Academic and Administrative Leadership
Dr. Mark Pauly
Faculty Co-Director
Bendheim Professor, Professor of Health Care Systems, of Insurance and Risk Management, and of Business and Public Policy, The Wharton School
Mark V. Pauly currently holds the position of Bendheim Professor in the Department of Health Care Systems at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is Professor of Health Care Systems, Insurance and Risk Management, and Business and Public Policy at the Wharton School and Professor of Economics in the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania. He received the Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Virginia. Dr. Pauly is a former commissioner on the Physician Payment Review Commission and an active member of the Institute of Medicine. One of the nation’s leading health economists, Dr. Pauly has made significant contributions to the fields of medical economics and health insurance. His classic study on the economics of moral hazard was the first to point out how health insurance coverage may affect patients’ use of medical services. Subsequent work, both theoretical and empirical, has explored the impact of conventional insurance coverage on preventive care, on outpatient care, and on prescription drug use in managed care. In addition, he has explored the influences that determine whether insurance coverage is available and, through several cost effectiveness studies, the influence of medical care and health practices on health outcomes and cost. His interests in health policy deal with ways to reduce the number of uninsured through tax credits for public and private insurance, and appropriate design for Medicare in a budget-constrained environment. He is currently studying the effect of poor health on worker productivity. Dr. Pauly is a co-editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Health Care Finance and Economics and an associate editor of the Journal of Risk and Uncertainty. He has served on Institute of Medicine panels on public accountability for health insurers under Medicare and on improving the financing of vaccines. Dr. Pauly is a former member of the advisory committee to the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality, and most recently a member of the Medicare Technical Advisory Panel.
In the area of life sciences, his research has involved methods for determining the cost-effectiveness of a range of drugs and devices, the impacts of regulation and insurer payment policy on the markets for new drugs, in the United States and in other countries, and the determinants of the financing of research and development of biological products. He is a licensee of a technology through Penn’s Office of Technology Transfer, and the developer of new ways to measure the value to employers of improved worker health. He supervises a Wharton course in which teams of MBA students consult with drug firms and others on business plans for new products, marketing strategies, and reimbursement negotiations with private insurers, Medicare, and Medicaid. He has studied how physicians choose which drugs to prescribe, what determines the rate of adoption and diffusion of new technologies, and how profit seeking firms should plan their level of investment in research and development. His research also involves improving the access to effective drugs in developing countries in Africa and Asia, the impact of AIDS on small businesses and their workers in South Africa, and the prospects for developing pharmaceutical startups in Taiwan, Singapore, and Korea.
A key question addressed by his research is how much a country should invest in science whose goal is to develop products that improve health but are likely to be sold at a high price, especially if protected by patents. How insurers (public and private) are expected to pay for new products, and what regulations (through the FDA and Medicare) affect what profit seeking firms will find it worthwhile to do is an important area of interest. He is also concerned with the problem of management of and incentives in teams of knowledge workers whose product is new ideas and new uses for existing projects.
Professor Pauly teaches courses in cost effectiveness analysis, health policy and regulation, and health economics. His papers have won Article of the Year awards from the Academy for Health Services Research and the American Risk and Insurance Association. In addition, he has been the recipient of a "Distinguished Investigator" award from AcademyHealth and the John M. Eisenberg Excellence in Mentoring award from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. He also was the co-recipient (with M. Kate Bundorf of Stanford University) of the National Institute of Health Care Management Foundation's 13th annual research award. The NICHM Foundation award recognizes their paper, "Is Health Insurance Affordable for the Uninsured?" (Journal of Health Economics, July 2006), as the best research paper published in 2006.
Dr. Philip A. Rea
Faculty Co-Director
Professor of Biology, School of Arts and Sciences, Rebecka and Arie Belldegrun Distinguished Professor
Dr. Philip A. Rea is a member of the Biology Department’s Plant Science Institute in the School of Arts and Sciences. Rea did his D.Phil. in Plant Biochemistry at the University of Oxford, UK and his post-doctoral research at Oxford, McGill and York. Shortly before moving to the USA to take up a faculty position at Penn, he was a Group Leader at the Institute for Arable Crops Research, Rothamsted, UK. Rea has published more than 100 papers, and was awarded the President's Medal of the Society for Experimental Biology for his fundamental research on transport across plant membranes. He is a National Academies Education Fellow in the Life Sciences whose teaching has been recognized by the Ira H. Abrams Memorial Award for Distinguished Teaching, the College’s highest teaching honor, and twice by the Biology Department Award for Excellence in Teaching.
