Nicole Mittmann holds a faculty position as an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto in the Department of Pharmacology. She is also a Scientist at Sunnybrook and Women’s College Health Sciences Centre and a member of the Department of Medicine. Nicole is currently the Executive Director at Health Outcomes and Pharmacoeconomics (HOPE) Research Centre.

In her academic capacity, Nicole has a proven track record of publications, abstracts and awards at both graduate student and scientist level. She has conducted and collaborated on notable research in the areas of meta-analysis, economic evaluations, outcomes research and utility assessments. Research methodologies include the examination of large databases, economic methodologies and decision analysis. Clinical areas of interest include cardiology, trauma, infectious disease, oncology and health policy.

Nicole has received a number of awards, including New Investigator Award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH) (1997), the Presidential Trainee Award from the American Association of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (1997), the New Investigator Award from the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (2000) and Best Poster Presentation at the Canadian Association for Population Therapeutics (2003). Most recently, Nicole has received a Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) grant for the study entitled “Economic evaluation of direct medical and non medical costs associated with a severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak”.

Nicole is a member of the Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee at Sunnybrook and Women’s College Health Sciences Centre. This position allows her to evaluate economic issues from a hospital perspective.

In her capacity at HOPE, Nicole is responsible for designing and managing health economics and outcomes research projects from the government, hospital and pharmaceutical industry perspectives.

Nancy Risebrough is a Senior Research Associate with the Health Outcomes and Pharmacoeconomics (HOPE) Research Centre in the Division of Clinical Pharmacology at Sunnybrook and Women’s College Health Sciences Centre. Nancy is currently completing her MSc thesis at Aston University, Birmingham, UK in the Evidence-Based Pharmacology Program. Nancy obtained her undergraduate degree in social science statistics and research methodology at the University of Western Ontario.

Her main areas of research are economic evaluations in treatment of HIV, therapeutic drug monitoring of HIV therapies, infectious diseases drug therapies, hemophilia, and olcology. She has 8 years of expertise in developing Markov models for economic evaluations of novel drugs in various chronic diseases and has presented more than a dozen economic evaluations at international conferences in recent years. Awards include Canadian Association for HIV Research New Investigator Award 2001 for the presentation ”Potential cost-effectiveness of protease inhibitor therapeutic drug monitoring in the treatment of HIV in Canada” , International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research Best Student Podium Presentation 2001 for the presentation “Economic evaluation of dalteparin, enoxaparin and unfractionated heparin in the treatment of deep vein thrombosis in the United States” and the Canadian Society of Hospital Pharmacists Long-Term Care Award 2004 for the project “ Cost-effectiveness analysis of oseltamivir prophylaxis for prevention of influenza outbreak in long term care facilities in Ontario.

Soo Jin Seung is a research assistant who joined the HOPE Research Centre in April 2001. She graduated from the University of Toronto with a double specialty in Pharmacology and Toxicology in 1999. She has previous experience in business development in the pharmaceutical industry and practical background in oncology and diagnostic imaging.

Her main areas of research at HOPE are resource utilization and economic evaluations of drug therapies and medical devices in asthma, interventional cardiology, oncology and smoking cessation. She also has research interests in health policy, reimbursement strategies, provincial case costing initiatives and patient registries.