Sam Salek is Professor of Pharmacoepidemiology in the School of Life and Medical Sciences, University of Hertfordshire, UK where he leads the Public Health & Patient Safety research group. He is also the Director of the Institute for Medicine Development, Cardiff, UK, and a visiting Professor at the State of Hessen, Germany. Professor Salek is the co-founded and past chair of the Patient Engagement Special Interest Group of the International Society of Quality of Research, co-chairs the European Hematology Association (EHA) Scientific Working Group for Quality of Life and Symptoms and chairs the EHA SWG 'Gaucher's Disease Task Force'
Professor Salek completed his undergraduate degree in Pharmacy at the University of Oklahoma, USA, in 1978. He later moved to Cardiff where he studied for his PhD, 1985–1989. Since completing his PhD, Professor Salek has held a number of academic posts on both sides of the Atlantic. His major research interests are in the development, evaluation and application of instruments to assess patient-reported outcomes and health-related quality of life (HRQoL). His other major research interests are in the areas of pharmacoeconomics/ health economics, benefit-risk assessment of medicines and pharmaceutical regulatory science.
Professor Salek has developed a few undergraduate, postgraduate diploma and MSc courses over the past 32 years which they continue to be successful. Of noteworthy: he developed and modernised the 2-year part-time Postgraduate Course in Pharmaceutical Medicine (Dip Pharm Med) and was the Course Director for 30 years; he is the founder of the MSc in International Pharmaeconomic & Health Economics in 2006 and was the Programme Director until 2015; he was the founder of the Integrated Master of Regulatory Science (an undergraduate programme) which received approval from the University of Hertfordshire Validation Board in April 2017 which was rolled out in September 2018. He, since March 2021, chairs the Regulatory Module of the IFAPP Academy Course in Medicines Development.
Professor Salek is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain. He is a member of five Editorial boards and has published 20 books and over 650 journal articles and abstracts. He has developed and validated 11 general and disease-specific patient-reported/ HRQoL outcome measures, whilst also collaborating with the pharmaceutical industry to design HRQoL protocols for clinical trials. Increasingly, Professor Salek is shifting his emphasis towards the practical applications of HRQoL measures in clinical decision-making and policy and patient engagement in research as partners/collaborators.