Amitabh Chandra
Henry and Allison McCance Family Professor of Business Administration
Henry and Allison McCance Family Professor of Business Administration
Technology and Operations Management
Amitabh Chandra is the Henry and Allison McCance Family Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School where he is the Faculty Chair of the joint MS/MBA program in the life-sciences, the Faculty Chair of the executive education program in the life-sciences, chairs the Pagliuca Harvard Life Lab committee, and serves on the selection committee of the Blavatnik Fellows. Professor Chandra is the Ethel Zimmerman Wiener Professor of Public Policy and Director of Health Policy Research at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
Professor Chandra's research focuses on innovation, pricing, and capital allocation in the biopharmaceutical industry, value in health care, medical malpractice, racial disparities in healthcare, and discovering new methods for treating Alzheimer's. His research has been supported by the National Institute of Aging, the National Institute of Child Health and Development, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and has been published in the American Economic Review, the Journal of Political Economy, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association, and Science.
Chandra serves on the Congressional Budget Office's Panel of Health Advisors and has testified to the United States Senate and the United States Commission on Civil Rights. He has served as Massachusetts’ Special Commissioner on Provider Price Reform, and has advised federal and state governments on health care reform.
Professor Chandra is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Social Insurance, the first-prize recipient of the Upjohn Institute’s Dissertation Award, the NIHCM Foundation Health Care Research Award, the Kenneth Arrow Award for best paper in health economics, the Eugene Garfield Award for the impact of medical research, and the American Society of Health Economists (ASHE) medal. which is given to an economist age 40 or under who has made the most significant contributions to the field of health economics.
- Journal Articles
-
- Chandra, Amitabh, Jennifer Kao, Kathleen L. Miller, and Ariel Dora Stern. "Regulatory Incentives for Innovation: The FDA's Breakthrough Therapy Designation." Review of Economics and Statistics (forthcoming). (Pre-published online March 18, 2024.) View Details
- Blankart, Katharina, Huseyin Naci, and Amitabh Chandra. "Availability of New Medicines in the U.S. and Germany From 2004 to 2018." e2229231. JAMA Network Open 5, no. 8 (August 2022). View Details
- Kakani, Pragya, Michael Chernew, and Amitabh Chandra. "The Contribution of Price Growth to Pharmaceutical Revenue Growth in the United States: Evidence from Medicines Sold in Retail Pharmacies." Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 47, no. 6 (December 2022): 629–648. View Details
- Baicker, Katherine, Amitabh Chandra, and Mark Shepard. "A Different Framework to Achieve Universal Coverage in the U.S." e230187. JAMA Health Forum 4, no. 2 (February 2023). View Details
- Vogel, Matthew, Pragya Kakani, Amitabh Chandra, and Rena M. Conti. "Medicare Price Negotiation and Pharmaceutical Innovation Following the Inflation Reduction Act." Nature Biotechnology 42, no. 3 (March 2024): 406–412. View Details
- Chandra, Amitabh, and Benedic Ippolito. "What Does the Inflation Reduction Act Mean for Patients and Physicians?" NEJM Catalyst Innovations in Care Delivery 4, no. 10 (October 2023). View Details
- Vogel, Matthew, Olivia Zhao, William B. Feldman, Amitabh Chandra, Aaron S. Kesselheim, and Benjamin N. Rome. "Cost of Exempting Sole Orphan Drugs from Medicare Negotiation." JAMA Internal Medicine 184, no. 1 (January 2024): 63–69. View Details
- Chandra, Amitabh, and Louis-Jonas Heizlsperger. "The Great Resignation, Employment, and Wages in Health Care." NEJM Catalyst (December 4, 2023). View Details
- Zaki, Mark M., Anupam B. Jena, and Amitabh Chandra. "Supporting Value-Based Health Care—Aligning Financial and Legal Accountability." New England Journal of Medicine 385, no. 11 (September 9, 2021): 965–967. View Details
- Baicker, Katherine, and Amitabh Chandra. "What Values and Priorities Mean for Health Reform." New England Journal of Medicine 383, no. 15 (October 8, 2020). View Details
- Grischkan, Justin A., Ari B. Friedman, and Amitabh Chandra. "Moving the Financing of Graduate Medical Education Into the 21st Century." JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association 324, no. 11 (September 15, 2020). View Details
