Life as a Director in Market Access

Why work for Avalere Health?

Two things attracted me to the company: the people and the digital applications. Everyone is genuine and helpful, and the team is very knowledgeable with lots of industry experience. The proprietary digital applications such as the Healthcheck^®, Navigator^®, and Tracker^®, are complementary to our consulting skills. I came on board to work on the Navigator^®, which makes the process of developing high-quality Health Technology Assessment (HTA) submissions more efficient through auto-populating multiple draft submissions from client global evidence packages. As I’d worked on developing client global evidence dossiers and writing local HTA submissions in my previous role, this allowed me to use the knowledge and skills I already had and apply them in a different way, which was really appealing to me.

What impact has your work made to the organization?

The most rewarding part of working in market access is seeing a product you have worked on receive a positive HTA decision and subsequently being made available for patients. We recently worked with a midsize biotech launching its first product in Europe. The client had very little resource in local markets but needed to develop high‑quality HTA submissions across multiple countries efficiently to increase the speed to patient access. The whole process was managed for the client using the Navigator^® to auto-populate draft submissions and work with a network of local expert vendors to finalize the submissions. It was fantastic to see the first positive decisions coming in, knowing that we helped accelerate the process for patients to access the treatment they needed.

What do you find most rewarding about your work?

Seeing my colleagues gain confidence and progress in their careers is my favorite part of working in market access consultancy. As well as line‑managing, I work across many different project teams, so I have the opportunity to train, mentor, and coach in my role. It’s really rewarding to see colleagues achieve that next step in their career—be it presenting to the client for the first time, taking on their first project in a lead role, or getting a well-deserved promotion.

Why pursue a career in market access?

It’s super interesting—no day is the same! We work across different project types and different products, so you could be working in oncology looking at competitor products’ HTA outcomes for learnings for your clients’ product, while writing a value dossier for a respiratory vaccine, and conducting some primary research with healthcare decision‑makers in a rare disease at the same time. Every day is a school day!

What do you most value in your team?

I always value taking the opportunity to check in with my colleagues. It’s important to have fun when you’re working, and I really enjoy all the informal chats at the start of any call/meeting. It’s so much easier working in a team when you can drop each other a Teams message, pick up the phone, or pop into a meeting room and talk your ideas through. Building relationships internally means that we work as a better team to deliver client projects.