Bryan R. Luce, PhD, MBA

Director, PACE Initiative

Senior Vice-President, Science Policy, United BioSource Corporation

Bryan R. Luce, PhD, MBA, is Senior Vice President, Science Policy for United BioSource Corporation (UBC). Dr. Luce founded MEDTAP® International (now part of UBC), serving as its Chairman, President, and CEO until 2002. Previously, he held positions as Director of Battelle’s Centers for Public Health Research and Evaluation, Director of the Office of Research and Demonstrations, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and Senior Analyst, Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) of the United States Congress.

Dr. Luce is a consultant to numerous government agencies as well as pharmaceutical and device firms worldwide, a member or chair of socioeconomic and public health policy advisory boards for several leading pharmaceutical companies, and recently was a member of the Medicare Evidence Development & Coverage Advisory Committee (MedCAC). He is a Senior Scholar with the Department of Health Policy, Jefferson Medical College, an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute, University of Pennsylvania, and has authored more than ninety scientific publications, including three textbooks on technology assessment, health policy, and cost-effectiveness analysis. He founded the Bayesian Initiative in Health Economics and Outcomes Research. He is a Past President of the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) and, in 2008, received the Society’s Avedis Donabedian Outcomes Research Lifetime Achievement Award. A former Special Forces Officer, Dr. Luce holds the rank as Lieutenant Colonel (Retired), Medical Service Corps, US Army Reserves. His undergraduate and master’s training were at the Universities of Vermont and Massachusetts at Amherst. He received his doctorate from the School of Public Health at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA).

David Vanness, PhD

Scientific Director, PACE Initiative

Research Scientist, Health Economics and Science Policy, United BioSource Corporation

David J. Vanness, PhD, joined United BioSource Corporation (UBC)’s Center for Health Economics & Science Policy (CHEP) as a Research Scientist in December 2008.  Dr. Vanness has over 10 years of experience in health economics, econometrics, and health services research in both clinical and academic research environments. 

Beginning in 1999, Dr. Vanness spent 4 years on the consulting staff of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, including 2 years as Assistant Professor of Health Services Research at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine.  While at the Mayo Clinic, Dr. Vanness focused on the development of microsimulation and Bayesian methods for cost-effectiveness analysis and participated in applied health economics research in several clinical areas, including liver transplantation, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, colorectal cancer and hospitalist-delivered health care.  He also served as an internal consultant on pricing strategy, managed care contracting, and strategic operations.    

In 2003, Dr. Vanness became an Assistant Professor in the Department of Population Health Sciences at the University of Wisconsin (UW) School of Medicine and Public Health.  At UW, he served as a subcontract Principal Investigator of an NIH-funded grant to develop a complex system microsimulation for economic evaluation of osteoporosis treatments.  Dr. Vanness has taught several graduate-level courses in health economics and the economic assessment of medical technologies at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health, and in cost-benefit analysis at the LaFollette School of Public Affairs.

Dr. Vanness serves as a referee for numerous journals, including the Journal of the American Medical Association, Annals of Internal Medicine, Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Clinical Trials, Health Economics, Medical Decision Making and Value in Health. 

Dr. Vanness earned a BA in economics and government, summa cum laude, from Georgetown University in 1993, an MS in economics from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 1996 and a PhD in economics from the University of Wisconsin, Madison following a 3-year NIH-funded pre-doctoral traineeship (T32) in health economics.

Jill Javier, BS

Research Associate, PACE Initiative

Jill Javier, BS, is a Research Associate I with UBC’s Center for Health Economics, Epidemiology, and Science Policy (CHEP) in Bethesda, MD.  Her responsibilities include conducting literature reviews and internet searches, data collection and organization, developing tables and spreadsheets, and assisting in the review, preparation, and editing of reports and manuscripts.  Prior to joining UBC, Ms. Javier was an intern at Merck & Co., conducting and analyzing cardiovascular imaging to assess novel compounds and their effect on atherosclerosis and hypertension.  Ms. Javier graduated from Brown University with a BS in biomedical engineering with a focus in biomaterials.  At Brown she worked as a research assistant performing bio-adhesion assays of various polymers for drug and gene delivery involving the small intestine and colon.  She has taken engineering courses on biomechanics, instrumentation design, and materials science, as well as biology courses in organ replacement and biomaterials.  She also has research experience in mammography and various imaging techniques.

Anne Samit, BS

Project Coordinator, PACE Initiative

Anne Samit, BS, is the Project Coordinator for the Pragmatic Approaches to Comparative Effectiveness (PACE) Initiative at United BioSource Corporation (UBC).  Her general responsibilities include meeting management, project and event planning, and project tracking.  Anne manages the coordination of the Spring Forum on New Approaches to Clinical Trials:  Implications for Evaluation of Comparative Effectiveness, as well as the PACE Advisory Board meetings, serving as liaison to its members.  In addition to her work with PACE, Anne supports the Science Policy Group at UBC.  Anne received a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Maryland’s School of Journalism.  Her previous worked has been in public relations, marketing and communications.