DRNI caught up with Heather Eames, PhD candidate in the School of Medicine, Trinity College Dublin and the National Centre for Pharmacoeconomics. 

What is your area of research?

Health technology assessment (HTA) is a multidisciplinary research process that collects and summarises information about a health technology, including medicines. The aim of my research is to conduct a Health Technology Assessment (HTA) of the novel disease modifying therapies (DMTs) for Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) that may receive regulatory approval within the next number of years. Those novel DMTs identified through international horizon scanning, and expert opinion, will inform a systematic literature review of published efficacy and safety evidence. The quality of this evidence will be interrogated and will inform network meta-analyses of comparative evidence. The evidence base generated will inform a number of packages including cost-effectiveness analyses, budget impact analyses and value of information analyses. 

What made you interested in this area?

Before and during my time working as a pharmacist, I was part of a multidisciplinary team (MDT) that supported the care of patients residing in nursing homes, several of whom had AD. The emergence of novel DMTs, which aim to target the pathological steps leading to AD, represents a potential for change in the treatment paradigm for AD. This has inspired hope for patients with AD, their carers, and members of their MDTs. However, AD DMTs are associated with an uncertain evidence base and a high-cost, which is a challenge for health-policy decision makers. 

What impact would you like your research to have?

This research will demonstrate the benefit of HTA in evaluating the quality of evidence and in predicting the relative efficacy, safety and cost of novel AD DMTs over a lifetime horizon. It will demonstrate how HTA can inform health-policy decision making both nationally and globally. Through this, I hope that I can contribute to the evidence base used to achieve the best value care for patients with AD. 

Who has helped or inspired you in your area of research?

I am so fortunate to conduct my PhD research surrounded by international experts in HTA at the National Centre for Pharmacoeconomics. My supervisor, Dr Laura McCullagh, has been a fantastic support during my research process thus far and I am lucky to have a great thesis advisory committee. My research has benefitted from input from clinicians working in this area in Ireland, including Professor Sean Kennelly. I am also very grateful to the DRNI for connecting me with others working in this space! 

What current research are you most excited about (your own, or that of others)? 

It has been fascinating to monitor the progression of DMTs across the pipeline of Early AD treatments. It’s encouraging to see that two of these trials have sites in Ireland. As for my own research, I am very excited to apply learnings from the “Bayesian Methods in Health Economics Summer School” I attended last week to my Network Meta-Analysis. 

What do you do when you are not working?             

I am very lucky to live right next to Phoenix Park in Dublin, so I often go for walks there with my dog, Pippin. 

What is your favourite pastime? 

I love hiking and summitted Kilimanjaro in February of this year. Going anywhere with no phone signal is always a great break from the desk!

What is the best piece of advice you ever received?

My dad has always said, “the worst thing they can say is no”. This has motivated me to take more chances, which has led me down the path of starting this PhD!

• Email: heames@tcd.ie
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heather-eames/
• X: @heathermeames