After 10 years as CEO of The Swedish Institute for Health Economics, Ulf Persson will take on a new role as Senior Advisor when he now turns 65.
Peter Lindgren, IHE
The board of directors has decided to appoint Peter Lindgren as new Managing Director of IHE. Peter, who also serves as Adjunct Professor of health economics at Karolinska Institutet, has been a Research Director at IHE for the last three years. He has long prior experience of both academia and consultancy work within the life sciences sector, among other things serving as the CEO of European Health Economics, VP of Swedish and German health economic and outcomes research at OptumInsight and as CSO of IVBAR.
Founder and president of the board Bengt Jönsson, Professor Emeritus at the Stockholm School of Economics: “With the appointment of Peter as Managing Director we continue the tradition of a academically highly qualified health economist as the leader of IHE. Health economics research is more needed than ever in the support of the development of health care, but the question as well as the methods, and data needed to answer them is shifting. With Peter as Managing Director, IHE is well equipped to contribute to Swedish health economic research having a strong international position.”
Anders Lönnberg, board member and Life Science Coordinator for the Swedish Government adds that: “Sweden can become a leader not only in medical research but also in the methods necessary to evaluate policy and new technologies.” Richard Bergström, also a board member, comments based on his background within the pharmaceutical industry: “IHE can play an important role in introducing new science and technology into an environment that is not ready for major breakthroughs. Among other things, we need models to follow and pay for outcomes.“
Peter Lindgren says this to say about the future role of health economics:
“Within health care, health economics has traditionally existed within the HTA-paradigm with economic evaluation of new technologies as the main application. The development we see today, both in medicine and digitalization (think about concepts such as virtual primary care centers for instance) necessitates the answers to new questions that don’t really fit within traditional HTA: How do we value curative treatments, and how can health care pay for these therapies that come at a high initial cost but saves money in the long run? Personalized medicine and new approaches to regulatory approval will lead to a much smaller evidence base to inform our decisions, making follow-up in actual practice necessary. New ways of organizing care will come into play. We will see an increased focus on patient outcomes. All these trends, as well as several others, contain health economic questions that need to be answered.“
If you have any questions, please contact president of the board Bengt Jönsson,
bengt.jonsson@hhs.se