Since 1999, he held the professorship for drug utilization research at the Center for Social Policy, University of Bremen, and headed the "Drug Counseling and Drug Information" ("Arzneimittelberatung und Arzneimittelinformation") research group. Since 2007, he also led the Department of Health, Long-Term Care, and Pensions at SOCIUM – Research Center on Inequality and Social Policy at the University of Bremen. Between 2003 and 2006, he was a member of the executive board of the Center for Public Health (ZPH) in Bremen.

"Gerd Glaeske was an outstanding researcher in the field of health sciences," stated Professor Jutta Günther, Vice President Research at the University of Bremen. "And he was also able to communicate his knowledge to the general public in a way that was easy to understand. He accomplished a great deal. We are deeply saddened and our sympathy and thoughts are with his relatives."