Meet
Laura Housman

she/her
Practice Director

Laura T. Housman, MPH, MBA, DrPH candidate (ABD) is Practice Director of the Evidence and Strategy practice within Avalere Health, bringing broad and extensive expertise in strategy, evidence generation, reimbursement and pricing, patient communications, population health and personalized medicine to drive access to innovation across healthcare.

In 2015 Laura founded and led Access Solutions Consulting (ASC), a healthcare advisory firm serving an extensive network of pharmaceutical, medical device, and diagnostic companies. Laura has launched and/or commercialized over 30 diagnostic offerings, successfully obtaining coverage and premium pricing from Medicare Administrative Carriers, including the MolDx program; national, regional and Blue Cross Blue Shield commercial plans nationwide; as well as in global markets.

Before joining Avalere, Laura served as Chief Commercial and Operations Officer of Olaris, a diagnostic company using metabolomics and machine learning to develop in vitro diagnostics. Prior to joining Olaris, Laura was Vice President/Head of Access, Outcomes and Population Health with Exact Sciences where she developed a function and led a multidisciplinary team focused on novel approaches for developing real-world evidence, population health initiatives and driving market access for Cologuard® and Exact’s broad range of diagnostic assays, including OncotypeDx™. Previously, Laura led the Market Access, Pricing and HE&OR group within Novartis' Pharmaceutical Corporation's global Pharma/Molecular Diagnostics unit; was Executive Director of Marketing for Charles River Laboratories, focused on the commercialization of its worldwide Preclinical, First in Human and Biopharmaceutical Services; and, led marketing and commercialization strategies in support of managed care outreach as Director of Marketing for Genzyme Genetics, a business unit of Genzyme Corporation. In addition to her work within industry, Ms. Housman spent a decade leading health services evaluation, contracting, and provider profiling initiatives as a Director within not-for-profit healthcare insurance plan BlueCross BlueShield of Massachusetts.

Laura received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from the College of Arts and Sciences and a Minor in Business Administration from the School of Management from Boston University. She received her Master of Public Health from the Boston University School of Public Health and her Master of Business Administration with honors from Boston University’s Questrom Graduate School of Management. Laura is currently a Candidate in the Doctorate of Public Health (DrPH) program at Boston University School of Public Health.

In addition, Ms. Housman is an active member of a number of advisor and volunteer boards, including as a Merit Reviewer for the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Initiative (PCORI). Laura continues to share her thought leadership and expertise.

Authored Content


The new Transitional Coverage for Emerging Technologies pathway will provide Medicare coverage for up to five FDA-designated Breakthrough Devices per year.

Budgeting season offers HEOR teams the opportunity to revisit research and evidence needs and update their commercialization strategy based on market dynamics.

On June 5, The Evidence Base published an article entitled, “Navigating uncertainty: redefining healthcare value in an evolving healthcare landscape,” covering key topics from Avalere’s ISPOR theater session. 

The FDA’s final rule to regulate LDTs as medical devices brings on numerous uncertainties for stakeholders.

Ahead of the upcoming Asembia and ISPOR conferences, Avalere experts discuss the role of external assessors in value assessment.

This expert panel will address the challenge of integrating patient perspectives into value assessments, discussing implications for evidence strategy, health equity, caregiver involvement, and downstream impacts on care delivery.

With regulatory changes on the horizon, diagnostics stakeholders should prepare for a new evidence development and commercialization environment.

This spring, the FDA will issue a rule to begin regulating LDTs as medical devices. A multi-faceted legislative, legal and market response is anticipated.

Avalere analyzed the top trends in HEOR and key implications for life sciences companies to consider for future strategic planning.

Avalere experts dive into Trend #8: HEOR as a Differentiator vs. a Commodity and explore the need for tailored evidence generation planning.

In the next installment of our 2023 Top Trends in HEOR series, Avalere experts dive into Trend #8: HEOR as a Differentiator Versus a Commodity.

ICER recently proposed piloting the GRACE framework in place of traditional cost-effectiveness analysis. We review the background of GRACE and its implications.

ChatGPT marked an AI inflection point decades in the making—with implications for health economics and outcomes research.

The FDA proposed to begin regulating LDTs as medical devices over the next 5 years. This has important implications for market dynamics and clinical care.

Avalere identified the top trends in HEOR and key implications for life sciences companies to consider for their 2024 strategic plans.

Avalere identified the top trends in health economics and outcomes research in 2023 and beyond. In this video, Avalere experts dive into a few of the key trends in HEOR that are significantly shaping the landscape.

In Part 2 of our video series on the negotiated drug list, Avalere experts discuss topics including effectiveness measures that will inform CMS’s maximum fair price determinations, evidence generation strategies for manufacturers with products that have been selected for negotiation, or that are eligible for selection in the future, and CMS’s definition of therapeutic alternatives.

