“We are delighted to welcome Laura to Avalere,” says Sarah Alwardt, senior vice president and Evidence & Strategy practice director. “Laura will be a creative partner to our clients looking to demonstrate value to the market in both conventional and innovative ways. Her leadership and industry perspective will be invaluable to our growing practice.”

About Laura Housman

Laura brings extensive expertise in strategy, evidence generation, reimbursement and pricing, patient communications, population health, and personalized medicine to drive access to innovation across healthcare.

Before joining Avalere, Laura was chief commercial and operations officer of the diagnostic company Olaris. She also founded Access Solutions Consulting, which serves an extensive network of pharmaceutical, medical device, and diagnostic companies. Prior to that work, Laura developed a function and led a team developing novel real-world evidence, population health initiatives, and market access solutions for a broad range of diagnostic assays at Exact Sciences. She also led the Market Access, Pricing, and Health Economics & Outcomes Research group within Novartis Pharmaceutical Corporation’s global pharma/molecular diagnostics unit and was executive director of marketing for Charles River Laboratories, focused on the commercialization of its worldwide preclinical, first-in-human, and biopharmaceutical services. Additionally, Laura served as director of marketing for Genzyme Genetics, where she spearheaded marketing and commercialization strategies in support of managed care outreach.

“I have dedicated my career to driving access to healthcare innovation for patients,” says Laura. “Evidence of positive impact of interventions through rigorous study, patient-reported outcomes, and scalable strategies is fundamental to broad access, and I am thrilled to be joining Avalere Health to further build the exceptional Evidence & Strategy team and its expertise in support of our clients.”

In addition to her work within the industry, Laura spent a decade leading health services evaluation, contracting, and provider profiling initiatives as a director within not-for-profit healthcare insurance plan Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts. Laura is also an active advisor on a number of industry and volunteer boards, including serving as a Merit Reviewer for the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Initiative.

Laura holds a Master of Public Health, a Master of Business Administration, and a bachelor’s degree in economics from Boston University. She is currently a candidate for Doctor of Public Health at Boston University.