Methods Lead
Pfizer, Inc.
Dr. Michelle Iannacone is the Methods Lead in Safety Surveillance Research, Worldwide Safety with combined FDA and industry experience; she has extensive experience in real-world epidemiology research. Dr. Iannacone’s work has included the development of novel epidemiological methods, such as the use of negative controls in non-interventional epidemiology studies to increase interpretability of observed effects. These studies involve investigating the role of viruses in cancer etiology, the effects of immunosuppressants in skin cancer development in organ-transplant recipients, the long-term safety risks of biosimilars in patients with rheumatoid arthritis, and most recently, the association between Paxlovid treatment and long-COVID. Prior to joining Pfizer, Michelle worked at the US FDA as an Epidemiologist in postmarketing safety surveillance in the Office of Surveillance and Epidemiology in the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, in which she reviewed study protocols and reports as well as designed and executed studies. She has a Doctorate Degree and a Master of Public Health in Epidemiology & Biostatistics from the University of South Florida, School of Public Health. She completed her post-doctoral work in the Infections and Cancer Biology Group at the International Agency for Research on Cancer, located in Lyon, France and was a Research Scientist in Cancer Epidemiology at the QIMR Medical Research Institute in Brisbane, Australia.