Laura Housman, Avalere’s Evidence and Strategy Practice Director, discusses her past experience, trends in real-world evidence, and the role of data in advocating for the patient voice.

Delve into the far-reaching implications of the recently announced negotiated drug list as Avalere experts provide insights and answers to pressing questions surrounding CMS's landmark decision on Part D drug pricing and its impact on manufacturers, patients, and the future healthcare landscape.

Manufacturers should adjust commercial and evidence generation strategies in response to the shifted incentives under the IRA and Enhancing Oncology Model.

Sponsors with portfolio or pipeline assets within certain therapeutic areas can prepare for the downstream effects of price negotiation on the market.

New quality measures related to continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) were published in The Science of Diabetes Self-Management and Care by iDQI.

Ahead of the Asembia and ISPOR 2023 conferences, Avalere experts discuss the increasing importance of value and evidence strategies as part of Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) implementation planning.

IRA inflation rebates and drug price negotiation will impact drug launch prices in Medicare, with spillover effects in the Medicaid and commercial markets.

As CMS clarifies evidence requirements for drug price negotiations, manufacturers should prepare their strategies for asset development and on-market products.

On March 2, 2023, the Improving Diabetes Quality Initiative (iDQI) hosted a corporate roundtable to discuss the future of diabetes care and technology.

CMMI releases long-awaited response to President Biden’s executive order on drug pricing with a directive for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to develop three models.

Avalere’s white paper draws on recommendations from a multi-stakeholder workshop to look at roadblocks and solutions for scaling sustainable solutions to address the diagnosis of rare disease.

Tune into another episode of Avalere Health Essential Voice. In this segment, we are joined by experts from nutrition service organizations to discuss the impact of medically tailored meals (MTM) on health outcomes and healthcare costs, and future opportunities to expand their reach through health insurance plans.

On November 3, the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics published an article entitled “Implementation Science in Evidence-Based Nutrition Practice: Considerations for the Registered Dietitian Nutritionist,” co-authored by Christina Badaracco.

Tune into our third episode in the Avalere Health Essential Voice podcast series focused on social determinants of health (SDOH). In this segment, our expert from Avalere’s Center for Healthcare Transformation is joined by officials from the Washington State Department of Health to discuss public health programs focused on maternal and child health, and how these programs relate to healthcare access and health outcomes.

With fewer eligible Americans participating in WIC, increased risk of food insecurity and decreased access to quality healthcare may place a greater burden on our healthcare system. The COVID-19 pandemic further exacerbates the challenges of vulnerable populations in access to food resources and routine and acute care.

Citing alarming statistics that nearly 1 of every 2 older Americans is at risk of malnutrition and that disease-associated malnutrition in older adults is estimated to cost nearly $53 billion annually, a broad group of advocates has presented a updated roadmap for a continuing national effort to help millions of Americans who suffer from malnutrition or could be at risk as they age. The expected rising incidence of malnutrition amidst the current COVID-19 pandemic makes it even more critical to advance solutions across all points of care.

On January 24, Avalere’s Christina Badaracco and Senior Advisor Wendy Everett published a piece in the Health Affairs blog highlighting the need to improve malnutrition care and provide possible pathways to a solution.

Various national and local health policies aim to address food insecurity through both healthcare and community-based programs.

A wide variety of health plans, provider networks, and national corporations have recently developed and announced innovations and strategies to expand access to healthcare and to address needs that promote health across communities.

Today, Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association published appropriate use criteria (AUC) to guide the use of lumbar puncture (LP) and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) analysis for use in the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease.

Dr. Leslie Shaw, Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the Pearlman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and Chair of the Workgroup that developed the Alzheimer’s Association’s appropriate use criteria for lumbar puncture and cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) testing in the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease, discusses how the Workgroup reviewed an extensive body of research on advances in CSF testing to develop the AUC.

We explore the value of the newly released Alzheimer’s Association appropriate use criteria for lumbar puncture and cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) testing in the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease. We kick off this series with Dr. Maria Carillo, the Alzheimer Association’s Chief Science Officer and Dr. Jim Hendrix, Director of Global Science Initiatives.

The findings, published in The Journal of Endocrinology & Metabolism, will guide a pilot study to assess interventions to improve the identification and management of diabetes patients at high risk for hypoglycemia.

Avalere published an article this week on ASCO's plan to launch CancerLinQ™.

In the Calendar Year (CY) 2015 End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) Prospective Payment System (PPS) final rule released on October 31, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) finalized a 2015 base per treatment rate of $239.43, up slightly from $239.02 in CY 2014.

On Feb. 21, CMS enhanced the Physician Compare website to include the addition of quality measures to indicate the performance achieved on a set number of specific metrics.