Ellen Janssen is a Research Director at CMTP who joined the organization in 2019. Ellen has experience in measuring preference and priorities of patients and other stakeholders across different health conditions. In her work, Ellen has worked closely with academic researchers, drug developers, patient and community groups, and regulatory experts. Ellen plans to contribute her experience in patient engagement, patient reported outcomes and patient preference studies to CMPT’s core outcomes set (COS) development program and other projects
Prior to joining CMTP, Ellen was Principal Scientist in Patient Centered Outcomes at ICON where she led the patient preference team. Prior to that Ellen was an Assistant Scientist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health where her work focused on patient preference studies and multi-stakeholder engagement. Ellen received a PhD in Health Economics and Policy specializing in stated-preference methods from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a Bachelor’s degree with distinction in Economics from the University of Virginia.
Annie Tran is a Senior Research Associate at CMTP. Under the umbrella of the Green Park Collaborative (GPC), Annie assists the research team with developing core outcomes sets using multi-stakeholder consensus methods. Annie is a staunch advocate for refocusing the health care dialogue on patient-centric care management and evidence-based practice. She is committed to improving the relevance of clinical research data to patients, providers, and policy-making entities through her work with the GPC.
Prior to joining CMTP, Annie conducted clinical research in a variety of women’s health indications, including uterine fibroids, endometriosis, postmenopausal hot flashes, and contraceptive devices. She received her Master of Public Health (MPH) in Women’s and Reproductive Health/Epidemiology from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a Bachelor of Arts in Cell and Molecular Biology from Occidental College.
Hsing-Yuan (Susan) Chang is a Research Associate at CMTP. Susan is currently working with Green Park Collaborative (GPC) research team, where she assists in the core outcome set development program with the goal of creating consistency in outcomes reported in clinical trials. Susan has always been passionate about bridging the gaps between clinical research, healthcare delivery, and patient needs. She will continue making efforts to improve the quality of healthcare research through projects at CMTP.
Prior to joining CMTP, Susan worked with the Maryland Department of Health on health disparities research in the overdose prevention program. She received her Master of Public Health (MPH) from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and her MD and from Chang Gung School of Medicine, Taiwan.
Susan Reed joined CMTP in 2018 as the Program Coordinator for the Green Park Collaborative, an initiative of the Center for Medical Technology Policy. Susan is active on our social media platforms. She shares “tweets” about our ongoing work alongside hot topics in the news enabling our stakeholders to keep up with our latest activities. She also provides support for many of our multi-stakeholder projects, including event coordination and project communications among other initiatives.
Prior to joining CMTP, Susan had a career in sales, marketing, and graphic design. She has an accomplished background from owning a marketing agency for ten years to working as a government contractor. Ms. Reed completed her Masters of Arts in Experimental Psychology at Washington College and her BS in Psychology at University of Maryland University College.
Marcus Wilson is President of HealthCore, Anthem’s wholly-owned outcomes research subsidiary. He has been extensively involved in efforts to utilize real-world data environments to accelerate healthcare evidence development and to facilitate clinical decision support for more than 20 years. Prior to co-founding HealthCore in 1996, Dr Wilson spent seven years within an integrated delivery system owned by BCBS of Delaware where he oversaw the physician and patient clinical decision support, pharmacy policy and clinical trials programs.
Dr. Wilson is active on a number of boards and national committees including serving as chair of the Innovations in Medical Evidence Development (IMEDS) Steering Committee, Reagan-Udall Foundation for the FDA; chair of the Joint Research Committee for the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy (AMCP) & the AMCP Foundation; member of the FDA Sentinel Initiative Planning Board; Board of Directors for the Center for Medical Technology Policy (CMTP); a member of the Dean’s Roundtable, College of Science, Virginia Tech; and member of the Planning Committee for the National Academy of Medicine’s upcoming Real-World Evidence Workshop Series that is being conducted for FDA in response to the 21st Century Cures legislation. Dr Wilson is a past member of numerous boards and committees including the Board of Directors for the International Society of Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) and the eHealth Initiative.
