Please note: this event has passed
All are welcome for a book launch of Peak Pharma: Toward a New Political Economy of Health. This in-person event will feature the authors Susi Geiger (University College Dublin) and Théo Bourgeron (University of Edinburgh), in conversation with respondents Courtney Davis (King’s College London) Melissa Barber (Médecins Sans Frontières) and the audience, chaired by Anne Pollock (King’s College London). Continue the conversation over a drinks reception.
Note: the event is free, but registration is required.
About the speakers and panelists
Susi Geiger
Susi Geiger is Full Professor of Markets, Organizations and Society at University College Dublin. Her research investigates how healthcare markets are organized, particularly in the context of social justice, equity and access to medicines concerns. She has published numerous journal articles on these issues, including in Health Policy, Social Science & Medicine, Sociology of Health & Illness, Journal of Medical Ethics, Economy & Society, Journal of Cultural Economy, Organization Studies, Research Policy, and many others, and she has edited several book volumes, including ‘Health Activism: Markets, Morals and the Collective Good’ (Oxford University Press, 2021). Her monograph ‘Peak Pharma: Toward a new political economy of health’ has just been published at Oxford University Press (December 2025). Prof Geiger sits on several editorial boards and has held prestigious research grants and fellowships, including a European Research Council Consolidator grant entitled MISFIRES (2018-2024). She is an ERC Ambassador and a member of the WHO Technical Advisory Group on Pharmaceutical Pricing Policies, and she has been a visiting fellow at globally renowned institutions including UC Berkeley, Ecole de Mines, Weizenbaum Institute Berlin, SciencesPo Paris, University of Copenhagen, University of Vienna, Brocher Foundation Switzerland, and others.
Dr Théo Bourgeron
Dr Théo Bourgeron is a Chancellor's fellow at the University of Edinburgh, in the School of Social and Political Sciences. His research has looked at the entanglement between politics and markets. Before Peak Pharma, he has co-authored a book on links between the financial sector and the alt-right (Alt-Finance, Pluto Books, 2022). He has published in journals such as the Socio-Economic Review, Economy & Society, New Political Economy, Organization Studies.
Dr Courtney Davis
Dr Courtney Davis is a Reader in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at King's College London. She is a medical and political sociologist with broad research interests in the intersections of science and technology policy, business regulation and public health. For over ten years she has undertaken empirically-based, policy relevant international comparative research investigating the socio-political, economic, cultural and scientific factors underlying trends in regulation and the implications of current techno-scientific standards for public, patient and worker health in relation to two distinct fields of inquiry: pharmaceuticals and occupational health and safety.
Dr Melissa Barber
Dr Melissa Barber is a health economist researching access to medicines at Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and the Yale Collaboration for Regulatory Rigor, Integrity, and Transparency (CRRIT). My research crosses economics, political science, and law to better understand pharmaceutical markets and their relationship to public health. She hold a PhD in Population Health Science (Health Systems) from Harvard University (2023) and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Yale University (2023–2025). Her professional experience spans a range of global health institutions, including the World Health Organization (WHO), the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria (GFATM), the World Bank, the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), the Ada Lovelace Institute, and the Addressing the Challenge and Constraints of Insulin Sources and Supply (ACCISS) study.
Professor Anne Pollock
Professor Anne Pollock is a professor of Global Health and Social Medicine at King's College London. Her research focuses on the intersecting areas of the social science of pharmaceuticals, racism and health, and feminist, antiracist, and postcolonial science and technology studies. She is the author of multiple books, and is currently engaged in collaborative research on "Making Pharma Otherwise: Alternative Models of Pharmaceutical Research, Development, and Production for the Public Good".
At this event
Professor of Global Health & Social Medicine
Reader in Global Health and Social Medicine
Event details
KIN 623 (Anatomy Museum), 6th FloorKing's Building
Strand Campus, Strand, London, WC2R 2LS