Faculty, Investigators & Support Staff
HOPE Director
 Bonnie LaFleur, PhD
Research Professor
Director of Health Outcomes & PharmacoEconomic Research (HOPE) Center bjlafleur@pharmacy.arizona.edu
520-626-9462
Bonnie received her PhD in Biometrics (statistical study of biological phenomena) from The University of Colorado Health Sciences Center (now part of the University of Colorado, Denver) in 1999 and was a postdoctoral fellow with the CDC at the National Center for Health Statistics, where she worked on methods of analysis for the aging and chronic diseases. Her scientific expertise is in immunobiology, oncology, and aging. Most of her methodologic work is in statistical methods for precision healthcare, specifically biomarkers. Bonnie was a tenure-track faculty in Biostatistics for 15 years, including appointments in the Department of Biostatistics at George Washington University, Vanderbilt University, and The University of Utah before joining the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health in 2008 as an Associate Professor. While at George Washington University she was the Director of Biostatistics in the Center for Health Services Research (an early focus of quantitative science that was the predicate for Health Outcomes Research). In 2012 she joined Roche Diagnostics and was Director of Data Management and Biostatistics and a few years later was Vice President of Data Science and Companion Diagnostics Program Lead at HTG Molecular Diagnostics. During her time in industry, she developed several molecular biomarkers that led to patents and some were submitted and approved for use by the FDA. She also managed customer relations for Key Opinion Leaders and the pharmaceutical industry. She joined the UArizona community again in 2018 as a Research Professor in The BIO5 Institute and is currently the Core Director and Project Lead on several program project grants at the University of Arizona. |
HOPE Leadership
 Amy Grizzle, PharmD
Associate Director, HOPE Center
grizzle@pharmacy.arizona.edu
520-626-4721
Amy Grizzle is the Associate Director of the Center for Health Outcomes and PharmacoEconomic Research. She joined the center in March 1999 after spending nearly seven years in the pharmaceutical industry. Dr. Grizzle received her BS and PharmD from the University of Arizona College of Pharmacy and then completed a two-year pharmacoeconomic fellowship with the University of Arizona and Glaxo Inc. Following her fellowship, she joined the Global Pharmacoeconomics group at Syntex, which was later acquired by Roche, in Palo Alto, California. Her primary focus was in drug development phases I - III for disease areas such as Parkinson's disease, diabetic peripheral neuropathy, cytomegalovirus retinitis, fracture healing and benign prostatic hyperplasia. In her position as Associate Director for the center, Dr. Grizzle develops and coordinates training and educational programs, and manages research projects. Some of her research efforts at the center have included studying the use of pharmacoeconomic information in managed care decision making, patient outcomes associated with integrative medicine primary care, and the costs of outcomes of drug-drug interactions. |
 Jason Hurwitz, MS, PhD
Assistant Director, HOPE Center
hurwitz@pharmacy.arizona.edu
520-626-8889
Jason Hurwitz, MS, PhD, is the Assistant Director with the College of Pharmacy's Center for Health Outcomes and PharmacoEconomic (HOPE) Research since 2008 and with the University of Arizona Comparative Effectiveness Research Group (UA CER Group). He also worked jointly as a research associate with the College of Education and was a former PhRMA Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellow in Health Outcomes Research. He earned his PhD in educational psychology from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, with clinical and scholarly expertise in assessment, intervention, and outcomes evaluation. His funded research includes evaluating medication-therapy management and of integrative medicine, and increasing the roles of treatment heterogeneity, comparative effectiveness research (CER), and real-world evidence (RWE) in healthcare decision making. Dr. Hurwitz has also taught a year-long weekly seminar on research methods, data analysis, and statistics to HOPE Center post-doctoral trainees for four consecutive years. Dr. Hurwitz continues to collaborate on health outcomes and pharmacoeconomic research, and since 2009, teach related content to medical professionals in numerous training programs sponsored by the University of Arizona College of Pharmacy. |