Dr. Wilson received his Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry from Virginia Tech and his Doctor of Pharmacy degree from the Medical College of Virginia. He completed a residency in Family Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina prior to joining the faculty at the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy (now the University of Sciences in Philadelphia).
Elizabeth Clearfield is a Research Manager at CMTP. Elizabeth was the project lead for GPC’s first two core outcome set development projects: coreHEM, for gene therapy for hemophilia, a genetic blood clotting disease; and coreNASH, for nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), a progressive form of fatty liver disease which can lead to serious complications including cirrhosis. As CMTP continues to expand its core outcome set program and build a network to become leaders in core outcome set development, Elizabeth will help in identifying and initiating new projects and providing methodological guidance. Elizabeth is also preparing for follow-up work on measurements and instruments to be used with the core sets, which will have a special focus on the identified novel outcomes associated with new technologies. Like in our core outcome set development, this work will also aim to highlight patient priorities and give special consideration to what is most important to them when measuring the core outcomes.
Elizabeth received a Master of Heath Science (MHS) in Epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Lafayette College. Prior to joining CMTP, she held positions as a methodologist working on systematic reviews with Cochrane Eyes and Vision and as an epidemiologist working with the Injury Prevention Program in the US Army Public Health Command.
Robert Conley, MD, JD, MPH, is a Senior Research Manager at CMTP. Rob plays a key role in the Green Park Collaborative (GPC), CMTP’s flagship initiative for multi-stakeholder consensus on clinical evidence standards. He is currently working with the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research on an initiative to advance secondary fracture prevention efforts through preparation of a strategic roadmap, multi-stakeholder consensus clinical recommendations, and a multi-year action plan. Other key projects have included a collaboration with the Molecular Evidence Development Consortium to develop diverse stakeholder consensus on a core set of data elements and values in oncology (Conley RB, Dickson D, Zenklusen JC, et al. Core clinical data elements for cancer genomic repositories: a multi-stakeholder consensus. Cell 2017;171:982–6) and consultation with a broad range of international experts and stakeholders to promote best practices for design and implementation of oncology drug studies in which high rates of treatment switching are expected. Rob has also led scientific guidance projects to generate specific clinical study design recommendations for device, diagnostic, and biologics companies to develop evidence demonstrating clinical or comparative effectiveness or clinical utility of their products. He plans to advance CMTP’s mission of improving the quality and relevance of clinical research by continuing his work in these areas and through a new role in CMTP’s core outcomes set development program.
Rob’s extensive background spans experience in bench and clinical research as well as cost-effectiveness Markov modeling. Prior to joining CMTP, Rob practiced law with Arnold & Porter in Washington, D.C., where he was a partner in the food and drug regulatory and product liability litigation practices. Prior to working in the legal practice, Rob was a Medical Ethics and Health Policy Fellow at the American Medical Association. Rob holds an MD from the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law, an MPH from the Bloomberg Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, and a BA in psychology and chemistry with highest honors from Dartmouth College.
Senior Vice President, Strategic Initiatives, National Health Council
Eleanor M. Perfetto, PhD, MS, is the Senior Vice President of Strategic Initiatives. She is also a professor of pharmaceutical health services research at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy in Baltimore, Maryland, and the assistant editor of the Journal of Managed Care and Specialty Pharmacy (JMCP). Perfetto has previously served in various public policy and research positions, including work as the Senior Director, Federal Government Relations for Pfizer Inc; Senior Director of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at The Weinberg Group; Director of Health Outcomes Assessment, Clinical Research and Development, for Wyeth-Ayerst Research; and Senior Pharmacoepidemiologist for the U.S. Public Health Service, Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, Center for Medical Effectiveness Research.
Ellen Tambor is a Research Director at CMTP. Since joining the organization in 2011, she has led or contributed to multiple projects with the consistent goal of effectively engaging patients, clinicians, and other stakeholders in the research process. Key projects during her time at CMTP have included designing and implementing a plan for patient and clinician engagement in the Chicago Area Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Network (CAPriCORN). She also led a PCORI-funded project aimed at improving the engagement of front-line clinicians in patient-centered outcomes research. Ellen will continue to focus her efforts on developing meaningful partnerships with patients and other stakeholders to improve the quality and relevance of clinical research through her role in CMTP’s core outcomes set (COS) development program and through other projects.
