The healthcare system is veering towards unaffordability. Are you inspired to tackle this challenge and revolutionize the complete system, ensuring accessibility to affordable medicines for everyone? Join us, and by addressing industry, government, societal perspectives, and medicine production operations from a quantitative perspective, you'll shape policies and optimize operational decision-making with the ultimate goal of affordable, personalized medicines.

Unlock the potential of affordable healthcare solutions! Two fully funded PhD positions are available in the VIDI project of Tugce Martagan (see: https://www.tue.nl/en/news-and-events/news-overview/prestigieuze-vidi-beurs-voor-vier-tue-onderzoekers) in collaboration with Collin Drent and Melvin Drent. The healthcare landscape is changing drastically to find the delicate balance between affordable access to medicines, innovation, and industry concerns.

This project adopts an objective and balanced approach to (bio)pharmaceutical drug supply chains from the joint perspectives of the government, industry, payers (major health insurance companies), hospitals and pharmacies. Notably, we place particular emphasis on a quantitative modeling (e.g. using mathematical concepts from game theory, stochastic optimization) approach towards this problem. 

Potential topics you can work on during this PhD project are:

Optimizing Coverage and Pricing Decisions: Develop analytical models to optimize decisions on when to cover which medicines (commercial, personalized medicines, or a combination of both) and for what premium/price, from the perspective of major health insurance companies.

Enhancing Production Processes: Create stochastic optimization models to ensure cost-effective, safe, and consistent production of personalized medicines, reducing lead times and minimizing medicine waste. Investigate the production of medicines at hospitals or pharmacies, and facilitate the collaboration between manufacturers and hospitals in the context of personalized medicine production and delivery.  

Policy Development: Investigate and propose innovative incentive mechanisms and policies to facilitate patient access to affordable (personalized) medicines and foster innovation of novel medicines.

Personalized Medicine: Develop optimal adaptive medicine treatment plans that are personalized (that is, they incorporate patients' heterogeneity and treatment compliance) to reduce time-to-recovery and hence the cost of the treatment.    

This list of topics is non-exhaustive. We ask you, as part of your application, to draft your own research statement, describing related topics you are eager to explore. Your proposed topics may extend beyond the listed possibilities, reflecting your unique perspective, skills, and interests in contributing to this transformative research.

In this position, you will work in the team of Tugce Martagan and be co-supervised by either Melvin Drent or Collin Drent.

• A master's degree (or an equivalent university degree) with excellent grades in Operations Research, (Applied) Mathematics, Industrial Engineering, or related field. A research master's degree (e.g., MRes, MPhil) is not required; however, graduating from a program with solid research training will be considered a plus.
• A strong mathematical background, including expertise in stochastic optimization, game theory, statistics, and/or applied probability.   
• Excellent coding skills (e.g., in Java, Python, Julia, MATLAB).
• A research-oriented attitude.
• Ability to be self-propelling and drive your own research.
• Ability to work in an interdisciplinary team and interested in collaborating with industrial partners.
• Fluent in spoken and written English (C1 level).

A meaningful job in a dynamic and ambitious university, in an interdisciplinary setting and within an international network. You will work on a beautiful, green campus within walking distance of the central train station. In addition, we offer you:

• Full-time employment for four years, with an intermediate evaluation (go/no-go) after nine months. You will spend 10% of your employment on teaching tasks.
• Salary and benefits (such as a pension scheme, paid pregnancy and maternity leave, partially paid parental leave) in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities, scale P (min. €2,872 max. €3,670)..
• A year-end bonus of 8.3% and annual vacation pay of 8%.
• High-quality training programs and other support to grow into a self-aware, autonomous scientific researcher. At TU/e we challenge you to take charge of your own learning process.
• An excellent technical infrastructure, on-campus children's day care and sports facilities.
• An allowance for commuting, working from home and internet costs.
• A Staff Immigration Team and a tax compensation scheme (the 30% facility) for international candidates.