As biopharma and healthcare companies face a rapidly shifting regulatory environment, marketing and advisory firm Avalere Health is bolstering its abilities to help its clients navigate the changes.
Avalere has tapped Matt Kazan to serve as senior vice president of policy, putting him in charge of the agency’s healthcare policy team, according to a Tuesday announcement. Though the team is housed within Avalere’s advisory vertical, the company said Kazan will also work closely with its marketing and medical affairs segments to imbue a “deep understanding of the impact of political changes on healthcare stakeholders” across all client strategies.
Kazan arrives at the role with plenty of hands-on policy experience. He logged more than a decade—from 2008 to 2019—as a senior health policy advisor to the U.S. Senate’s finance committee. Most recently, he served as VP of policy and government affairs at SCAN, a nonprofit Medicare Advantage insurance plan provider.
Between those postings, he spent close to five years at Avalere as a managing director.
“I’m delighted to welcome Matt back to Avalere Health,” Sarah Alwardt, president of advisory at Avalere, said in the release. “He’s an incredible thought leader with a talent for anticipating future policy activity and a vast knowledge of the fast-evolving healthcare landscape.”
“With deep expertise in the complexities of [the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services] and a first-hand knowledge of the Inflation Reduction Act, he is ideally positioned to support our clients in unlocking possibilities for every patient in a tumultuous U.S. healthcare landscape,” Alwardt added.
Kazan’s appointment comes shortly after Avalere cited the turbulent political environment in yet another hiring notice.
In that early December announcement, the agency tapped Sarah Hall to be president of U.S. marketing, tasking her with helping “biopharmaceutical and healthcare technology clients stay ahead in a complex and political environment.”
Avalere said that with Hall at the helm, its stateside marketing team would work closely with policy and market access experts to “uncover new paths of DTC commercialization” and, in so doing, allow biopharma companies to “build deep connections with patients in a tumultuous political environment.”