Elize Massard da Fonseca is an associate professor at the Sao Paulo School of Business Administration (EAESP/FGV) in Brazil.
Her research examines how Latin American countries confront a central development dilemma: whether to rely on imported medicines or invest in the capacity to produce them domestically. The study innovates by highlighting the role of health regulation in debates on industrial policy, viewing it not merely as a technical requirement but as a tool for shaping markets (marketcraft). It also applies a political economy perspective to analyze how government, the pharmaceutical industry, and business associations compete for resources and influence in shaping these policies. These dimensions address aspects often overlooked by the structuralist and normative approaches that dominate the literature.
Her work has appeared in high-impact journals such as the Research Policy, New England Journal of Medicine, Social Science and Medicine, PLoS Medicine, Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, and others.
She has a book on Brazil's generic drug regulation reform published by Springer and co-organized a book about Coronavirus Politics by the University of Michigan Press (2021).
She was a non-resident visiting fellow at the Latin American and Carribean Center at the London School of Economics (LACC/LSE), visiting scholar at the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of California Berkeley, visiting researcher at the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan, and visiting researcher at the Department of International Development at the London School of Economics. She holds a PhD in Social Policy from the University of Edinburgh (UK, 2011) and a PhD in Public Health from the National School of Public Health (Brazil, 2008). She has led several consultancy projects for United Nations agencies (PAHO, UNODC, UNFPA) on issues related to the monitoring and evaluation of public health and social protection projects.