Speaker Biographies
Ernst R. Berndt is the Louis B. Seley Professor of Applied Economics at the MIT Sloan School of Management and holds a joint appointment as an adjunct professor of health policy and management at the Harvard Medical School. He also serves as the director of the National Bureau of Economic Research Program on Technological Progress and Productivity Measurement. Mr. Berndt currently is the chairperson of the Federal Economic Statistics Advisory Committee, an interagency committee created jointly by the U.S. Census Bureau, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. He has focused much of his recent research on measuring changes over time in the cost of treating episodes of illnesses, taking into account changing medical outcomes. Related research examines the impact of medical interventions on employees' ability to function at work and their workplace productivity.
John E. Calfee is a resident scholar at AEI. From 1980 to 1986 he served in the Bureau of Economics at the Federal Trade Commission. Mr. Calfee taught marketing and consumer behavior in the business schools of the University of Maryland at College Park and Boston University, and he was a visiting senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. He is the author of Prices, Markets, and the Pharmaceutical Revolution (AEI Press, 2000) and Fear of Persuasion: A New Perspective on Advertising and Regulation (AEI Press, 1997).
H. E. Frech III is a professor of economics at the University of California at Santa Barbara, an adjunct scholar at AEI and an adjunct Professor at Sciences Po de Paris. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Chicago and at Harvard University. From 1970 to 1972 Mr. Frech was an economist with the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. He has published more than ninety articles and books on industrial organization, health economics and other topics. Mr. Frech is the North American editor for the International Journal of the Economics of Business, the series editor for the Health Economics and Public Policy books of Kluwer Academic Publishers, and a member of the editorial board of Regulation. He is also the author of Competition and Monopoly in Medical Care (AEI Press, 1996) and, with Richard D. Miller, Jr., The Productivity of Health Care and Pharmaceuticals: An International Comparison, (AEI Press, 1999).
Robert B. Helms is a resident scholar and the director of health policy studies at AEI. He has written and lectured extensively on health policy, health economics, and pharmaceutical economic issues. Mr. Helms currently participates in the Consensus Group, an informal task force that is developing market-oriented health reform concepts. From 1981 to 1989 he served as assistant secretary for planning and evaluation and deputy assistant secretary for health policy in the Department of Health and Human Services. Mr. Helms is the editor of several AEI publications on health policy: Medicare in the Twenty-first Century: Seeking Fair and Efficient Reform; American Health Policy: Critical Issues for Reform; Health Policy Reform: Competition and Controls; Health Care Policy and Politics: Lessons from Four Countries; and Competitive Strategies in the Pharmaceutical Industry.
Frank R. Lichtenberg is the Courtney C. Brown Professor of Business at the Columbia University Graduate School of Business and a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. He previously taught at Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania; has worked for the Department of Justice, the Congressional Budget Office, and the Census Bureau; and has been a visiting scholar at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin, the University of Munich, and elsewhere. Mr. Lichtenberg is the author of articles published in numerous scholarly journals and in the popular press and of Corporate Takeovers and Productivity (MIT Press). Some of his research has examined how the introduction of new technology arising from research and development affects the productivity of companies, industries, and nations. Recently he has performed studies of the impact of pharmaceutical innovation on mortality rates, the effect of computers on productivity in business and government organizations, and the consequences of takeovers and leveraged buyouts for efficiency and employment. Mr. Lichtenberg was awarded the 1998 Schumpeter Prize for his paper, Pharmaceutical Innovation as a Process of Creative Destruction.
Jack A. Meyer is the founder and president of the Economic and Social Research Institute and is also the founder and president of New Directions for Policy, a health care consulting firm. He has conducted policy analysis and directed research on frontline issues in health care reform and social policy for twenty years. Mr. Meyer is the author of numerous books, monographs, and articles on topics including health care, labor market and demographic trends, and policies to reduce poverty.
Graham Molineux joined Amgen in 1994 after nineteen years in cancer research at the Paterson Institute for Cancer Research at Christie Hospital. Since then, he has gained experience in all stages of product development and has been both a team member and a team leader for projects such as drug target validation, rational drug design for these targets, candidate drug selection, preclinical and clinical study design, and regulatory approval applications. Mr. Molineux has also advised on postlaunch clinical trial design and is an active member of the American Society for Hematology and the International Society for Experimental Hematology.
Karen Williams has been the president of the National Pharmaceutical Council since September 1996. She is responsible for setting the goals and direction of NPC’s research portfolio and educational programs. Ms. Williams works closely with public and private policymakers to educate them about NPC research objectives. Previously, Ms. Williams worked for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the Health Insurance Association of America, and the Health Care Financing Administration.
