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Paul has a wide-ranging, multidisciplinary background and a research career that spans more than 30 years during which he has majored in the development and application of health status measures for use in clinical and economic evaluation. Paul combines academic research with consultancy in the field of health-related quality of life measurement. He has provided expert advice to government, international agencies and the pharmaceutical industry throughout the world. Until this year, he was Professor of Health Economics in the Centre for Health Economics at the University of York, York, UK, and Principal Investigator in the Outcomes Research Group, but has taken early retirement to concentrate on his consultancy, Quality Outcomes, and its specialist services for the pharmaceutical industry. He has held a number of academic positions across Europe and North America, including at the University of Uppsala, Sweden, McGill University, Montreal, Canada, and the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin, USA. He has been a faculty member of the Netherlands Institute for Health Sciences and an Honorary Fellow of the National Centre for Quality of Life Research, St. Petersburg. He has been an elected Board member of ISOQOL and played an active part in the formation of the ISPOR Quality of Life Special Interest Group, receiving a Distinguished Service Award in 2001. He was ISPOR’s representative on the FDA “Harmonisation” Project that established the PRO. Paul is a regular contributor to ISPOR meetings in Europe and the US, having first presented at APOR, Philadelphia in 1997. He has participated in regional ISPOR meetings in Russia, South America, and China. Paul is a Founder Member and past-President of the EuroQoL Group and was centrally involved in the development of EQ-5D.; he currently Chairs the EuroQoL Group’s Scientific Executive Committee. He serves on the editorial advisory boards of several academic journals including Value in Health and PharmacoEconomics.
ISPOR is now the leading organisation in the field of outcomes measurement, representing a natural locus between health care decision-makers, policy analysts and research scientists from both the public and private sectors. For those of us who recall the pre-ISPOR days, there has been a considerable shift in its structures, processes and outcomes. APOR (the original name of our Society) naturally attracted a largely US membership with pharmacy or industry background. As the rebranded International Society, ISPOR sought to widen its geographical catchment area to embrace a worldwide audience - an objective that has been emphatically achieved. The ISPOR Annual European Congress now competes in scale with the ISPOR Annual International Meeting held in North America; regional meetings provide access to a global membership. By widening the scope of the research, applications and methods that are recognised through its programme of meetings, ISPOR has moved away from its original pharmaceutical base. Diagnostics, devices and other technologies now form a legitimate part of the ISPOR mainstream. This is not a rejection of the past - merely a reflection of a future in which research methods and their implementation have grown beyond the boundaries of pharmacoeconomics.
For ISPOR to maintain its lead role it must continue to foster the practice of high quality science and the communication of that product to patients, providers and other relevant stakeholders – including national governments. It is not enough to undertake technically competent work – having a leadership role means interpreting that knowledge for a wider, non-technical audience. That ethos extends to the creation of an internationally recognised curriculum that ensures new entrants to the field are properly qualified to meet the standards we have set. I would make the achievement of these goals my personal priority and would be honoured to serve on the Board if so elected by the Society’s membership.
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