Australia
Suzanne Hill is Senior Lecturer in the Discipline of Clinical Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Newcastle, New South Wales. A public health physician, clinical pharmacologist, and epidemiologist, she teaches undergraduates and postgraduates and conducts research in the fields of pharmacoeconomics and pharmacoepidemiology.
David Henry is Professor of Clinical Pharmacology at the School of Population Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Newcastle, New South Wales. He specializes in general internal medicine and has been a consultant physician and toxicologist in Newcastle since 1983. His research interests range from the adverse effects of drugs to clinical epidemiology, pharmacoepidemiology, pharmacoeconomics, health technology assessment, and methodologies relevant to evidence-based medicine.
Alan Stevens is Director of the Prices and Policy Section in the Pharmaceutical Benefits Branch of the Department of Health and Aged Care as well as Secretary of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Pricing Authority, an independent body that makes recommendations to the health minister on prices of new and existing drugs. Following the agreement of the minister, Stevens negotiates prices of drugs with the pharmaceutical industry. He graduated from the Australian National University with a bachelor of economics degree.
Australian Update
Ray Moynihan, a long-time radio and television journalist, currently writes about the business of medicine for the Australian Financial Review. Along with former PBAC member David Henry, Moynihan was co-author and one of eight co-investigators on a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in June 2000 about media coverage of drugs. He was a 1999 Harkness Fellow in Health Care Policy and is the author of Too Much Medicine?(ABC Books, 1998).
Canada
Malcolm Maclure is Manager of Statistical Analysis and Evaluation in the British Columbia Ministry of Health and Adjunct Associate Professor in the Epidemiology Department at the Harvard School of Public Health, where he completed his doctorate in epidemiology in 1984. Since 1998 Maclure has been Visiting Associate Professor in the Department of Clinical Pharmacology and the Research Unit on General Practice at the University of Southern Denmark. He was principal investigator of the Seniors Drug Focus Project from 1994 to 1998 and co-investigator of evaluations of the Reference Drug Program and Nebulizer to Inhaler Conversion Program.
Robert Nakagawa is Director of Pharmacy for the Simon Fraser Health Region as well as Adjunct Professor at the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences and an associate member of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia (UBC). In 1998–1999 he was Director of Pharmacare in the BC Ministry of Health, having chaired the Reference Drug Program Expert Advisory Committee since 1995. Nakagawa received his B.Sc. in pharmacy from UBC in 1980. He has served as president of the Canadian Society of Hospital Pharmacists (CSHP) and of the College of Pharmacists of British Columbia.
Bruce Carleton is Director of the Pharmaceutical Outcomes Program at Children's and Women's Health Centre of British Columbia. He is also Associate Professor in UBC's Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences and currently chairs the Reference-Based Pricing Evaluation Subcommittee for Pharmacare. Carleton's work centers on drug therapy and its impact on human health and quality of life; it includes the development of models for the evaluation of drug benefit programs and for pharmaceutical care processes designed to improve patient health.
United States
Matthew C. Stiefel is Associate Executive Director of Kaiser Permanente's Care Management Institute (CMI). He joined CMI as Director of Measurement in 1998 after holding various management positions at KP Northwest. Stiefel joined KP in 1981 as a medical economist. Prior to that he served as a policy analyst for the Carter administration and the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, and as a Bay Area health planner. His academic background includes course work in the systems science doctoral program at Portland (Ore.) State University, a master's degree in public administration from the Wharton School, and a bachelor's degree from Stanford University.
Kendra Rothert is Program Evaluation Consultant at Kaiser Permanente's CMI, a position she assumed in 1999. Her work focuses on outcomes measurement in diabetes, elder care, and cardiovascular disease, as well as project management and evaluation of the national Health Risk Appraisal (HRA) pilot study. Rothert earned her doctorate from the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health in the Department of Population Dynamics. She also holds master's degrees in biostatistics and population dynamics from Johns Hopkins and a bachelor's degree in international relations from Stanford University.
Robert M. Crane is Senior Vice President and Director, Kaiser Permanente Institute for Health Policy for Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc., and Kaiser Foundation Hospitals. He also has executive responsibility for the Kaiser Foundation Research Institute. In his 18 years with KP, Crane has held several executive positions. Prior to that, he served as the New York State Department of Health's Deputy Commissioner for Program and Policy Development and as Director of its Office of Health Systems Management. He holds a master's degree in business and public administration from Cornell University and a bachelor's degree from the College of Wooster in Ohio.
William Caplan has been Director of Clinical Development at Kaiser Permanente's CMI since 2000, overseeing the development of Chronic Conditions Management Programs, Clinical Practice Guidelines, and content for the Clinical Information System. He joined the Permanente Medical Group in 1979; in 1992 he was named Director of Operations Development for the Permanente Medical Group of Northern California. In that role he led many practice redesign efforts, chaired the Diabetes Steering Committee, and codirected the Innovation Program. He received his B.S. from the University of Wisconsin and his medical degree from Washington University in Saint Louis.
Helen Pettay is Communications Director at Kaiser Permanente's CMI, joining in 1997 after serving as Program Director at Mosby Consumer Health. From 1991 to 1996 she worked in KP's communications and public affairs department; prior to that, she was Communications Manager in the corporate offices of Catholic Healthcare West. Pettay has worked on newspapers and magazines in the West, Midwest, and New England and was editor of Business Digest in the Boston area. She has a bachelor's degree in journalism from Indiana University's Ernie Pyle School of Journalism and studied sociology and philosophy at Edinburgh University, Scotland.
