Inspired by UIC Professors, Caitlyn Solem Rose Quickly at Pharmerit

Dr. Caitlyn Solem’s fast rise at Pharmerit began with a lesson from her UIC professors: Edit vigorously

Solem, MS ’08, PhD ’10, first encountered Pharmerit, a health economics and outcomes consultancy, during a fellowship sponsored by UIC and Novo Nordisk. As one of her projects, she reviewed a paper prepared by Pharmerit. Following her preceptor’s instructions, she treated it like her professors treated her work.

Hired initially as a scientist at Pharmerit, Solem rose to senior scientist and lead scientist positions, becoming associate director within four years.

“I sent back very much a bleeding document,” Solem said. “It had a lot of edits.”

Caitlyn Solem, MS '08, PhD '10

That “bloody” paper first alarmed Pharmerit partner Marc Botteman — he thought they might be angry with him — then impressed him. He had a job waiting for Solem when she graduated.

Now an executive director at Pharmerit, Solem manages projects helping pharma companies develop studies to support their medications. She also jumps in to work on the projects directly, leveraging her background in and love for healtheconomics and -outcomes research and statistics.

“It’s a lot of trying to help pharmaceutical companies…figure out what are they

trying to say, and then working with them on how best to measure that,” she said.

Solem’s career has grown quickly, alongside the company. “At the time I joined, there were around 20 people on, so everyone was doing everything,” she said. “And it was really exciting. It was going through a period of a lot of change.”

Hired initially as a scientist at Pharmerit, Solem rose to senior scientist and lead scientist positions, becoming associate director within four years. Next came senior and executive director positions. “So it’s been roughly a promotion per year, which has been really, really nice,” she said.

Along the way, Solem took leadership roles at the company's new centers for excellence, starting with the real-world evidence/data analytics center in 2016 and taking over the patient-centered outcomes center in 2018. (She handed off data-analytics leadership this year.)

A lot of Solem’s work involves training, advising and mentoring other researchers, which she calls one of the most rewarding parts of her job. “It's just kind of seeing the progression of people that I've been able to mentor also succeed in their own ways,” she said.

And aside from those early lessons in red-filled edits, UIC helped make Solem's career trajectory possible, she said. “I got to see a lot of passionate researchers, and that made me want to do the same,” she said. “That really drove me to my career.”