Kathryn A. Phillips

Kathryn A. Phillips, PhD is Professor of Health Economics and Health Services Research in the Department of Clinical Pharmacy at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) School of Pharmacy. She serves as the Founding Director of the UCSF Center for Translational and Policy Research on Precision Medicine (TRANSPERS) and is a core faculty member in the UCSF Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies and UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. She maintains additional affiliations with the Institute for Human Genetics, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Baker Computational Health Sciences Institute, and Global Health Sciences.

Her educational background includes:

• Post-doctoral fellowship at University of California, San Francisco (1993)
• PhD in Policy Analysis and Health Economics from University of California, Berkeley (1991)
• MPA in Public Administration from Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government (Boston)
• BA in Psychology with High Honors from University of Texas, Austin
• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Champion Training from University of California, San Francisco (2022)

Dr. Phillips is a pioneering researcher in health economics and precision medicine, focusing on the value of new technologies and how to implement them effectively within healthcare systems. Her work spans multiple disciplines including basic, clinical and social sciences, bringing together experts from academia, industry, healthcare, payers, and government. She led one of the earliest studies on the societal implications of pharmacogenomics, demonstrating its potential to reduce adverse drug reactions, and conducted seminal work on HIV where her analysis of home testing informed the FDA's decision to approve the first home collection HIV test.

Dr. Phillips has published approximately 200 peer-reviewed articles in major journals including JAMA, New England Journal of Medicine, Science, and Health Affairs. Her recent research focuses on coverage policies, economic evaluation, and implementation challenges of genomic and precision medicine technologies, with increasing attention to health equity implications. She has been repeatedly named as being in the top 2% of authors for career-long citations in her field and in the top 100,000 of all researchers globally.

Her scientific achievements have been recognized with numerous awards:

• UC Berkeley Graduate Fellowship (1987-1988)
• Article in NEJM contributed to FDA decision to approve home HIV test (1996)
• 50 Most Cited HIV Behavioral Researchers in Past Decade (2003)
• Most cited article award (2010)
• Rockefeller Foundation Residency (2016)
• Dean's Awards For Outstanding Teaching (multiple) (2019-2021)
• Honorary Lectureship University of British Columbia (2018)
• Honorary Lectureship National Academy of Medicine (2021)
• Named in top 2% of authors for career-long citations in field (2020-2021)

As a Principal Investigator, Dr. Phillips has maintained continuous NIH funding for three decades, including a 5-year, $5M NIH grant to examine payer coverage and economic value for emerging genomic technologies. She serves on the National Academy of Medicine Roundtable on Genomics and Precision Health and has advised major organizations including the FDA, CDC, President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, and the White House Office of Science and Technology. She serves on editorial boards for Health Affairs and Value in Health and is the Founding Editor-in-Chief of Health Affairs Scholar: Emerging and Global Health Policy.

Dr. Phillips chairs the Global Economics and Evaluation of Clinical Genomics Sequencing Working Group and serves on the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review's evidence review committees. Her work has been widely cited in major news outlets including the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, CNBC, Reuters, and Newsweek, demonstrating the significant policy impact of her research on healthcare decision-making and coverage policies.