 Lynne Mascarella, MEd
Coordinator, Training and Operations, HOPE Center
mascarella@pharmacy.arizona.edu
520-626-3106
Lynne Mascarella holds an educational and administrative coordination role with the Center for Health Outcomes and Pharmacoeconomic Research (HOPE). She retired from the University after 40 years of service, previously serving as the director of continuing education and alumni affairs. She orchestrated the development, delivery, and accreditation of continuing education programs for pharmacy professionals. In this role, she worked with the HOPE Center team to deliver training programs and conferences and returned to the College to continue these efforts. In addition to continuing education responsibilities, Lynne also coordinated alumni outreach efforts for the college, including homecoming and other events. Lynne holds a BS in Education and MEd in Educational Leadership. Before joining the college of Pharmacy in 1995, she spent nearly 15 years with the office of continuing Medical Education in the College of Medicine planning medical conferences. |
HOPE Center Investigators
 Ivo Abraham, PhD, RN
Professor of Practice
Ivo Abraham is a professor (part-time) in the Department of Pharmacy Practice. He has also served on the faculty of Case Western Reserve University (Cleveland, Ohio), University of Virginia (Charlottesville, Va.), and (part-time) Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Leuven, Belgium); and as visiting professor at Universiteit Maastricht (Maastricht, The Netherlands), University of Florida (Gainesville, Fla.), Rijksuniversiteit Groningen (Groningen, The Netherlands), University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, Penn.), and Chang Gung University (Kwei-Shan Tao-Yuan, Taiwan). He has lectured, consulted, and conducted research throughout the Americas, Europe, the Asia-Pacific region, and Africa. Being part-time, he divides his time between the University of Arizona and Matrix45, a biopharmaceutical research and consulting company, where he serves as chief scientist. For the past decade or so, Dr. Abraham’s research has focused mainly on clinical outcomes and effectiveness research, in particular how variability in (drug-centric) treatment regimens is associated with variability in patient outcomes. However, instead of merely evaluating effectiveness (does the treatment work?), the work of his research group addresses the equally important questions of when does the treatment work (and when not), what influences whether the treatment works, why does the treatment work in some patients but not in others, why does the treatment work with some clinicians but not with others, why is the treatment tolerated by some patients but not by others, and how much of patient outcomes is related to patient vs. clinician or treatment center? In this process, his group uses a comprehensive framework of treatment patterns and outcomes assessment, vulnerability profiling, hierarchical modeling, (non-)responder analysis, and pharmacovigilance and drawing methodologies and statistical models from other disciplines into biomedical research. More recently, frustrated by the abundance of evidence but clinicians’ persistent low adoption of evidence-based guidelines, he and his colleagues started examining how practicing in accordance with evidence-based guidelines is directly associated with patient outcomes. He has (co-)authored 260+ articles and 60+ chapters, and has (co-)edited 29 books, monographs, and journal issues. Since 1984, his research has been funded by federal funding agencies, foundations, and corporations. He has served as appointed ad hoc reviewer for the NIH, the NIMH, and the AHRQ. He currently serves as an expert adviser to the Innovative Medicines Initiative, a joint 2 billion euro undertaking of the European Union and the biopharmaceutical industry to stimulate innovation in human therapeutics. His educational and scientific honors and awards include an Invitational research fellowship from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (2007-2008), which he conducted at Hyogo University and Aomori University. |
 Edward P. Armstrong, PharmD
Professor Emeritus, Pharmacy Practice & Science
