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Richard Willke is currently Senior Director, Cluster Lead for Urology, Respiratory, GI & Hepatology Products, Global Outcomes Research, at Pfizer, based in Bridgewater, New Jersey and New York City. He first joined one of Pfizer’s legacy companies, Upjohn, in 1991, and became Senior Director and global lead for Pharmacia & Upjohn’s development-based outcomes research group in 1998.
Prior to joining Upjohn, Dr. Willke was assistant professor of economics at Ohio State University, and was also an economist and department director in the Center for Health Policy Research of the American Medical Association, where he worked on physician practice and payment-related issues. He received a Ph.D. in economics from Johns Hopkins University in 1982, concentrating in econometrics and labor economics. He has published over 50 refereed articles and book chapters as well as several monographs.
Dr. Willke has been a member of the PhRMA Health Outcomes Committee since 1998, having served as Vice-chair (2000-02) and Chair (2002-04), and is an active member of the Health Economics Action Group (HEAG). He was co-chair of the ISPOR Good Research Practices Task Force on Cost-Effectiveness Analysis in Randomized Clinical Trials (2003-05). He has been a member of the Patient Reported Outcomes Harmonization Task Force (2000-2002), the National Cancer Institute Pharmacoeconomics Panel (1996), the Leonard Davis Institute Task Force on Principles for Economic Analysis of Health Care Technology (1993-94), and the Canadian Collaborative Workshop on Pharmacoeconomics (1993). He has co-taught ISPOR Short Courses on “Cost-Effectiveness Alongside Randomized Clinical Trials,” and “Transferability of Cost-Effectiveness Data between Countries,” and has organized or participated in a number of ISPOR Issues Panels in recent years. In addition to these topics, his recent areas of research have included use of PRO data in labeling claims, effects of cardiovascular therapies in both trial and real-world settings, and costs of vision loss to Medicare.
In its relatively short history, ISPOR has blossomed and matured rapidly, in part due to excellent leadership, an engaged membership, and a strong central organization, and in part due to the inherent importance of what we do. For the same reasons, ISPOR has been able to initiate and achieve notable success with a number of activities, such as its student chapters, regional outreach and meetings, good research practices task forces, publications, short courses and other educational initiatives … the list is long. Any vision statement must begin by recognizing the continuing value of these activities.
Fostering good science is and always must be at the heart of ISPOR’s mission. Our field has made great strides in the science in recent years but the frontiers are still formidable. The complexity of human health behaviors, our health care system, and thus the issues that we face, demand that outcomes research be able to provide answers which are credible and reliable in the face of that complexity. We have yet to find – or at least agree on – methods that consistently address real-world complications such as poor patient adherence, cross-system differences, or patient heterogeneity, just to name a few. Addressing such complications while making the results relevant and communicable to a variety of stakeholders and decision-makers compounds the challenge, but must be our goal.
ISPOR is an uncommon society in that it has successfully nurtured collaboration both across disciplines and across academic, government, and commercial sectors. This collaboration has helped stimulate creativity and ensure relevance in our work. However, strengthening alliances with our core disciplines, at both junior and senior levels, is key to making significant progress on the scientific frontiers we face. With both broad and deep expertise, ISPOR can make major contributions to the health policy questions we must solve.
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