Darius Lakdawalla

Biography

Darius Lakdawalla is a widely published, award-winning researcher and a leading authority on health economics and health policy. He is the University Professor of Pharmaceutical Economics and Public Policy and holds the Quintiles Chair in Pharmaceutical Development and Regulatory Innovation at the University of Southern California, where he sits on the faculties of the Alfred E. Mann School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences and the Sol Price School of Public Policy. He is also the Chief Scientific Officer at USC’s Leonard D. Schaeffer Institute for Public Policy & Government Service, which develops evidence-based, non-partisan solutions for critical policy challenges, with a focus on health, economics, and social sciences. His research has focused primarily on the economics of risks to health, the value and determinants of medical innovation, the economics of health insurance markets, and the industrial organization of healthcare markets.

His academic work has appeared in leading peer-reviewed journals of economics, health policy, and medicine. His work has also been featured by prominent popular press outlets, such as the Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio, Forbes, and the New York Times. Dr. Lakdawalla received the PhRMA Foundation Value Assessment Challenge Award, designed to encourage innovative approaches to defining and measuring value in health care, in 2019 (third place) and 2020 (first place). He is the co-author of the recent book, Valuing Health: The Generalized and Risk-Adjusted Cost-Effectiveness (GRACE) Model, published by Oxford University Press. Dr. Lakdawalla is also an elected member (2025) of the National Academy of Medicine.

Selected Publications

• Mulligan,K., Baid, D., Maria-Alice Manetas, M.-A., … Lakdawalla, D., et al. (2025). Measuring the Budget Impact of Nondiscriminatory Cost-Effectiveness. JAMA Health Forum, 6(9).
• Bauer, D., Lakdawalla, D., & Reif, J. (2025). Health risk and the value of life. Journal of Public Economics, 245, 105346.
• Gracner, T., Chaturvedi, R., Nguyen, P., Heun‐Johnson, H., Tysinger, B., Goldman, D., & Lakdawalla, D. (2025). The burden of cognitive impairment. Alzheimer’s & Dementia, 21(8).