Hannah Baker recently joined Mtech Access as a Health Economics Consultant in our York office. In this interview, she tells us about her experiences and activities in her first few weeks with us.
What led you to pursue a career in HEOR?
During my BSc in Maths & Statistics, I was able to explore the applications of maths in the life sciences industry when I undertook a placement year with the medical statistics team of a pharmaceutical company. My exposure to HEOR at this stage was still very limited, but my eyes had been opened. By the time I had returned to university to finish my degree, I was applying for a place on a Masters course in Health Economics & Decision Science.
Then, armed with the new knowledge from my studies, I was raring to go and joined a health economics consultancy in York as a modeller. Over the course of 4 years I went from never having seen a health economic model to being comfortable working with all sorts of model structures, methodologies and types of deliverables requested by our clients.
What motivated you to join Mtech Access?
I was keen to continue learning, and it felt like a natural step to move to a broader consultancy where I would gain experience with the wider market access services. From my early interactions with the team at Mtech Access I could tell that it was a very friendly and collaborative place to work, where my development would be supported and encouraged.
I figured if I could learn something new just from spending a couple of minutes on a company’s LinkedIn page, it was a good omen for how much I might gain from becoming a part of the team!
What have you been doing in your first few weeks with Mtech Access?
In my first few weeks my time has been split fairly equally between introductory meetings and project work. I’ve also been able to get involved with team activities such as developing training materials and recruitment activities.
The induction process was really thorough; my new colleagues have been extremely generous with their time and it’s been great to be able to speak with so many people across the company. As well as being able to put faces to names, I was grateful for the introductions to each of the service areas at Mtech Access – several of which are new to me.
My project work so far has been a satisfying mix of some familiar territory, and some quite novel concepts. One project is centred around pharmaceutical pricing strategy, which has been a really interesting insight into a part of the industry I’d had little exposure to before. Even on the projects that are similar to those I’ve managed before, there’s always something new to learn or someone great to learn from.
What have you learnt from your first interactions with the team?
Mtech Access is a company full of very impressive people, with a real breadth of experience! But, more importantly, everyone is more than happy to share their knowledge and lend a hand. There are many genuine (and in some cases, life-long!) friendships within the company, which really comes across in the culture and working relationships on a day-to-day basis.
What are you most looking forward to?
I’ve always enjoyed the challenge of communicating technical concepts to others. In previous roles I have delivered workshops and training courses, tutored health economics students and mentored junior colleagues. I’m really looking forward to continuing similar activities within Mtech Access, to make sure we’re all learning from each other as much as possible as the team grows, and staying up to date with the ever-evolving HEOR industry.
I’m also excited to learn more about how health economics overlaps with other areas of market access. At Mtech Access, the digital and design capabilities come together to produce really effective customer communication tools, and this is an area I hope to work in more in the future.
How are you settling in in the York office?
My colleagues in the York office have gone out of their way to make me feel welcome, starting on day one when several people changed their working pattern to come into the office and meet me. By the evening of Day 3 we were out for drinks on an office social, which was a lovely way to get to know everyone a bit more informally.
I also had the opportunity to meet a couple of my colleagues from the health economics team who are based elsewhere in the country – in my first week they travelled from London and as far as Inverness to come and say hello in person. Can’t ask for a warmer welcome than that!
We all tend to work a hybrid pattern so on each day of the week in the office there’s a slightly different group to chat to, which is lovely.
When you are not at work, what do you like to do?
I love to unwind in the kitchen – when I’m not cooking or eating, I’m often thinking about what I’m going to cook or eat next! I live in a beautiful part of the country and try to make the most of the scenery on walks or short camping trips too.
My pursuit of good food and good walks often dictates where I go on my holidays, which are another favourite pastime of mine. An upcoming trip to Tuscany should tick those boxes with ease!
To find out more about our approach to health economic modelling our wider HEOR services or our customer communication tools, please email info@mtechaccess.co.uk.
