PHOP Alumni Among ISPOR Top Presenters

Pharmaceutical Health Outcomes and Policy Ph.D. Graduates Earn Top Research Poster Awards at International Meeting

Two UHCOP Pharmaceutical Health Outcomes and Policy alumni – Benjamin Lewing, Ph.D. , M.A. ('21), and Mo Yang, Ph.D. ('13), M.S. ('10) – were honored with research presentation awards at the 2022 ISPOR meeting May 15-18 in Washington, D.C., for their respective projects on Type 2 diabetes cost trends among adherent vs. nonadherent patients and cost-effectiveness of a recently approved anticancer drug.

The first graduate of a dual degree program in Ph.D. in pharmaceutical health outcomes and policy (PHOP) at UHCOP and an M.A. in applied economics at UH College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences, Lewing was one of three recipients of the Best Student Research Poster Presentation. The presentation by Lewing used data from his doctoral dissertation study.

His presentation, "Comparing Change in Medical Expenditure for Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus Patients with High Versus Low Adherence to Treatment Guidelines: A Retrospective Longitudinal Propensity Score-Matched Analysis," detailed the 12-month change in costs associated with Type 2 diabetes patients based on their adherence to treatment guidelines – such as lifestyle management, immunization, pharmacologic therapy, physical examination, and laboratory evaluation – put forth by the American Diabetes Association. Lewing's research found that low adherence patients had an average increase in all-cause medical expenditure in excess of $4,000 in comparison to high adherence patients.

The project coauthors were PHOP Ph.D. candidate Marjan Zakeri, M.D.; University of Maryland Ph.D. student Jennifer Contreras, MPH; and PHOP faculty member Sujit Sansgiry, Ph.D.

Lewing serves as a senior manager of health economics and outcomes research (HEOR) at the Bowie, Md.-based healthcare technology company, Inovalon.

Yang was one of three honorees for the Best General Research Poster Presentation for her project, "Tepotinib for the Treatment of Adult Patients with Metastatic Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Harboring METEX14 Skipping Alterations: A U.S. Cost-Effectiveness Analysis." Yang serves as a director at Rockland, Md.-based EMD Serono Inc., which received accelerated approval for tepotnib (Tepmetko) from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in February 2021 in the treatment of adult patients diagnosed with the aggressive type of lung cancer caused by a specific oncogene mutation (METEX14 skipping alterations) and associated with poor prognosis.