The members of ISPOR (the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research) have elected Maarten J. IJzerman, Professor of Clinical Epidemiology and Health Technology Assessment at the University of Twente, to their Board of Directors. ISPOR promotes research into the effectiveness and efficiency of drugs and medical technology. In addition to issues of economic and clinical effectiveness, this research spotlights the impact on patients. Another of ISPOR’s goals is to tailor this research to the needs of health service policymakers. Prof. IJzerman points out that “ISPOR is a very powerful organization – and with power comes responsibility. It is vital for research into the effectiveness of care to be further developed, and for policymakers to be given additional training in how to harness the results of such research. As research methods become increasingly sophisticated, we must be unstinting in our efforts to dispel users’ confusion as they endeavour to interpret the results.”
About Professor IJzerman
Maarten IJzerman received his doctorate at the University of Twente in 1997. From 2000 to 2007, he was the Scientific Director at Roessingh Research and Development. He has held his professorial post at the University of Twente since 2005. From 2007 to 2012, he was Programme Director Health Sciences, and he is currently the department chair of Health Technology & Services Research. He is a member of several national advisory bodies, including the Health Council of the Netherlands. He conducts his research at the University of Twente’s MIRA research institute. This work has a pronounced international orientation, as shown by a recent initiative to launch an international research institute for personalized medicine at CRP-Santé in Luxembourg. Prof. IJzerman has over 130 publications to his name, in the field where biomedical technology and the effectiveness of new healthcare technology intersect. His interest in this area of research led him (together with a number of close colleagues) to set up Panaxea. The goal of this University of Twente spin-off is to help meet the growing demand for pioneering biomedical developments to be implemented in health care. Panaxea has a large number of contracts with major pharmaceutical concerns and medical technology companies.
ISPOR
ISPOR is an international scientific society with 13,000 members in over 100 countries. A non-profit organization, ISPOR was founded in 1995. Maarten IJzerman has been a very active member of ISPOR since 2004. He will serve on its Board of Directors until the end of 2015. For further details about ISPOR, click here.
