ISPOR Award for Excellence in Methodology in Pharmacoeconomics and Health Outcomes Research Recipient

Bernie O'Brien, BA, MSc, PhD

O’Brien BJ, Gasten K, Willlan AR, Falukner LA. Is there a link in consumers’ threshold value for cost-effectiveness in health care? Health Econ 2002;11:174-80.

A health economist by profession, Bernie O’Brien received his Bachelors and Masters degrees in Economics from the University of York (UK) and his PhD (Economics) from Brunel University in London (UK) before moving to Canada in 1990. He is currently a Professor in the Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at McMaster University, Co-Director of the Centre for Evaluation of Medicines at St. Joseph’s Hospital and an Associate of the Centre for Health Economics and Policy Analysis at McMaster. In 2001-2002 he was a Visiting Professor at the University of Sydney, Australia.

His main research interests are (1) methods of economic evaluation as applied to new therapeutic interventions, particularly in the context of clinical trials; (2) decision analysis and allied mathematical modeling; (3) cost-benefit analysis and monetary valuation techniques; and (4) pharmaceutical policy analysis. Peer-reviewed career funding awards include a PMAC/Medical Research Council of Canada Investigator Award in Health Sciences (1995-2000) and a Senior Investigator Award from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (2002-2007). Other awards for his research include the 1995 Society for Medical Decision Making prize for ‘Outstanding Paper by a Young Investigator’; the 1997 Piafsky Young Investigator Award from the Canadian Society for Clinical Pharmacology and the Wilfred Bigelow Traveling Fellowship (2002) from the North American Society for Pacing and Electrophysiology (NASPE).

He has held research grants from a number of government and industry sponsors including the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR) and the Canadian Coordinating Office for Health Technology Assessment (CCOHTA). Publications include the widely cited textbook on economic evaluation with Drummond, Stoddart and Torrance and over 100 peer-reviewed journal papers. He is currently on the editorial boards of Health Economics, Pharmacoeconomics, Clinical Therapeutics, and is an Associate Editor of Medical Decision Making. In 2001 he was appointed to the National Blood Safety Council.