Corporate and Foundation Relations-pharmacoepidemiology

CORPORATE SUPPORT HELPS INTERNATIONAL PHARMACOEPIDEMIOLOGISTS


	Pharmacoepidemiology graduate Sibel Ascioglu. *Photo by Kent Dayton/HSPH.*

After Sibel Ascioglu graduates from the Harvard School of Public Health, she will return home to Turkey as a pioneer in her field. She will be, as far as anyone can tell, her country’s first drug safety specialist trained in the emerging field of pharmacoepidemiology.

Working in government regulatory agencies, academic research units, pharmaceutical companies, and contract research organizations, pharmacoepidemiologists use the methods of epidemiology – the study of the causes, distribution, and control of diseases in different groups of people – to analyze the safety and effectiveness of pharmaceuticals that have been released for public use. Their work complements the testing drugs that receive prior to their market release because it can identify effects that become more apparent when drugs move from clinical trials into a wider population.

The field is so new that Ascioglu found herself educating her employers about it during her recent internship working on drug safety at Biogen Idec, a biotech company that focuses on treatments for cancer and inflammatory diseases. She sees a huge need in the pharmaceutical industry for someone with an epidemiologist’s skill for quantitative analysis.

The Ministry of Health in Turkey seems to agree. When the office recently drafted regulations for drug safety studies funded by industry, Ascioglu submitted a 10-page letter with her recommendations. Ministry officials were responsive to her suggestions, and she may now be asked to sit on an official review committee.

The department has been able to fund the tuition of virtually all of its students due to the financial support it receives from industry.

Training Future Leaders
The Harvard School of Public Health has been training future leaders in pharmacoepidemiology since 1986, when it opened the world’s most comprehensive academic training program in the field.

The highly selective doctoral program offers limited enrollment. This ensures that students receive close attention and mentoring, said the program’s former director, K. Arnold Chan, himself a pharmacoepidemiology graduate. Dr. Sonia Hernández-Diaz has recently joined the program as a full-time faculty and has become the program director.

The department has been able to fund the tuition of virtually all of its students for most of its history, and can sometimes provide a small stipend, Chan said. This has been due to the financial support the department receives from industry.

Pfizer and Novartis provide the department with unrestricted funding that is primarily used for student support, and Eli Lilly funds student stipends. Merck also funds scholarships for two students in any of the Epidemiology concentrations each year.

Funding International Students
Ascioglu is a beneficiary of the department’s corporate support. While she was earning her master’s degree in infectious disease epidemiology at HSPH, the 37-year-old medical doctor developed an interest in pharmacoepidemiology. She wanted to stay to pursue a doctorate in the subject, but her Turkish scholarship only covered her master’s studies.

Thanks to the corporate support the Epidemiology department receives, it was able to make her a financial aid offer that allowed her to complete her education. She hopes to combine clinical work, teaching and research in pharmacoepidemiology when she returns to Turkey later this year.

Corporate support is crucial for aspiring pharmacoepidemiologists, who have limited opportunities to access federal scientific training dollars, Chan said. This is because pharmacoepidemiology falls into a gray area between the mandates of the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, he said.

The NIH, the federal focal point for medical research in the United States, is divided into 27 separate institutes and centers each focused on an area such as cancer, mental illness, or occupational health. None focuses solely on drugs or drug safety; any pharmaceutical research they conduct is tied to specific diseases. While the FDA focuses on drug safety, it is a regulatory agency, not a research institution. It has virtually no funds available for research and training programs.

International students are especially in need of financial assistance as they are ineligible for all federal training grants. Investment in these students has been crucial in advancing the field worldwide.

Like Ascioglu, many of HSPH’s international pharmacoepidemiology graduates go home to become their county’s leading voice in drug safety, Chan said – himself included. Following his graduation from the program in 1992, Chan worked at a drug company for a year and then became a full time faculty at the newly established National Taiwan University College of Public Health. He became known for his work in drug safety, and served as a high-level consultant to Taiwan’s department of health. He also has consulted for the Asian branches of multi-national pharmaceutical companies.

In 1998, Chan returned to teach at HSPH, and has been a close advisor and mentor to students like Ascioglu. It’s a job he clearly enjoys.

“That’s why I’m here, to work with dedicated students and train more pharmacoepidemiologists,” he said.