Dana Macher specializes in market access and commercialization.
She advises clients on integrated market access strategies, product commercialization plans, and public and private payer engagement strategies. With more than 20 years in the life sciences industry, she successfully launched several oncology products. Dana has extensive knowledge of hospital inpatient and outpatient settings as well as physician office reimbursement systems by effectively positioning novel drugs with payers. She is deeply involved with Avalere’s policy team assessing the impact of payment reform, especially in oncology.
Prior to joining Avalere, Dana was a senior consultant at DK Pierce & Associates, supporting clients in all aspects of coverage, coding, and payment strategies. She led all marketing research efforts, including advisory boards, qualitative interviews, and quick turnaround surveys with payers, KOLs, and practice administrators. Prior, Dana worked for Chiron Therapeutics, a Bay-area biotechnology company where she launched a novel chemotherapeutic agent and provided strategic direction to oncology business units, highlighted by the orchestration of a significant inpatient DRG payment increase with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Dana earned a BS in chemical engineering from Mississippi State University and an MBA from Dartmouth’s Amos Tuck School of Business.
Authored Content
An Avalere survey of 37 decision-makers at risk-bearing payer entities identified shifting trends and focus for coverage of and access to behavioral health treatments and services.
Digital health solutions continue to advance the way healthcare is delivered. Through research and development as well as stakeholder partnerships, life science companies can leverage digital health technologies to optimize access along the patient care journey.
Avalere analysis finds that approximately 1 in 5 Medicare beneficiaries with advanced urothelial carcinoma (UC) or renal cell carcinoma (RCC) see a physician that has access to McKesson Value Pathways or Elsevier ClinicalPath vendor clinical pathways programs
The COVID-19 pandemic is driving greater demand for digital mental health products and services. Stronger scientific evidence is necessary to determine value and increase payer reimbursement.
Join Avalere experts for Part 1 of our Market Access Enablement Strategies webinar series to learn about how life sciences companies are pivoting with pre-/post-new product launch strategies, including differential investments to inform market access execution.
As treatment advancements in oncology continue, stakeholders are modifying their approaches to defining value and managing care
As COVID-19 forces the healthcare system to reprioritize patients and resources, providers delivering behavioral health services may be left with insufficient means to serve the population. Medicaid programs may observe increased demand for behavioral health services but may be ill-equipped to support beneficiaries.
Mental Health Awareness Month and the COVID-19 crisis intersect—and highlight challenges in the US mental health care system
To protect the public’s health during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) released guidance expanding the availability of digital health therapeutic devices and applications for psychiatric disorders by clarifying which regulatory requirements it does not plan on enforcing as well as which products do not necessitate FDA oversight. This guidance intends to limit extraneous contact between patients (users) and providers by providing regulatory flexibility for low risk products. The policies will last until the national public health emergency ends.
Dr. Roy Beveridge and Mike Schneider Join the Firm
Ahead of the American Society of Clinical Oncology's annual meeting, Avalere experts discussed the latest trends in policy, reimbursement, and market access reshaping oncology care.
On January 10, Avalere experts examined the top healthcare priorities to watch in 2019.
Under an indication-based formulary design approach, Part D plans will be able to tailor the drugs that are on their formulary by indication.
Beginning in January 2019, Medicare Advantage (MA) plans will have the flexibility to use step-therapy techniques for Part B drugs, according to a CMS memo released on August 7.
Outcomes-based contracts most common in cardiovascular disease, infectious disease, and oncology.
Of the 329 oncology HTAs analyzed from the period 2013–2017, 29% resulted in positive recommendations without restrictions.
More than 25% of patients with breast and lung cancers have been treated by a participating Oncology Care Model doctor. Participation trends could accelerate the transformation of treatment for some cancers, according to Avalere experts.
In just two years, on March 23, 2020, biologics currently regulated as drugs will transition to being regulated as biologics. Many aspects of how FDA will implement this transition have yet to be established.
In the US, an interchangeability designation by the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) is perceived as the holy grail in biosimilars development by some and yet regarded as irrelevant by others.
The shift from volume to value has played a significant role in shaping current payer behavior in the oncology space.
Market access teams should consider 3 growing trends in their 2018 strategic planning.
Webinar: Performance-Based Risk-Sharing Arrangements: What Are the Views from the Negotiating Table?
Shifting to a value-based purchasing (VBP) system provides opportunities to engage payer and provider customers in unique contracting and reimbursement relationships that may optimize market access.
Rule Would Decrease Medicare Reimbursement for Drugs That Cost More than $480 per Day; Seven of the 10 Most Affected Drugs Treat Cancer
User fees are increasingly central to the funding of the drug and device review programs, and in some cases these fees account for a larger proportion of the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) budget than congressionally-appropriated monies. For example, user fees account for 68 percent of the FDA's review budget for prescription drugs, while 58 percent of the review budget for generic drugs comes from user fees.
Avalere hosts a series of webinars on “Navigating the New Dynamics of Outcomes Contracting and Risk Sharing Arrangements”. While traditional rebating and discounting terms have been a staple of industry contract negotiations, a new strategic focus is emerging on additional modes through which overall value can be measured for the wave of high-cost drugs now coming to shore.
Meet Kathy Hughes who leads our Molecular Diagnostics team and has successfully advised device, diagnostics and pharmaceutical companies on optimal market access strategies for over a decade. Kathy addresses key evidentiary developments in the diagnostics space, and what she sees as the future of this evolving field.
Avalere will be hosting a conference on the future of market access for diagnostics and personalized medicine.
With over 16,000 genetic tests already on the market and thousands more in development, stakeholders cannot ignore the rapidly evolving field of personalized medicine.
Many of Avalere's experts are heading north to Canada for ISPOR's 19th Annual International Meeting, where we'll have several panel discussions and poster presentations.