Andrew J. Bate MA, PhD

Andrew is Director, Quantitative Epidemiologist at Pfizer Inc where he heads the Analytical Methods Team and is therefore responsible for method development within Epidemiology. Previously Andrew was employed at the WHO Collaborating Centre for International Drug Monitoring (Uppsala Monitoring Centre) for more than 12 years and was responsible for research at the institute. He coordinated the development of methods for the data mining of a 4 million record database of suspected side effects of drugs (spontaneous reports), including the use of a Bayesian Confidence Propagation Neural Network (BCPNN). This was the first published data mining tool for screening spontaneous reports and has been routinely used since 1998 for the early detection of possible new side effects of drugs and has produced internationally high profile findings.

Andrew holds a Masters degree in Chemistry from Oxford University, a Ph.D. in Clinical Pharmacology and is a Visiting Professor of Computing and Mathematics at Brunel University, London. He is a member of the CIOMS VIII working group on signal detection and management in pharmacovigilance, has served on the editorial board member of the international journal ‘Drug Safety’, and while at the WHO center was an appointed expert adviser to the European Medicines Agency (EMEA). Andrew is on the Scientific Advisory Board of OMOP (Observational Medical Outcomes Partnership), the FDA, PhRMA and FNIH public-private partnership designed to help improve the monitoring of drugs for safety.