Kenneth G. Saag, MD, MSc is Professor of Medicine and holds the Jane Knight Lowe Endowed Chair in the Division and the Department of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham. He became Division Director of Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology in July of 2020. His research focuses on comparative effectiveness and safety of therapeutics as well methods to improve quality of care in gout and osteoporosis. He is Vice Chair of Outcomes and Effectiveness Research and is also the Director of the UAB Comprehensive Arthritis, Musculoskeletal, Bone, and Autoimmunity Center. He has been a practicing physician with UAB Medicine and researcher in the UAB School of Medicine since 1998.
Dr. Saag is President of the American College of Rheumatology and he is a past President of the National Osteoporosis Foundation Board of Trustees, the only rheumatologist to hold that position. He served UAB as Director, Center for Outcomes, Effectiveness Research and Education (COERE) from 2009 to 2020. He also directs the Center of Research Translation (CoRT) in Gout and Hyperuricemia, a program supported by the NIH for nearly a decade. He also founded and directed the UAB AHRQ funded Center for Education and Research on Musculoskeletal Disorders.
Trained as an engineer at the University of Michigan, he received his M.D. from Northwestern University and the M.Sc. in Epidemiology from the University of Iowa. As a Medical Resident at Evanston Hospital, he was recognized as Outstanding Intern of the Year and as a Chief Resident. He completed his fellowship in rheumatology at the University of Iowa. He served as an Assistant Professor at the University of Iowa under Francois Abboud before joining our Department under the leadership of Bill Koopman as Chair and Bob Kimberly as Division Director.
Now is the time for Congress to answer President Biden’s call to action and pass meaningful drug pricing reform that addresses the artificially inflated cost of drugs by manufacturers, PBMs, and payer formulary relationships.