Emma Mackay, MA, MSc, P.Stat.

Statistical consultant specializing in Bayesian methods and causal inference for medical research

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Bio

I am a scientific advisor in statistics at Inka Health. I specialize in Bayesian methods and causal inference for medical research. My recent work has focused on applying Bayesian borrowing to address the challenges of evaluating efficacy/effectiveness in rare disease settings. I have extensive experience in health economics & outcomes research (HEOR) analytics with expertise in meta-analysis, survival modelling, synthetic control arms, and population-adjusted indirect comparisons.

Prior to joining Inka Health, I worked for 4 years at Cytel in the Real World & Advanced Analytics group where I rose to the role of Research Principal in Statistics. I also have prior experience working in an economics setting, including 2 years in the Antitrust & Competition Economics practice at Charles River Associates applying statistical/econometric methods for regulatory reviews of mergers and acquisitions.

I hold an MSc in Statistics from the University of Toronto and an MA in Economics from Queen’s University. I also have Professional Statistician (P.Stat.) accreditation from the Statistical Society of Canada.

For a recent perspective on evaluating treatments for rare indications and the benefits of a Bayesian approach, see here for an article I co-authored.

Recent Conference Oral Presentations

  • Mackay EK, Springford A, Dias S. Indirect Treatment Comparison of Larotrectinib vs Entrectinib in NTRK-Fusion Solid Tumors: Demonstration of a Novel Bayesian Hierarchical Modelling Approach for Basket Trials. (Podium presentation at ISPOR Europe 2024 in Barcelona, Spain; part of “Addressing Uncertainty and Bias in Comparative Effectiveness Analysis” session)
  • Mackay EK, Springford A, Dias S. Bayesian Hierarchical Modelling Approaches to Indirect Treatment Comparisons between Single-arm Basket Trials: An Application to NTRK-fusion Solid Tumours (Presented at the Bayesian Biostatistics Conference–Bayes 2024–in Rockville, MD)
  • Benefits of Bayesian Priors as Regularizers in Challenging Meta-analysis Settings (Presented at JSM 2024 in Portland, OR; session: “Bayesian methods and applications in clinical trials”)
  • Bayesian borrowing approaches to address the challenges of evaluating efficacy/effectiveness in rare indications: applications to basket trials and pediatric studies. (Presented at SSC 2024 in St. John’s, NL; session: “The Bayesian Edge: Novel Applications of Bayesian Methods to Clinical Research, Indirect Treatment Comparison, and Public Health”)
  • Addressing Key Challenges in the Setting of Tumor-Agnostic Drugs: Meeting an Unmet Need? (Workshop at ISPOR 2024 in Atlanta, GA; presenters: Beth Devine, Yilin Chen, Emma Mackay, Daniel Ollendorf; slides available here)
  • Outside Help: Can Bayesian Borrowing Help Supplement Limited Sample Sizes in Pediatric and Rare Disease Trials While Mitigating Risk of Bias? (Workshop at ISPOR 2024 in Atlanta, GA; presenters: Paul Arora, Emma Mackay, Aaron Springford; slides available here)
  • Basket Weaving: Can Bayes Help Us Develop a Better Path for Evaluating Efficacy in Basket Trials? (Workshop presented at ISPOR Europe 2023 in Copenhagen, Denmark; presenters: Bart Heeg, Sofia Dias, Emma Mackay)
  • Mackay EK, Springford A, Heeg B, Arora P, Thorlund K. A Novel Information Borrowing Approach for Evaluating Response in Pediatric Basket Trials with Limited Sample Sizes. 2023. (Talk presented at the Bayes 2023 Bayesian Biostatistics Conference in Utrecht, Netherlands; slides available here)
  • Mackay E, Springford A. Power implications of estimator choice in synthetic control arm analyses: Results from a simulation comparing average treatment effects on the treated and untreated under propensity score weighting. 2022. (Podium presentation at ISPOR US 2022 conference)

Recent Invited Talks

  • External Control Arm Methods in Practice (Sept. 10, 2024 talk for the Xu Lab at the University Health Network (UHN), Toronto, Canada)
  • Bayesian borrowing approaches for rare disease settings: applications to basket trials and pediatric studies (June 26, 2024 talk for the IMPaCT Lab at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), Toronto, Canada)
  • Borrowing Strength: Applications of Bayesian Methods to Clinical Trials in Rare Diseases (April 18 2024 talk at the The Applied Biostatistics Association (TABA) knowledge sharing and networking meeting)
  • Bayesian Borrowing Methods for Clinical Trials in Rare Indications (invited March 2024 Xactly Speaking talk at Cytel)

