Anita Wagner

Anita Katharina Wagner is Associate Professor in the Division of Health Policy and Insurance Research at the Department of Population Medicine at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute. She serves as the Director of the organizational Ethics Advisory Program of Point32Health, the parent company of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and Tufts Health Plan, two non-profit health insurers in the Eastern United States, and is a member of the Harvard Ethics Leaders Group.

With colleagues across the world, Dr. Wagner conducts empirical research generating evidence for answering challenging health system questions. Their work, frequently in large databases, evaluates impacts of insurance and other policy changes on the availability, access to, affordability, and use of medicines, specifically new cancer medicines, in the United States, China, and elsewhere.

Dr. Wagner co-directs the Department of Population Medicine Center for Cancer Policy and Program Evaluation (CarPE) and the Harvard Medical School Fellowship in Health Policy and Insurance Research.

Through the Medicines and Insurance Coverage (MedIC) Initiative she founded, Dr. Wagner has led training programs, including the first online course, to strengthen capacity of professionals in more than 20 low and middle income country health systems to design, implement, monitor and evaluate medicines policies and programs in the context of expanding health insurance coverage.

Serving as a pharmacoepidemiologist on the FDA’s Sentinel Initiative, Dr. Wagner contributes to a national system that tracks the safety of pharmaceuticals in the United States.

Dr. Wagner holds a German master-equivalent degree in pharmacy, a doctorate in clinical pharmacy from the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Allied Health Sciences, a Master of Public Health degree in international health and a Doctor of Public Health degree in epidemiology from the Harvard School of Public Health. She completed training programs in bioethics including the Harvard Medical School Fellowship in Bioethics.

Focus Areas

• Cancer
• Health Policy
• International Health