Sean Tunis, MD, MSc

Sean Tunis, MD, MSc is the Founder of the Center for Medical Technology Policy (CMTP) in Baltimore, Maryland. Dr. Tunis has served as the company’s CEO since its founding in 2008 and established the company’s mission to improve clinical evidence for health care delivery and health policy decisions. He is stepping out of the CEO role as of February 1, 2019. He will continue to contribute substantively in 2019 to CMTP’s ongoing work as a Senior Strategic Advisor, especially working to expand and solidify our ever-growing network of stakeholders. Participation of stakeholders to help shape and inform clinical research design – i.e., participation of patients and caregivers, providers, payers, health technology assessors, and others – continues to be a central tenet of CMTP’s commitment to changing health care for the better.

Much of Dr. Tunis’s past career has been focused on strategies to improve the quality and relevance of evidence available to inform clinical and health policy decisions. He was a member of Senator Ted Kennedy’s staff in the US Senate, working on legislation on orphan drugs, FDA user fees, and the reauthorization of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. As head of the health program at the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment he helped to develop a seminal report on improving health research titled: Identifying Health Technologies that Work: Searching for Evidence (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc39739/). He then helped to implement several key recommendations from this report during his tenure as Chief Medical Officer of the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services from 2000 to 2006. These included the promotion of Practical (pragmatic) Clinical Trials and the application of Coverage with Evidence Development in the Medicare Program. After establishing CMTP, Dr. Tunis worked with congressional staff to help draft the section of the Affordable Care Act that established the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). Dr. Tunis was also a member of the Institute of Medicine Committee on Initial National Priorities for Comparative Effectiveness Research, which generated a widely used definition of the field and identified critical topics for research.

Dr. Tunis received a medical degree and Masters in Health Services Research from the Stanford University School of Medicine, and a BS degree in Biology and History of Science from the Cornell University School of Agriculture. Dr. Tunis did his residency training at UCLA and the University of Maryland in Emergency Medicine and Internal Medicine. He is board certified in Internal Medicine, maintains an active medical license and holds adjunct faculty appointments at Johns Hopkins and Tufts University Schools of Medicine.