Avalere Health (Network): 2024
Avalere Health (Network)
No. 3 Booths Park, Chelford Road, Knutsford, Cheshire, UK, WA16 8GS
+44 161 528 9606 • [email protected] • avalerehealth.com
Finalist
- Network of the Year
Last year was “hugely significant” in its 23-year company history, says CEO John Koch. “Because it was the year we came together as Avalere Health.”
In October, Fishawack Health rebranded to Avalere Health — a name meaning strength, vitality, and learning — and launched its new brand inspired by its foundational belief: better health happens when we connect.
In a move that cemented the company’s connected commercialization partner proposition, it brought together more than a dozen agency and consultancy brands under a single name, infrastructure, and vision. Today, each of Avalere Health’s 1,500+ experts are united across 19 locations on three continents.
“We committed to going to market as one Avalere Health — one ethos, one brand, one vision, one team, and one united service set,” says Amar Urhekar, chief operating officer. “In a sea of agency sub-brands, we’re the only company with the courage to come out with a single unified brand identity.”
Simultaneously, the company rounded out its executive leadership team with exciting new hires, reported a near zero percent gender pay gap, invested in data and technology, and continued to optimize its internal integration and collaboration. Its teams achieved all this while winning numerous awards and delivering double-digit growth in profit and revenue.
Recent accomplishments
Avalere Health’s new visual identity, centered on murmurations of starlings moving as one, reflects the company’s powerful connections across its capabilities. Leveraging collective intelligence, its teams provide multiple perspectives simultaneously, building unity across the treatment journey and driving sustainable change in clinical settings.
‘’From determining the value of an asset to ensuring every patient is valued, we operate without boundaries, connecting science and creativity, technology and data, ability and agility, to solve health care’s most complex challenges,” explains Koch.
The reason behind the rebrand was twofold: to make it simpler for clients to do business and to empower Avalere Health’s teams to innovate at speed. This is evidenced through the company’s common model of client partnership and infrastructure that ensures the group rapidly mobilizes to deliver best-in-class solutions.
Clients and the wider industry have responded positively to the offering, with the company reporting 14 percent growth, increasing its roster to more than 250 clients, and securing more than 150 collaborative projects.
Its teams won more than 30 awards, including the PM360 ELITE 2023 Marketing Team award and accolades for work in complex rare diseases. Its award-
winning campaign to engage rheumatologists showcases its unified model, with the work bridging science and creativity between medical and commercial teams to develop an inspiring, engaging, and deeply relevant digital experience, driving clarity for prescribers on a new treatment paradigm.
Technological advancement remained a priority in 2023. Avalere Health established its interdisciplinary AI council, and its teams are partnering with major tech companies, evolving internal capabilities, and developing tools that solve client business challenges and enhance internal productivity.
Internally, the company reported a near zero percent (0.33 percent) gender pay gap, an achievement of which Koch is proud. “It is immensely important to me personally that we ensure we remain a fair, respectful, and inclusive organization,” he says.
To develop the next generation of diverse talent, Avalere Health’s People team has embedded coaching, mentoring, personalized career mapping, leadership programs, and graduate and internship programs across each capability, and provided access to more than 2,000 development courses. It has also cemented global benefits, wellness, family-forming, and gender-related support and continued to provide new benefits aimed at supporting employees navigating life events, such as cancer care, starting a family, and menopause. “Our employees deliver outstanding work when they are happy and motivated. We’re creating a culture that enables everyone to be their best selves while acknowledging the complexities of life,” Urhekar says.
Structure and services
Avalere Health’s teams in Consulting; Medical; Policy; Value, Evidence, and Access; Marketing; and Digital Experience Technology connect from advisory to implementation to deliver across the product life cycle. Its services are powered by data and proprietary platforms, spanning market access, health economics and outcomes research, and omnichannel engagements.
The company added new datasets to provide an end-to-end view of the patient journey and invested in data on autoimmune diseases. These complement its expansive open and closed claims data representing all payer markets, formulary and benefit design data, clinical data, and data on the social determinants of health, as well as patient programs, digital interactions, devices, and market data. Armed with these insights, its teams apply their collective deep and broad knowledge to simplify the complex and make the science relevant for all patients, healthcare professionals, providers, payers, policymakers, and investors. “From market access to marketing, our data allows us to develop agile and future-proofed strategies that flex in real-time as patient needs and behaviors change,” says Gail Flockhart, chief commercial officer.
When asked how Avalere Health continues to innovate globally, technically, and cross-functionally, Koch states it’s down to the deep expertise of its people. The company made several key executive hires, including Urhekar; John Gransee, chief financial officer; Harriet Shurville, chief people officer; Mario Muredda, president of marketing; Tim Wright, global head of policy, access, value, and evidence; and Effie Baoutis, president of medical.
“We have rounded out our executive team with industry veterans with experience across diverse functions and an understanding of how different parts of the industry come together powerfully. They are building connections that advance our clients’ impact on lives around the world,” Urhekar says.
Future plans
In 2024, Avalere Health intends to continue to expand its global footprint, growing its presence into Canada, China, and India to provide more capacity, agility, and efficiency while maintaining quality.
In a challenging environment characterized by a complex funding and M&A landscape, Avalere Health is enhancing its bespoke full-service offering for emerging biotech clients. “Many biotechnology companies have responded to these complexities by cutting earlier development programs and doubling down on their lead assets,” Flockhart says. “We’re supporting them to think differently, bringing policy and social considerations into early planning, so they make the right decisions and ensure access for all.”
Avalere Health continues to advance its healthcare policy offering, which remains a differentiator in a crowded agency landscape. Its global, federal, and state policy experts are renowned across the industry. In January, more than 3,000 people tuned into its annual industry outlook webinar on the seismic impact of the Inflation Reduction Act.
“This year, we’re launching new advisory boards where we will collaborate with industry leaders to consult on the future of policy and value. We’re also continuously building enterprise-
wide initiatives to ensure our clients benefit from the extensive market insights our policy experts offer,” Flockhart says.
Philanthropy/citizenship
Avalere Health remains focused on supporting underrepresented communities. In 2023, it launched a global Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council to develop equitable strategies and solutions from pre-clinical to post-launch.
In the United States, the company is also launching a new Pro Bono Committee for organizations normally unable to afford its work but who could genuinely benefit from the team’s expertise. In December, Avalere Health donated to Doctors without Borders on behalf of its clients to support its mission of responding quickly to save lives, 365 days a year. The company has also supported a range of local healthcare charities covering anxiety and depression, autism, multiple sclerosis, multiple myeloma, and childhood disabilities.
“Collaborating with local leaders and communities is essential for meeting the needs of diverse populations,” Koch says. “It is a vital component of delivering our vision of imagining a healthier world and building the connections to make it happen across the globe.”
