Katja Hakkarainen, PhD

Katja has more than 15 years of experience in epidemiology and pharmacoepidemiology across multiple therapeutic areas. She is an expert in RWE studies, including roles as principal investigator. Her knowledge encompasses epidemiological studies using secondary data sources and Real-World Data (RWD) for regulatory submissions.

Work experience

Katja has fulfilled leadership positions at global pharmaceutical research companies with increasing levels of responsibility and global reach. Before joining Parexel in 2022, she served as Head of Epidemiology in a large CRO, where she established and managed a team of 35 epidemiologists. She is an academician with over 30 peer-reviewed publications and experience teaching epidemiology, pharmacoepidemiology, register-based epidemiology, and pharmaceutical outcomes research.

Education 

• Ph.D. Medicine (Epidemiology), University of Gothenburg, Sweden
• MScPharm, University of Helsinki, Finland; Registered pharmacist in Finland and Sweden