Maryam Bigdeli Pharm, MPH, PhD

Twitter: @maryam_bigdeli

Maryam is a pharmacist with specialization in public health, health financing and health planning. Since 2010, she leads the Alliance’s portfolio of work on access to medicines, advocating for a health system lens on medicines in LMICs and supporting activities ranging from priority setting, primary research projects, systematic reviews and production of landmark publications such as the Flagship Report on Medicines in Health Systems. She is also in charge of the portfolio of work on capacity strengthening for health policy and systems research, with particular focus on institutional capacity strengthening of both researchers and decision makers in demanding, producing and using evidence for sound decision making in LMICs.

Prior to joining the Alliance, Maryam has worked over 15 years in low income countries, including in WHO country offices in Cambodia and Lao PDR and with MSF in Guinea. Her field experience included managing medicines procurement and supply, and technical assistance to ministries on health financing systems and national health planning processes. She also brings her experience as a researcher in higher income settings, working with the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer and in the Health Economics Department of the School of Public Health at University of Brussels

Recent publications of interest:

Bigdeli M., Peters D.H., Wagner A.K.  Eds. (2014). Medicines in health systems: advancing access, affordability and appropriate use. Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research, World Health Organization. Geneva, Switzerland

Bigdeli M., Laing R., Tomson G., Babar Z.U.D. (2015) Medicines and universal health coverage: challenges and opportunities. Journal of Pharmaceutical Policy and Practice 8:8