Scientific Director, Real World Evidence, IMS Health
Alison Bourke is a database researcher with nearly 30 years experience working with primary care patient data resources in the UK. She is a pharmacist with a Masters degree in computing.
Prior to joining IMS Health, Alison was Managing Director of CSD Medical Research UK (formerly known as EPIC), where she headed the research team providing primary care data and support for a wide range of studies including pharmacoepidemiology and health outcomes research. Alison previously worked in both hospital and the pharmaceutical industry before helping to establish the GPRD (known then as the Vamp Research Bank). Alison was instrumental in setting up the Health Improvement Network (THIN) in 2002 which provides access to 12 million pseudonymised patient records. She is particularly interested in using such data sources to explore innovative scientific methodologies.
Alison is on the Executive Board of Directors of The International Society for Pharmacoepidemiology (ISPE) and is a Fellow of ISPE; she is a committee member of both PRIMM (Prescribing and Research in Medicines Management) and PHCSG (the British Computer Society’s Primary Health Care Specialist Group).