UIC Launches Fellowship with Pfizer
The inaugural fellowship represents UIC's third such program in health economics and outcomes research.
On the day UIC College of Pharmacy student Kent Hanson learned he had landed the college’s inaugural health economics and outcomes research (HEOR) fellowship with Pfizer, he couldn’t contain his excitement. In the lobby of the College of Pharmacy building on Wood Street that December day, Hanson wildly pumped his fists in celebration of the news delivered by Dr. Simon Pickard, a professor in the college’s Department of Pharmacy Systems, Outcomes, and Policy (PSOP).
“Look on the lobby camera and that’s what you’ll see,” says an unembarrassed Hanson, who earned his PharmD degree in 2020. “This will enable me to grow in an area I’m passionate about and one I believe informs patient care.”
EXPANDING INDUSTRY RELATIONSHIPS
Pfizer is now the third company—and the first outside of the Chicago area—to invest in a HEOR postdoctoral fellowship with UIC and its prominent Center for Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomic Research (CPR).
“Our HEOR team was looking for motivated individuals with strong technical training, and I was really impressed with the talent pool that UIC was able to attract,” says Debanjali Mitra, senior director of HEOR-Breast Cancer at New York–based Pfizer. “Industry experience at Pfizer combined with a strong curriculum and mentorship during the PhD program should provide Kent with a solid start to his career in HEOR.”
As with existing HEOR fellowships at AbbVie and Takeda, Hanson and future Pfizer fellows will spend the opening year of their two-year fellowship at UIC working with CPR faculty while taking courses in biostatistics, research design, pharmacoeconomics, and grant writing. In year two, fellows will venture to a Pfizer corporate site in New York to tackle real-world projects alongside professional colleagues and broaden their skill sets in outcomes research methodologies, study designs, and problem-solving approaches.
Along the way, fellows will deepen their ties to the pharmacy profession by pursuing publication in peer-reviewed venues, attending professional and scientific conferences, and teaching PharmD students in the classroom setting.
“Market access, demonstrating value, and patient- centered outcomes—these are all increasingly important to decision makers in healthcare,” says Pickard, the CPR’s assistant director. “With industry partners like Pfizer willing to invest alongside the resources and faculty talent we have at CPR to support these fellowship programs, we’re positioning our HEOR fellows to become leaders in this high-growth area.”
Dr. Ernest Law, PhD ’18, an HEOR researcher with Pfizer since 2018, helped spark the connections between UIC and Pfizer that ultimately ignited the fellowship.
“When we considered setting up an HEOR fellowship, we realized very few institutions in the country could offer the breadth and depth of research training we wanted our fellow to obtain. UIC offers formal and experiential training in so many research methods and design,” Law says. “UIC’s reputation, coupled with my trust in the PSOP faculty, made it an easy choice.”
A DISTINCTIVE LEARNING OPPORTUNITY
UIC’s HEOR fellowships are particularly unique in that the programs allow fellows to pursue their PhD in conjunction with their fellowship, benefiting from mentorship and peer support. While pharmacists could once enter the HEOR and market access ranks with a master’s degree, Pickard says the PhD is increasingly becoming the benchmark, which heightens the appeal of UIC’s program for those eager to develop the specialized skills necessary to generate and disseminate information about how well innovative pharmaceuticals work and their value.
“The PhD is not for the faint of heart. It takes persistence and grit, but for the students willing to invest in themselves, it pays off in the long run,” Pickard says.
That’s certainly the hope of Hanson, who is excited by the potential professional opportunities the Pfizer fellowship and his PhD work might someday unlock for him in industry, academia, or consulting.
“I believe this sets me on a great path with many possibilities,” Hanson beams.
Throughout his PharmD studies, Hanson’s interest in outcomes research consistently accelerated, spurred by research opportunities with PSOP faculty members Todd Lee and Dan Touchette as well as conversations with current HEOR fellows, PhD students, and UIC faculty members.
“The more I got exposed to outcomes research, the more I knew it was the field I wanted to pursue,” says Hanson, a central Illinois native. “To me, outcomes research opens the door to do so much important work.”
He’s now excited to spend the next year expanding his outcomes research toolkit before joining Pfizer, one of the nation’s most robust pharmaceutical enterprises.
“I’m ready to be a sponge and learn everything I can,” Hanson says. “I learned so much from my time with PSOP, but there’s so much more I still don’t know. I’m ready to hit the ground running and do some meaningful work.