Fishawack Brings Avalere on Board, Pushing Even More Innovative Work and Global Expansion

Fishawack Brings Avalere on Board, Pushing Even More Innovative Work and Global Expansion

By Christiane Truelove • [email protected]

When Jon Koch joined as CEO of Fishawack Health last year, he stated that one of his priorities was expanding the network’s capabilities through acquisitions. The network has made several acquisitions over the last year, such as the dermatology initiative FIDE, the agency closerlook, and the value, evidence, and market access consultancy Policy Analysis Inc. In another recent expansion of its VEA capability, Fishawack picked up Avalere, a data-driven policy and market access firm. We caught up with Koch and Avalere President Elizabeth Carpenter to discuss the deal and why it took place, and what Avalere brings to Fishawack Health.

Med Ad News: When did the process begin of bringing in Avalere Health to Fishawack Health?

Jon Koch: We first became engaged in late 2021. We’ve been talking for a number of months and things really picked up pace very early in the year.

Med Ad News: Elizabeth, what attracted you to Fishawack Health, of all the companies you could have gone with?

Elizabeth Carpenter: We’re really excited about the complement that we see between the Avalere business and the Fishawack business, and I think that’s across a few fronts. One, Avalere is known for its deep understanding of U.S. markets and obviously, reference policy and market access, but also we can offer our clients evidence generation and the patient voice, so geographically, we see a lot of opportunity initially. We are bringing 30 or so data analysts with us through this acquisition and are really excited about the existing HEOR and evidence generation capabilities inside Fishawack and looking forward to offering new, differentiated offerings to the market.

Med Ad News: What kinds of differentiated offerings are you envisioning that will make Fishawack Health and Avalere stand out from the market?

Elizabeth Carpenter: We’re now able to offer best-in-class services, not just in the U.S., but truly globally. That’s something that Avalere hasn’t had up to this point. And certainly, I think the reverse could be said in certain areas of the Fishawack business. I’m also really excited to know that we’re bringing together experts in the area of HEOR and innovative real-world evidence generation. I’m really excited about what we’re going to do together in the areas of HTA and value and, we really see opportunities to do some innovative work in the vaccine space where we have done a lot of work in the U.S., and now can expand more globally. And this marriage offers that opportunity.

Jon Koch: I would just add that as we think about Fishawack, our mission is to become a full-service commercialization partner for our clients. That means developing deep expertise and having credibility on all of those fronts when we think about what this move between Fishawack and Avalere means for our customers. It brings very important pieces in that regard. It provides unmatched understanding of the U.S. marketplace and public policy, including key government and commercial stakeholders that that shape the environment, and those are complemented as Elizabeth said, with our global capabilities.

Secondly, I would say that analytics, U.S. market access and evidence generation solutions on scale, add considerably to our existing capabilities. If you’re going to be a full-service commercialization services partner, you need the right relationships. Avalere has deep and long-standing relationships with payers, providers, patient organizations, associations, and investors. These healthcare innovators were not only impressive, but we also consider them of great value. I would just end on the point of we know that everything these days is driven by data and the analytics capabilities that you pair with those associated technologies. Avalere brings with it access to two registries, which comprises a million physicians, 600,000 clinical facilities, almost 350 million unique patients, and over 668 billion medical events.

So you know, all of that paired with access to 100 percent of the Medicare fee-for-service data set, thinking about the way that enriches our capabilities from a data and analytics perspective is something we couldn’t have [otherwise], in terms of accelerating our strategy and what we’d like to be for our clients.

Med Ad News: How have clients reacted to the news?

Elizabeth Carpenter: We have been really pleased with the response from our customers. You know, I would just say that to Jon’s point, we enjoy really deep, long-standing customer relationships. Many of our customers are former colleagues. And so I think they’re excited, they want to learn more about Fishawack over time, but also we feel good that we’re landing in a place that’s really oriented around advisory services. You know, we were part of Inovalon, which was really a sort of a cloud-based tech-focused organization. And so we’re really excited about what this transaction is going to do for our people and our ability to grow our business, in an environment that’s organized and oriented around the types of services that we provide to the market.

Med Ad News: Once all the pieces are slotted into place, what are some of the things that you plan on rolling out or would like to see rolled out over the next year or two?

Jon Koch: If you think about the capabilities – consulting or advisory services in medical communication and strategic marketing, and now in policy value, evidence and access – it only happens to us in maybe a relatively modest proportion today, but increasingly our customers when they engage us in one area. they’re actually engaging us in two or three of those areas.

Because of the expertise that we can bring to the table to present a more holistic view of possible solutions, or options given a current client challenge or situation, what I would see growing in a very meaningful way in the future is engagements that extend easily beyond one area of our organization, and going from maybe 10 to 15 percent of the work that we do to well above a quarter or maybe even half of the work that we do long term, as customers are engaging across multiple practices within the organization. Frankly, we think those are the challenges of healthcare in the future, and what we will need to get the best or optimal outcome.

Elizabeth Carpenter: I go back to combining the deep analytic skills that we have inside Avalere with those HEOR and value resources that are sitting today within the Fishawack organization. The combination and the potential to bring to market a differentiated evidence generation partner to the life sciences industry is something we’re really excited about. And, you know, I think today and especially in the U.S. market, evidence generation strategy has to be tied to a market access strategy, and increasingly even to specific policy considerations. We really think that the combination of what we have here will allow our customers to truly have a 360-degree perspective as they’re thinking about how to demonstrate value and generate evidence for their products.

Med Ad News: Any final thoughts about what the acquisition means for Fishawack?

Jon Koch: We continue to build for today, but even more so the future, as you think about companies that are looking to take healthcare products and technologies from an initial concept, all the way through research, development, and commercialization and really getting the best outcomes from that lifecycle. We’re building an organization that really has what it takes to do that, and this is a very meaningful step. And we’re also extremely excited to expand our customer set in a very meaningful way beyond biopharma, so I think this was not only a good capability builder for us, but also a great move in diversifying our client base. We’re committed to health and healthcare, and this is another strong move in that regard.

Chris Truelove is contributing editor of Med Ad News and PharmaLive.com.