Purchase Tickets to the 2025 Hewitt Healthcare Lecture
The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)’s new approach to prescription drug pricing marks a significant shift in how Medicare pays for medications, with potential consequences for patient access nationwide. To explore these implications, the Institute is pleased to welcome Dr. Tomas J. Philipson, former Acting Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers and University of Chicago professor, as our 2025 Hewitt Healthcare Lecturer.
In his lecture, Dr. Philipson will analyze how insurance companies and pharmacy benefit managers are responding to these pricing reforms, and what their decisions could mean for both current medication access and future drug innovation.
Attendees will also receive an exclusive demonstration of Pioneer’s innovative new webtool that tracks the implementation and effects of the IRA on Medicare Part D coverage.
Named for Pioneer’s former Chairman, Charles “Colby” Hewitt, Jr., the annual Hewitt Healthcare Lecture brings together the nation’s top healthcare and life sciences experts to discuss the most pressing issues facing our country’s health sector.
For questions about reserving a seat or sponsoring the 2025 Hewitt Healthcare Lecture, please contact John Guerra at JGuerra@PioneerInstitute.org.
Dr. Tomas J. Philipson is the Daniel Levin Professor of Public Policy Studies Emeritus at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and directs the Becker Friedman Institute’s Program on Foundational Research in Health Care Markets and Policies within the Health Economics Initiative. He is also an associate member of the Department of Economics and a former senior lecturer at the Law School. His research focuses on health economics, and he teaches master’s and PhD courses in microeconomics and health economics at the University.
From 2017-2020, Philipson served The White House as a Member, the Vice Chairman, and Acting Chairman of The President’s Council of Economic Advisers. He also served in the second Bush Administration as the senior economic advisor to the head of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and subsequently as the senior economic advisor to the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). He served as a health care advisor to Senator John McCain during his campaign for President of the United States. He was appointed to the Key Indicator Commission created by the Affordable Care Act. He has served as a scientific advisor to Congress on the 21st Century Cures legislation and on the steering committee of Vice President Biden’s Cancer Moon Shot Initiative. In 2007, he co-founded Precision Heath Economics LLC, which was sold in 2015 to Precision for Medicine Group LLC.
He has received numerous worldwide research awards and is a two-time winner of the highest award in his field, the Arrow Award of The International Health Economics Association. Other awards include the Garfield Award for Economic Research, the Premio Haralambos Simeonidis from the Brazilian Economic Association, and the Milken Institute’s Distinguished Economic Research Award.
Philipson’s research is frequently disseminated through the popular press. He is a monthly op-ed contributor for Forbes magazine and frequently appears in numerous popular media outlets such as CNN, CBS, FOX News, Bloomberg TV, National Public Radio, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Businessweek, The Economist, Washington Post, Investor’s Business Daily, and USA Today.
He received a B.A. in mathematics from Uppsala University in Sweden, as well as an MA and PhD from the Wharton School and University of Pennsylvania.