His approach to primary research is that of a 'basic biologist' - he and his group search for general principles, not just principles applicable to plants. Most of his group's studies entail parallel molecular and biochemical manipulations of several model systems and have included the plant Arabidopsis thaliana, the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae and the worm Caenorhabditis elegans. It is through the application of this approach that Rea and his group make major contributions toward understanding a remarkably broad range of transport and related phenomena with special emphasis on alternate energy sources and cellular detoxification processes. His research record is outstanding, especially when considering he pioneered and remained at the forefront of three major areas of investigation. These three areas are vacuolar proton pumps, plant and yeast ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters and the enzymological basis of heavy metal detoxification by phytochelatins. The extent to which Rea’s basic research has seamlessly led to more applied fields remains striking. Indeed, his studies of one vacuolar proton pump are proving to be of clinical significance; studies of ABC transporters and heavy metal detoxification gave rise to several patents and two of the platform technologies for a number of biotechnological initiatives.
Rea's secondary research at the interface of life sciences and their implementation focuses on case studies that highlight the difficult transition from discovery in the laboratory to success in the market and/or toward the expansion of humanitarian efforts. Examples of such case studies are “Statins: From Fungus to Pharma” and “Ivermectin: An End to Blindly Following the Next Generation”, two feature articles aimed primarily at the educated lay reader.
'Basic understanding' is Rea's watchword for teaching both introductory courses, exemplified by Molecular Biology of Life (BIOL 121) and Proseminar in Management and the Life Sciences (LSMP 121), and advanced courses, as exemplified by Biochemistry (BIOL 402). He gained a reputation as a dynamic and compelling lecturer, involving students in problem solving and the struggle to extract meaningful information from the inevitably incomplete data sets with which researchers must contend. Students experience the frequent yet generative anxiety, and less frequent exhilaration, of drawing tentative, testable conclusions. One student comments of Dr. Rea: “I cannot think of any professor at Penn who more convinced his students that they were not just students, but scientists.” Rea is a frequent participant in biology teaching workshops, including the National Academies Summer Institute on Undergraduate Education in Biology.
At the outset of Rea’s undergraduate career, the realization that the people who were teaching him were real scientists who had, themselves, directly contributed to their subject most inspired his connection to university life. This discovery, hand in hand with recognition that even his teachers, though active in the field, could not answer many of the basic questions and were prepared to admit to this, filled him with admiration for their humility and impelled him to learn more so that he might have the opportunity to tackle some of these questions himself. Rea would like to think that a few of the students with whom he comes into contact are similarly affected by his efforts and those of his colleagues.
Dr. Andy Coopersmith
Director of Administration & Advising
Andy Coopersmith's background is in economics and history. He received his B.A. from Georgetown University and Ph.D. from Harvard University, where his research studies focused on the U.S. Civil War. In addition to authoring several historical publications, including a book, he has served as an academic advisor and career counselor to undergraduates at the University of Pennsylvania since 1999. He has specialist expertise in working with students interested pursuing careers in the science and health professions.
Dr. Christopher Damm
Associate Director
Dr. Christopher Damm brings to the Capstone Project substantial experience in medicine, marketing, and finance. His skill in these areas, as well as his love of teaching, will enable groups of 4-5 students to define and value commercial opportunities in the life sciences. Dr. Damm studied physics and bioengineering at Harvard College and Harvard University, and received his medical degree from The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University. He culminated his medical training in the Cardiovascular Division of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, and for a decade taught clinical cardiology to fellows and residents as Assistant Adjunct Professor of Medicine. Dr. Damm also holds a Master of Business Administration from The Wharton School, where he majored in finance. He has returned to Wharton to teach seminars in venture initiation as part of Management 806.
Dr. Damm’s marketing experience has encompassed more than 20 brands in markets of varying size and complexity. Independently and in concert with CommonHealth and The Hal Lewis Group, two healthcare communications firms, he gained clients at the American Heart Association, Astra-Zeneca, Bessemer Venture Partners, BMS, DuPont, Fort Mason Capital, Leeds Weld & Co., Parke-Davis, Proctor & Gamble, and Safeguard Scientifics. His work included market analysis, brand positioning, creative direction, and marketing strategy and tactics. For financial clients, he provided detailed market and product valuations.
For the 3 years immediately prior to joining the LSM program, Dr. Damm worked as a Venture Partner of BioAdvance, a seed-stage investor in emerging life science firms. His work at BioAdvance included the evaluation and funding of new investments, governance and operations of portfolio companies, and financial analysis of all transactions. He also was actively involved in the strategic planning and operations of BioAdvance itself. For the Capstone Project, Dr. Damm provides a unique interdisciplinary perspective that will be pivotal in allowing undergraduates to understand and master the challenging and complex process of commercialization.