Dr. Armstrong is professor emeritus in the Department of Pharmacy Practice and Science at the University of Arizona College of Pharmacy and president of Strategic Therapeutics, LLC. He obtained his BS in pharmacy from The University of Arizona and his PharmD degree from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Dr. Armstrong has written many articles and given numerous presentations on disease management and pharmacoeconomic applications. Dr. Armstrong serves as a scientific reviewer for publications submitted to the Journal of the American Pharmaceutical Association, Pharmacotherapy, American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy, Disease Management, Archives of Internal Medicine, Clinical Therapeutics, and Disease Management & Health Outcomes. He has been involved in numerous managed care database evaluations of disease areas including asthma, depression, prostate disease, infectious diseases, community acquired pneumonia, heart failure, diabetes mellitus, epilepsy, Sickle cell disease, and hypertension. Dr. Armstrong brings a strong background in pharmacotherapy and pharmacoeconomics. |
 David Rhys Axon, PhD, MPharm, MS, MRPharmS
Assistant Research Professor
Rhys Axon, PhD, MPharm, MS, MRPharmS, is an Assistant Research Professor in the Department of Pharmacy Practice and Science and co-director of the Health and Pharmaceutical Outcomes graduate program at the University of Arizona R. Ken Coit College of Pharmacy. He received his MPharm (2014) from The University of Reading and later practiced community pharmacy in the United Kingdom. He received his MS (2017) and PhD (2019) in pharmaceutical economics, policy, and outcomes from the University of Arizona. Dr. Axon serves as co-director of the University of Arizona R. Ken Coit College of Pharmacy Outcomes Research Group (ORG) and as an investigator at the Center for Health Outcomes and Pharmacoeconomics (HOPE). Dr. Axon’s research interests include improving the economic, clinical, and humanistic outcomes associated with managing chronic conditions, particularly pain and the opioid crisis, using both qualitative and quantitative methodologies. He also supports student pharmacists and pharmacists with scholarly activities and seeks to demonstrate the value of the pharmacy profession. Dr. Axon has published over 80 peer-reviewed research articles and presented his research at both national and international conferences. Dr. Axon is also a member of several professional organizations such as the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) and the International Society for Pharmacoeconomic and Outcomes Research (ISPOR). |
 Brian Erstad, PharmD, MCCM, FCCP, FASHP
Professor
Department Head, Pharmacy Practice and Science Brian L. Erstad, PharmD, MCCM, FCCP, FASHP, heads the Department of Pharmacy Practice and Science at the College of Pharmacy, a position he’s held since 2012. He focuses on critical care medicine, including patient safety and outcomes, and conducts much of his research at the Banner-University Medical Center, Tucson. He served on the FDA, Drug Safety and Risk Management Advisory Committee member from 2011-2015 and will serve as President of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy from 2019-2020. Erstad has authored hundreds of monographs, book chapters and journal articles and edited “Critical Care Pharmacotherapy.” He has been honored with the Society of Critical Care Medicine’s Shubin-Weil Master Clinician/Teacher: Excellence in Bedside Teaching Award; Clinical Practice and Education Awards from the American College of Clinical Pharmacy; and the Award for Sustained Contributions and Preceptor Award from the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, among others. |
 Daniel C. Malone, PhD, FAMCP
Professor Emeritus
Daniel C. Malone, PhD, FAMCP, is Professor Emeritus at the University of Arizona’s R. Ken Koit College Pharmacy and is Professor of Pharmacotherapy at the University of Utah’s Skaggs College of Pharmacy. His research over the past 20 years has focused on reducing the incidence of drug-drug interactions and improving clinical decision support for drug safety concerns. He also has experience in randomized controlled trials, economic modeling, and outcomes research using observational data. Dr. Malone has over 200 peer-reviewed research publications. His extramural research funding exceeds $10 million as Principal or co-Principal Investigator, with over $25 million in total funding. |
 John E. Murphy, PharmD, FASHP, FCCP
Professor Emeritus
Active professionally, John Elliott Murphy III, PharmD, FASHP, FCCP served as president of the AMERICAN COLLEGE OF CLINICAL PHARMACY (ACCP) and of the AMERICAN SOCIETY OF HEALTH-SYSTEM PHARMACISTS (ASHP). The prolific author of hundreds of original research, other papers, and several books and has received grants and awards from a variety of organizations. |