- Pian, Julia, Amitabh Chandra, and Ariel Dora Stern. "The Past, Present, and (Near) Future of Gene Therapy and Gene Editing." NEJM Catalyst Innovations in Care Delivery 1, no. 5 (September–October 2020). View Details
- Baicker, Katherine, and Amitabh Chandra. "Do We Spend Too Much on Health Care?" New England Journal of Medicine 383, no. 7 (August 13, 2020): 605–608. View Details
- Kakani, Pragya, Amitabh Chandra, and Sendhil Mullainathan. "Allocation of COVID-19 Relief Funding to Disproportionately Black Counties." JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association 324, no. 10 (September 8, 2020): 1000–1003. View Details
- Chandra, Amitabh, and Douglas O. Staiger. "Identifying Sources of Inefficiency in Health Care." Quarterly Journal of Economics 135, no. 2 (May 2020): 785–843. View Details
- McCormack, Grace, Christopher Avery, Ariella Kahn-Lang Spitzer, and Amitabh Chandra. "Economic Vulnerability of Households with Essential Workers." JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association 324, no. 4 (July 28, 2020): 388–390. View Details
- Chandra, Amitabh, Mark Fishman, and Douglas Melton. "A Detailed Plan for Getting Americans Back to Work." Harvard Business Review Digital Articles (April 1, 2020). View Details
- Chandra, Amitabh. "Scale the Price for a Coronavirus Vaccine by the Harm it Averts." Boston Globe (March 13, 2020). View Details
- Chandra, Amitabh, and Craig Garthwaite. "Economic Principles for Medicare Reform." Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 686, no. 1 (November 2019): 63 – 92. View Details
- Bagley, Nicholas, Amitabh Chandra, Craig Garthwaite, and Ariel Dora Stern. "It's Time to Reform the Orphan Drug Act." NEJM Catalyst (December 19, 2018). View Details
- Schupbach, John, Amitabh Chandra, and Robert S. Huckman. "A Simple Way to Measure Health Care Outcomes." Harvard Business Review (website) (December 8, 2016). View Details
- Stern, Ariel Dora, Brian M. Alexander, and Amitabh Chandra. "Innovation Incentives and Biomarkers." Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics 103, no. 1 (January 2018): 34–36. View Details
- Stern, Ariel Dora, Brian M. Alexander, and Amitabh Chandra. "How Economics Can Shape Precision Medicines." Science 355, no. 6330 (March 17, 2017): 1131–1133. View Details
- Book Chapters
-
- Chandra, Amitabh, Craig Garthwaite, and Ariel Dora Stern. "Characterizing the Drug Development Pipeline for Precision Medicines." Chap. 5 in Economic Dimensions of Personalized and Precision Medicine, edited by Ernest R. Berndt, Dana P. Goldman, and John W. Rowe, 115–158. University of Chicago Press, 2019. View Details
- Chandra, Amitabh, Benjamin Handel, and Joshua Schwartzstein. "Behavioral Economics and Health-Care Markets." Chap. 6 in Handbook of Behavioral Economics: Foundations and Applications 2, edited by B. Douglas Bernheim, Stefano DellaVigna, and David Laibson, 459–502. Amsterdam: Elsevier/North-Holland, 2019. View Details
- Bagley, Nicholas, Benjamin Berger, Amitabh Chandra, Craig Garthwaite, and Ariel Dora Stern. "The Orphan Drug Act at 35: Observations and an Outlook for the Twenty-First Century." Chap. 4 in Innovation Policy and the Economy, Volume 19, edited by Josh Lerner and Scott Stern, 97–137. University of Chicago Press, 2018. View Details
- Working Papers
-
- Chandra, Amitabh, Maurice Dalton, and Douglas O. Staiger. "Are Hospital Quality Indicators Causal?" NBER Working Paper Series, No. 31789, October 2023. View Details
- Baicker, Katherine, Amitabh Chandra, and Mark Shepard. "Achieving Universal Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: Addressing Market Failures or Providing a Social Floor?" NBER Working Paper Series, No. 30854, January 2023. View Details
- Chandra, Amitabh, Jennifer Kao, Kathleen Miller, and Ariel D. Stern. "Regulatory Incentives for Innovation: The FDA's Breakthrough Therapy Designation." NBER Working Paper Series, No. 30712, December 2022. View Details
- Alsan, Marcella, Amitabh Chandra, and Kosali I. Simon. "The Great Unequalizer: Initial Health Effects of COVID-19 in the United States." NBER Working Paper Series, No. 28958, June 2021. View Details
- Berger, Benjamin, Amitabh Chandra, and Craig Garthwaite. "Regulatory Approval and Expanded Market Size." NBER Working Paper Series, No. 28889, June 2021. View Details
- Chandra, Amitabh, Evan Flack, and Ziad Obermeyer. "The Health Costs of Cost-Sharing." NBER Working Paper Series, No. 28439, February 2021. View Details