Before coming to CMTP, Ellen was a Research Associate in the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, Department of Health Policy and Management, where she conducted social science research in Genetics and Public Policy Studies. She holds an M.A. in Psychology from Wake Forest University.
Rachael Moloney is a Research Manager at CMTP. In her work she strives to improve the relevance and usefulness of comparative effectiveness research so that patients, doctors, and other stakeholders can make better, more informed health care decisions. Rachael was involved in several pragmatic clinical trial initiatives, including the NIH Health Care Systems Collaboratory Stakeholder Engagement Core, and an NHLBI funded coordinating center for low cost, patient-centered pragmatic trials. Leveraging insights she gained about patient and clinician support for the learning healthcare system. Rachael contributed to a PCORI funded effort to develop a framework for effective engagement of clinicians in comparative effectiveness and patient-centered outcomes research.
As part of CMTP’s Green Park Collaborative, Rachael led the development of the RWE Decoder, a framework and accompanying tool designed to help decision-makers to assess the relevance and rigor of real world evidence (RWE) studies. She also led CMTP’s first initiative to understand barriers to uptake and promote greater adoption of core outcome sets (COS) in clinical research. One extension of that work was an exploration of how COS developed for research might also help improve the relevance and patient-centeredness of outcomes-based quality measures in alternative payment models. Moving forward, Rachael is focused on the transparent and robust development COS for research, drawing from her understanding of the nuances of different stakeholder values and health care decision-making contexts to engage multiple stakeholders in ongoing dialogue and consensus building until a common understanding of important outcomes is reached.
Prior to CMTP, Rachael was a Research Professional in the Department of Medicine at University of Chicago. She received a Master of Health Science (MHS) in Epidemiology from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a Bachelor of Arts in Biological Sciences from University of Chicago.
Chris Kamphaus is the Director of Finance for CMTP. In addition to overseeing all accounting and financial reporting of the organization, Chris plays a vital role in providing strategic operational guidance to leadership in the areas of fundraising, banking, contracting, budgeting, vendor management, and staffing to ensure continued growth of the organization as we deploy resources for key initiatives.
Since joining CMTP in 2013, Chris has been instrumental in the overhaul of CMTP’s project management and financial management infrastructure, enabling improved transparency critical to assessing the feasibility of new work streams. Chris is also closely unified with Donna Messner, CMTP’s President, in the implementation of CMTP’s strategic plan.
Chris brings a strong financial background with previous held positions in Public Accounting and Private Equity firms. He holds an MSA in Accounting and BS in Economics from Rhodes College in Memphis.
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer, ClearCost Health
Dr. Mazonson has over 25 years of experience developing successful health care software and service companies. He has extensive experience in health care reimbursement and health economics. Prior to co-founding ClearCost Health, he served as Vice President of McKesson Corporation. Dr. Mazonson came to McKesson from Mosaic Health Care, a company he co-founded with Chris Santas that performed medical reimbursement consulting and developed reimbursement software for physicians. Other previous positions include President of Technology Assessment Group (an international outcomes research consulting firm), Senior Vice President of the Lewin Group, and Senior Vice President of R2 Technology (a software imaging company). Along with his work at ClearCost Health, Peter continues to practice part-time as a general internist in San Jose, CA. He received his BA from Harvard University, his MD from Dartmouth Medical School, and his MBA from Stanford.
Co-Founder, Co-Director, Center for Evidence-Based Policy
Mark Gibson is Director of the Center for Evidence-based Policy at the Oregon Health and Science University and a program officer for the Milbank Memorial Fund. In these roles he works extensively with state policy makers to identify and obtain the research evidence they need to inform their policy deliberations.
Mr. Gibson became directly involved in state health policy deliberations when he served as Chief of Staff to Oregon Senate President John Kitzhaber M.D from 1985-1993. In this role Gibson supervised the staff of the Senate, and advised the President on the full range of issues considered by the Senate. During this time, Gibson participated directly in the drafting and passage of the groundbreaking Oregon Health Plan.
