Speaker

Ricardo Bitrán, PhD
Senior Health Economist, President
Bitrán y Asociados

Ricardo A. Bitran, PhD Mr. Bitran is a senior health economist from Chile with over 35 years of experience as a policy advisor, researcher, and professor in Chile, the US, and over 40 developing countries. 

He holds an M.S. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Chile and an MBA in Finance and a Ph.D. in Health Economics from Boston University. He specializes in the development and evaluation of health sector financing reforms. Over the past 20 years Mr. Bitran has participated in various projects around the world involving priority setting in health. He is founding partner of Bitran y Asociados (B&A), an international consulting firm based in Santiago, specializing in health policy. Through B&A he has advised the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the World Health Organization, the Global Fund, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and other development agencies. 

Previously he was Senior Scientist at Abt Associates Inc. in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he worked for 10 years. He was Research Director of the USAID-financed Health Financing and Sustainability Project. He has taught health economics at the University of Chile’s Master in Public Policy Program and has been a member of the core faculty of the World Bank’s Flagship Program in Health System Strengthening since its inception. He is author of academic articles, book chapters, and research papers.