- Chandra, Amitabh, Pragya Kakani, and Adam Sacarny. "Hospital Allocation and Racial Disparities in Health Care." NBER Working Paper Series, No. 28018, November 2020. View Details
- Chandra, Amitabh, Courtney Coile, and Corina Mommaerts. "What Can Economics Say About Alzheimer's Disease?" NBER Working Paper Series, No. 27760, August 2020. View Details
- Kakani, Pragya, Michael Chernew, and Amitabh Chandra. "Rebates in the Pharmaceutical Industry: Evidence from Medicines Sold in Retail Pharmacies in the U.S." NBER Working Paper Series, No. 26846, March 2020. View Details
- Cases and Teaching Materials
-
- Chandra, Amitabh, and Lauren Gunasti. "Biogen and the Aduhelm Melee." Harvard Business School Spreadsheet Supplement 624-702, July 2023. View Details
- Chandra, Amitabh, and Sumon Mazumdar. "Ishani Therapeutics: Valuing a Deal." Harvard Business School Case 623-090, June 2023. View Details
- Chandra, Amitabh, and Sumon Mazumdar. "Ishani Therapeutics: Valuing a Deal (Instructor Spreadsheet Supplement)." Harvard Business School Spreadsheet Supplement 623-716, June 2023. View Details
- Chandra, Amitabh, and Sumon Mazumdar. "Ishani Therapeutics: Valuing a Deal (Student Spreadsheet Supplement)." Harvard Business School Spreadsheet Supplement 623-715, June 2023. View Details
- Chandra, Amitabh, and Lauren Gunasti. "Biogen and the Aduhelm Melee." Harvard Business School Case 623-046, June 2023. (Revised July 2024.) View Details
- Chandra, Amitabh, Paul Clancy, and Lauren Gunasti. "Elliott Management: Capital Allocation in Biopharma." Harvard Business School Case 623-045, April 2023. View Details
- Chandra, Amitabh, William J Anderson, and Silvia Mare. "Vertex and the Cure for Type 1 Diabetes ." Harvard Business School Case 623-053, January 2023. View Details
- Chandra, Amitabh, Paul Clancy, and Craig Garthwaite. "Gilead Sciences: Developing a Biopharmaceutical Pipeline Through M&A (Spreadsheet Supplement)." Harvard Business School Spreadsheet Supplement 623-701, July 2022. View Details
- Chandra, Amitabh, Paul Clancy, and Craig Garthwaite. "Gilead Sciences: Developing a Biopharmaceutical Pipeline Through M&A." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 623-014, July 2022. View Details
- Chandra, Amitabh, Paul Clancy, and Craig Garthwaite. "Gilead Sciences: Developing a Biopharmaceutical Pipeline Through M&A." Harvard Business School Case 622-075, January 2022. (Revised July 2022.) View Details
- Schwartzstein, Joshua, Amitabh Chandra, and Amram Migdal. "Value-Based Insurance Design at Onex." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 922-030, December 2021. (Revised February 2023.) View Details
- Chandra, Amitabh, Spencer Lee-Rey, and Caroline Marra. "The SMA Foundation: Steering Therapeutic Research and Development in a Rare Disease." Harvard Business School Case 621-112, May 2021. View Details
- Chandra, Amitabh, and Spencer Lee-Rey. "Who Lives & Who Dies: Expanded Access for Experimental Drugs at Chimerix (B)." Harvard Business School Supplement 621-111, June 2021. View Details
- Chandra, Amitabh, and Spencer Lee-Rey. "Who Lives & Who Dies: Expanded Access for Experimental Drugs at Chimerix (A)." Harvard Business School Case 621-110, June 2021. View Details
- Schwartzstein, Joshua, Amitabh Chandra, and Amram Migdal. "Value-Based Insurance Design at Onex." Harvard Business School Case 921-023, January 2021. View Details
- Chandra, Amitabh, Matthew C. Weinzierl, Lisa Marrone, and Spencer Lee-Rey. "What Will Best Serve Humanity? Accelerating Uses for CRISPR at the Broad Institute." Harvard Business School Case 721-018, October 2020. (Revised June 2021.) View Details
- Chandra, Amitabh, and Sofia Guerra. "Pricing the Priceless: Covering Transformational Medicines at Harvard Pilgrim Health Plan." Harvard Business School Case 621-059, September 2020. (Revised February 2021.) View Details
- Gompers, Paul A., Amitabh Chandra, and Matthew Wozny. "Ginkgo Bioworks: The Cell as a Factory." Harvard Business School Case 220-069, April 2020. View Details
- Chandra, Amitabh, and Ariel Dora Stern. "Technical Note on Bayesian Statistics and Frequentist Power Calculations." Harvard Business School Technical Note 620-032, December 2019. View Details
- Chandra, Amitabh, Spencer Lee-Rey, and Douglas Melton. "CRISPR and the Ethics of Germline Editing." Harvard Business School Case 620-101, February 2020. (Revised June 2021.) View Details
- Pisano, Gary P., William J. Anderson, Amitabh Chandra, Clarissa Ceruti, and Stephanie Oestreich. "The Life Sciences Revolution: A Technical Primer." Harvard Business School Technical Note 620-054, November 2019. (Revised April 2020.) View Details
- Additional Information