Norway
Mari Trommald works as a researcher in the Department of Population Health Sciences at Norway's National Institute of Public Health. Her recent research has focused on prioritization in health care, the use of effectiveness data in policymaking, and the collaboration between policymakers and researchers. She holds a medical degree as well as a doctorate in neuroscience, having focused on the subject of learning and memory.
Arild Bjørndal is Professor of Public Health at the University of Oslo and head of the Department of Population Health Sciences at the National Institute of Public Health. His main goal is to reform Norwegian health care: better use of reliable evidence and more explicit inclusion of patient (and societal) preferences will lead to better decisions about health in clinical medicine (and public health).
Einar Skancke is Deputy Director General in the Budget Department of the Norwegian Ministry of Finance. From 1999 until October 2000 he was Deputy Director General in the Department of Health of the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs. Skancke is currently responsible for the coordination of the yearly budget proposal for four governmental departments. He has been a member of several governmental committees that have assessed health priority issues.
Audun Hågå has been Director of the Department of Pharmacoeconomics at the Norwegian Medicines Agency since 1998. The department is responsible for assessing applications from the industry regarding reimbursement of pharmaceuticals through the "Blue Prescription" program. Prior to his current position, he was Manager of Strategic Planning in the glaucoma therapy area at Pharmacia & Upjohn in Uppsala, Sweden. His primary responsibilities were to develop and implement a strategy for health economics and a global pricing strategy for a new product.
Andy Oxman is Director of the Health Services Research Unit at the National Institute of Public Health, Oslo, Norway. He completed his medical training at Michigan State University in 1979. From 1984 to 1994 he was at McMaster University in Canada in the Departments of Family Medicine and Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics. He has worked extensively in the Cochrane Collaboration since 1993. He has worked with policymakers as a researcher but does not have any experience as a policymaker.
United Kingdom
Andrew Dillon is the first Chief Executive of the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE), a position he assumed in July 1999. Before moving to his current post he was Chief Executive of St. George's Healthcare, an undergraduate teaching hospital in London. He has held various operational management posts in the National Health Service (NHS), including positions at the Royal London and Royal Free Hospitals. Dillon graduated in 1975 from Manchester University, UK, with a B.S. in geography.
Trevor Gibbs is Director of International Medical Operations at Glaxo Wellcome, with responsibility for worldwide clinical pharmacology, medical data sciences, pharmacovigilance, and health outcomes. He is a board member of the Edward Jenner Institute for Vaccine Research and a member of the NICE Appraisals Committee. In 1995 he was named Glaxo Wellcome's Worldwide Director of International Medical Affairs. Gibbs joined the Wellcome Foundation Ltd. in 1981 as a senior physician in pulmonary medicine/anesthetics and was appointed Director of International Clinical Research in 1992. He qualified in medicine at King's College School of Medicine, London, in 1975.
Tim Riley is Chief Executive Officer of Trafford North Primary Care NHS Trust (Manchester). Previously, as Head of Policy for Public Health and Service Strategy at the Department of Health, he led the team that established NICE in April 1999. He joined the DoH in 1991 to help create the NHS Research and Development program (including Health Technology Assessment). Prior to this he headed the Medical Research Council's HIV/AIDS Clinical Trials and Epidemiology program in the UK and Africa. He received his doctorate in molecular biology in 1987 from King's College, Cambridge University, and the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology.
Trevor Sheldon is Professor of Health Studies and head of that department at the University of York, UK, where he established the NHS Centre for Reviews and Dissemination. Trained in medicine, economics, and medical statistics, he was part of the team that developed the new formula for allocating resources to England's health authorities and has been active in promoting the use of research evidence in health care decision making, including editing the Effective Health Carebulletin and producing national guidance on the commissioning of cancer services. He is Vice Chair of the Commissioning Board of the Service Delivery and Organisation R&D Programme.
South Africa
Patrice Matchaba is Director of Novartis South Africa, a pharmaceutical company. In 1998 he joined the South African Cochrane Centre (SACC) at the Medical Research Council (MRC) of South Africa, preparing systematic reviews of the effects of health care interventions. From 1992 to 1998 he lived in Durban, where he qualified as an obstetrician and gynecologist and witnessed the beginnings of the epidemic that has since ravaged the province of KwaZulu-Natal. Prior to that he spent three years in Botswana as a mine doctor managing AIDS cases. He earned his medical degree in Zimbabwe in 1986.
Merrick Zwarenstein, a physician epidemiologist, is Director of the Health Systems Research Unit at the MRC. His work includes qualitative studies that lead to the development of complex health care interventions, such as the design of outreach programs for clinicians on the care of children with asthma, and quantitative studies, which are often randomized trials of these same interventions. His policy experience includes participation in the advisory committee to the first post-apartheid health minister, Nkosazana Zuma, on the financing and structure of the health care system, and in committees on health management at local and provincial levels.
Jimmy Volmink is, since May 2001, Director of Research and Analysis at the Global Health Council in Washington, D.C. Before that, as Director of the SACC, he promoted the preparation and dissemination of systematic reviews of the effects of health care interventions, the primary focus being on high-priority health problems in Africa, such as tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS. He was a member of the Clinical Trials Committee of the Medicine Control Council and served on President Mbeki's AIDS Advisory Panel; he has also been an adviser to the World Health Organization on tuberculosis. He is a physician with a master's degree in public health and a Ph.D. in epidemiology.