Publications and Preprints

  • Arora P, Gupta A, Mackay E, Heeg B, Thorlund K. The Inflation Reduction Act: An Opportunity to Accelerate Confidence in US Real-World Evidence. Value in Health. 2024 Apr. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jval.2024.04.007
  • Struebing A, McKibbon C, Ruan H, Mackay E, Dennis N, Velummailum R, He P, Tanaka Y, Xiong Y, Springford A, Rosenlund M. Augmenting external control arms using Bayesian borrowing: a case study in first-line non-small cell lung cancer. Journal of Comparative Effectiveness Research. 2024 Apr. https://doi.org/10.57264/cer-2023-0175
  • Mackay EK, Springford A. Impact of Hyperprior Choice for Bayesian Dynamic Borrowing via a Normalized Power Prior. JSM Proceedings. Alexandria, VA: American Statistical Association. 2023 Oct. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10001953
  • Springford A, Mackay EK. A Note on the Misspecification of the Random Effects Distribution in the Bayesian Analysis of Basket Trials with Time-to-Event Endpoints. JSM Proceedings. Alexandria, VA: American Statistical Association. 2023 Oct. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10002223
  • Mackay EK, Springford A. Evaluating Treatments in Rare Indications Warrants a Bayesian Approach. Frontiers in Pharmacology. 2023 Sep. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphar.2023.1249611
  • Boyne DJ, Brenner DR, Gupta A, Mackay E, Arora P, Wasiak R, Cheung WY, Hernán MA. Head-to-head comparison of front-line FOLFIRINOX versus Gemcitabine plus Nab-Paclitaxel among Individuals with Advanced Pancreatic Cancer in a Real-World Setting - A Target Trial Emulation. Annals of Epidemiology. 2023 Feb. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annepidem.2022.12.005
  • Chaudhary MA, Edmondson-Jones M, Baio G, Mackay E, Penrod JR, Sharpe DJ, Yates G, Rafiq S, Johannesen K, Siddiqui MK, Vanderpuye-Orgle J, Briggs A. Use of advanced flexible modelling approaches for survival extrapolation from early follow-up data in two nivolumab trials in advanced NSCLC with extended follow-up. Medical Decision Making. 2022 Oct. https://doi.org/10.1177/0272989X221132257
  • He J, Berringer H, Heeg B, Ruan H, Kampfenkel T, Dwarakanathan HR, Johnston S, Mendes J, Lam A, Bathija S, Mackay E. Indirect Treatment Comparison of Daratumumab, Pomalidomide, and Dexamethasone Versus Standard of Care in Patients with Difficult-to-Treat Relapsed/Refractory Multiple Myeloma. Advances in Therapy. 2022 July. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12325-022-02226-x
  • Hsu GG, Mackay E, Scheuer N, Ramagopalan SV. Keeping it real: implications of real-world treatment outcomes for first-line immunotherapy in metastatic non-small-cell lung cancer. Immunotherapy. 2021. https://doi.org/10.2217/imt-2021-0237
  • Wilkinson S, Gupta A, Scheuer N, Mackay E, Arora P, Thorlund K, Wasiak R, Ray J, Ramagopalan S, Subbiah V. Assessment of alectinib vs ceritinib in ALK-positive non–small cell lung cancer in phase 2 trials and in real-world data. JAMA network open. 2021. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.26306
  • Keefe DT, Kim JK, Mackay E, Chua M, Van Mieghem T, Yadav P, Lolas M, Santos JD, Skreta M, Erdman L, Weaver J, Fermin AS, Tasian G, Lorenzo AJ, Rickard M. Predictive accuracy of prenatal ultrasound findings for lower urinary tract obstruction: A systematic review and Bayesian meta‐analysis. Prenatal diagnosis. 2021. https://doi.org/10.1002/pd.6025
  • Dillman A, Zoratti MJ, Park JJ, Hsu G, Dron L, Smith G, Harari O, Rayner CR, Zannat NE, Gupta A, Mackay E, Arora P, Lee Z, Mills EJ. The landscape of emerging randomized clinical trial evidence for COVID-19 disease stages: A systematic review of global trial registries. Infection and Drug Resistance. 2020. https://doi.org/10.2147/IDR.S288399

Selected Research Abstracts

  • Mackay E, Springford A, Heeg B, Arora P, Thorlund K. Combating Sample Scarcity: A Novel Bayesian Approach to Pediatric Basket Trials. 2023. (Poster presented at ISPOR Europe 2023 in Copenhagen, Denmark)
  • Strübing A, McKibbon C, Ruan H, Mackay E, Dennis N, Velummailum R, He P, Tanaka Y, Xiong Y, Springford A, Rosenlund M. Augmenting Synthetic Control Arms Using Bayesian Borrowing: A Case Study in First-Line Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer. 2023 (Poster presented at ISPOR Europe 2023 in Copenhagen, Denmark)
  • Mackay E, Springford A, Nagamuthu C, Dron L, Dias S. Bayesian Hierarchical Models for Indirect Treatment Comparisons of Histology-independent Therapies for Survival Outcomes. Value in Health. 2023 Jun. (Poster presented at ISPOR 2023 in Boston, MA).
  • Mackay E, Springford A, Nagamuthu C, Dron L. A Bayesian Hierarchical Modelling Approach for Indirect Comparison of Response Outcomes in Histology-Independent Therapies. Value in Health. 2022 Dec. (Poster presented at ISPOR Europe 2022)
  • Mackay E, Chaudhary MA, Vanderpuye-Orgle J, Edmonson-Jones M, Rafiq S, Siddiqui MK, Teitsson S, Juarez-Garcia A, Penrod JR. Using Mixture Cure Models to Improve Survival Extrapolations from Early Follow-up Data for Nivolumab in NSCLC. 2020. (Poster presentation at ISPOR EU 2021 conference)