From 1995 through January of 2003, he served as Policy Advisor for Health, Human Services, and Labor to Governor John Kitzhaber of Oregon. In this role he led Oregon’s numerous health initiatives from Workers’ Compensation Reform, to creation of the Oregon Children’s Health Insurance Program and to a reorganization and expansion of the Oregon Health Plan. Most recently, Gibson led the effort to enact the Practitioner Managed Prescription Drug Plan, Oregon’s answer to runaway drug costs in its Medicaid program. This approach uses systematic reviews of global drug effectiveness research to guide the creation of a preferred drug list that is both clinically sound and economical.
From 2000 – 2002 Gibson served as Co-chair of the Reforming States Group, a voluntary nonpartisan collaboration of senior health policy officials from both the legislative and executive branches of state government.
Jennifer joined CMTP in 2013 as a Senior Research Associate and worked primarily on projects focused on actively engaging a range of stakeholders in clinical research including the Chicago Area Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Network (CAPriCORN), one of PCORnet’s original CDRNs, and Comparing Options for Management: Patient-Centered Results for Uterine Fibroids (COMPARE-UF), a national registry of women with uterine fibroids.
In 2019 Jennifer transitioned to the role of Program Director, and currently oversees the Green Park Collaborative, the company’s flagship initiative. In this role she has managed projects covering topics such as treatment switching in oncology trials, the assessment of real world evidence studies, and more recently the development of GPC’s portfolio of COS initiatives. Responsible for the coordination and oversight of multiple GPC project teams, Jennifer has been able to combine her interest in research and healthcare with her background in leadership and program development.
Prior to joining CMTP Jennifer worked at the Johns Hopkins University in the division of Student Affairs. She holds an MS in Counseling Psychology from Loyola University Maryland, and an MSPH with a concentration in Public Health Informatics from the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. She is currently pursuing a degree in Nursing at the University of Maryland.
Donna Messner, PhD, is President and CEO as of February 1st, 2019. One of her main roles is to provide strategic and operational leadership for programs promoting clinical evidence development that is patient-centered, stakeholder-informed, and relevant to real-world decision-making. Recently through the Green Park Collaborative (GPC), our flagship initiative for multi-stakeholder consensus on clinical evidence standards, Donna has launched a new program to systematically develop core outcome sets for clinical research. Her goal over the next few years is to build this program making GPC a trusted source for setting standards for development of core outcome sets for late phase clinical trials of therapeutics. She will continue to be an integral part of CMTP’s leadership for our existing research and engagement programs on solving critical problems in assuring clinical evidence is meaningful for patients, providers, and policymakers.
This new role comes as the latest achievement in a 35-year career of organizational and multi-disciplinary team leadership, including a series of critically important and impactful senior leadership roles at CMTP. Donna has been leading GPC, where she has spearheaded initiatives to clarify evidence requirements for coverage and reimbursement, including a widely recognized program to engage key stakeholders in innovative strategies for molecular diagnostics and genomics in oncology. Building on this work, CMTP has been able to assist stakeholders in the diagnostics industry to better understand the adequacy of evidence portfolios for review by payers. GPC has tackled questions across clinical conditions, looking at real-world evidence, genomics databases, outcomes for alternative payment models, and relevant study designs across clinical conditions.
In addition to these programmatic accomplishments, Donna has been engaged in CMTP’s strategic planning process since 2015 and is now spearheading our plan for 2019-2021. She has been responsible for company operations since 2016, working with CMTP’s dedicated professionals in accounting, human resources, and communications to assure CMTP is operating responsibly, efficiently, and effectively for the benefit of our staff, partners, sponsors, and stakeholders.
