratory and the Program in Health Decision Science, focusingon the growing obesity epidemic.

"The Novartis fellowship was more than an honor to me," Claire said. "The fellowship allowed me to focus on my research. I was also very appreciative for the travel support that allowed me to attend academic conferences, meet prominent researchers in the field from around the world, and learn from fellow scholars. "

2002-2003 Health Economics : Uwe Siebert

Prior to Claire, the Novartis Fellowship was awarded to Uwe Siebert. After medical school, Uwe worked for several years as a physician in international public health projects and earned an MPH at the Munich School of Public Health. In 1999, he came to the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis (HCRA) to extend his experience in decision analysis and to enroll in the MSc Program in Epidemiology with a focus on decision sciences. "In the third year of my thesis, I had a really tough time, torn between commitments to my family living here with me, continued work for the German government, and my desire to intensify my collaboration with my colleagues in the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis on methodological projects. The Novartis Fellowship helped me a great deal in balancing these conflicts and supporting my work on my thesis."

In addition, Uwe's contact with Jens Grueger, the principal force behind the fellowship at Novartis, led to discussions of further collaborations between Uwe and Novartis.

After earning his ScD in 2005, for his work in Causal Interence and Heterogeneity Bias In Decision-Analytic Modeling, Uwe returned to Austria, where he is Professor of Public Health and Head of the Department of Public Health, Medical Decision Making and Health Technology Assessment at the University of Health Sciences, Medical Informatics and Technology (UMIT). He is also Associate Professor of Radiology at Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Siebert's research interests include applying decision-analytic modeling, quality-of-life assessment, and cost-effectiveness analysis in the framework of health technology assessments (HTA) as well as in the clinical context of routine health care. His current research focuses on cardiovascular diseases, cervical cancer screening, hepatitis C, HIV, and neurological disorders.

2001-2002 Health Economics : Julia E. Aledort

The first recipient of the Novartis Fellowship was Julia E. Aledort, then a student in the Ph.D. Program in Health Policy at Harvard University. Her research primarily focused on sexually transmitted diseases and antibiotic resistance. Julia worked as a health economist in the pharmaceutical industry for several years but decided to further her education and pursue a doctoral degree in decision science. With support from the Novartis Fellowship, her research explored the cost-effectiveness of new screening technologies for sexually transmitted diseases in non-traditional settings and the clinical consequences and social and ethical issues surrounding the development of antimicrobial resistance associated with STDs. After receipt of her doctorate in 2004 for her work in "Infectious Disease Policy in the Era of Antibiotic Drug Resistance: Decision-Analytic and Historical Perspectives," she took a position as an associate policy researcher with RAND corporation in Santa Monica, California.

"One of the really exciting things about the Fellowship is that it helped support travel to professional meetings, both to meet professionals working in the field of infectious diseases and antimicrobial resistance, and to present my work," Julia said. Abstracts of some of her preliminary findings regarding detection and treatment of gonorrhea at urban hospital emergency departments were presented at the Society for General Internal Medicine, and at the 7th Annual Meeting of the International Society of Pharmaceutical and Outcomes Research (ISPOR), May 19-22, 2002, Arlington, VA.