Donna’s background spans regulatory and coverage policy for drugs and devices, socio-legal and ethical studies of genetics and genomics in healthcare, stakeholder engagement in clinical research design, and analytical chemistry. She holds a PhD and MSc (with distinction) in Science and Technology Studies from the University of Edinburgh (Scotland), an MA in literature from George Mason University, and an undergraduate degree in chemistry from Virginia Tech. Prior to joining CMTP, she had the distinction of being a Gordon Cain Fellow in Technology, Policy, and Entrepreneurship at the Chemical Heritage Foundation. She was also a research fellow in the Penn Center for the Integration of Genetic Health Care Technologies in the University of Pennsylvania’s Division of Medical Genetics. Her research through these years was focused especially on FDA regulatory innovation. Before that she was a long-time laboratory director and senior project scientist. She has published on social implications of genetic testing and gene patents, clinical evidence standards and practices across many conditions, FDA regulation and FDA-CMS parallel review, healthcare coverage and reimbursement for diagnostics, drug affordability, informed consent and pragmatic clinical studies, among other topics.
Regional Operating Officer, Willis Towers Watson Southeast, Inc.
Stuart Spector is the Chief Operating Officer for the Metro DC/Chesapeake Market of Willis Towers Watson, which represents over $200M and 700 employees. He is the former Chief Operating Officer for CMTP and held that position from 2012 - 2016. Prior to joining CMTP, Spector was the Senior Vice President for the National Council on Aging (NCOA) where he led Corporate Partnerships, Public Policy, Marketing & Communications, Technology Initiatives and a variety of Programs designed to assist older adults. As part of the senior management team for NCOA, Stuart was instrumental in helping more than 3M seniors identify over $11B in public and private benefits options and was the catalyst for enrolling more than 500,000 seniors in Medicare’s Low Income Subsidy Program.
Prior to joining NCOA, Spector served as vice president and general manager for Vertafore, a leading provider of specialized software and services for the insurance industry. Before that, he served as chief operating officer for Benelogic, LLC, a web-based benefits administration firm for employers and insurance companies. He also co-founded Innovative Outsourcing, an infrastructure company servicing Medicare and Medicaid health care organizations, eventually merging the company with Group Benefit Services and serving as chief marketing officer for both organizations. Spector was recognized as one of the Top 40 Under 40 Emerging Business Leaders in 2003 and he earned the distinction of Entrepreneur of the Year Finalist from Ernst & Young in 2000. He has a Masters in Business Administration from the University of Maryland
Sean Tunis, MD, MSc is the Founder of the Center for Medical Technology Policy (CMTP) in Baltimore, Maryland. Dr. Tunis has served as the company’s CEO since its founding in 2008 and established the company’s mission to improve clinical evidence for health care delivery and health policy decisions. He is stepping out of the CEO role as of February 1, 2019. He will continue to contribute substantively in 2019 to CMTP’s ongoing work as a member of the board, especially working to expand and solidify our ever-growing network of stakeholders. Participation of stakeholders to help shape and inform clinical research design – i.e., participation of patients and caregivers, providers, payers, health technology assessors, and others – continues to be a central tenet of CMTP’s commitment to changing health care for the better.
Much of Dr. Tunis’s past career has been focused on strategies to improve the quality and relevance of evidence available to inform clinical and health policy decisions. He was a member of Senator Ted Kennedy’s staff in the US Senate, working on legislation on orphan drugs, FDA user fees, and the reauthorization of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. As head of the health program at the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment he helped to develop a seminal report on improving health research titled: Identifying Health Technologies that Work: Searching for Evidence (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc39739/). He then helped to implement several key recommendations from this report during his tenure as Chief Medical Officer of the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services from 2000 to 2006. These included the promotion of Practical (pragmatic) Clinical Trials and the application of Coverage with Evidence Development in the Medicare Program. After establishing CMTP, Dr. Tunis worked with congressional staff to help draft the section of the Affordable Care Act that established the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). Dr. Tunis was also a member of the Institute of Medicine Committee on Initial National Priorities for Comparative Effectiveness Research, which generated a widely used definition of the field and identified critical topics for research.
Dr. Tunis received a medical degree and Masters in Health Services Research from the Stanford University School of Medicine, and a BS degree in Biology and History of Science from the Cornell University School of Agriculture. Dr. Tunis did his residency training at UCLA and the University of Maryland in Emergency Medicine and Internal Medicine. He is board certified in Internal Medicine, maintains an active medical license and holds adjunct faculty appointments at Johns Hopkins and Tufts University Schools of Medicine.
