Katalina Chan, PharmD
Manager, Market Access and Health Economics
Katalina completed her PharmD in 2017 at the University of Toronto. She is currently a Manager of Market Access and Health Economics at Novo Nordisk where she leverages health economics and policy research to drive national market access initiatives.
Show that you go above and beyond. It’s not about taking part in 10 extracurricular activities, it’s about finding one activity where you’re the driving force behind the finished product.
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*The views and opinions expressed in this profile are those of the professional and do not necessarily reflect the official policies of their employer.
Tell us about your career path
Well, I’ve gotten to where I am due to a combination of luck and targeted strategic choices. As an undergrad, I did a 5-year joint pharmacology and biology co-op program.
For some co-op positions, I did wet lab work and government work but I didn’t like either of these. I finally tried pharmacy work one summer and loved it. In addition, I also had friends that did co-op’s at pharma companies and they really enjoyed them.
I then went to pharmacy school, and from the first summer, I was intent on getting more pharma experience. It was certainly a challenge to find an internship - I’d send in over 50 applications each summer and network a lot and I was rewarded with an internship at Baxter.
Over the next 3 years of pharmacy school, I constantly ran for leadership positions on the school council and continued to network heavily. I actually got another internship with Baxter after I graduated which eventually turned into a full-time position.
Tell us about your role
The market access division utilizes health policy and the real-world value of a medical intervention to guide decision-makers regarding patient access. This is achieved by consolidating and conveying evidence from health economics and outcomes research to demonstrate the intervention’s economic and human impact. Ultimately, the market access division helps patients access the products they need, when they need them.
What do you enjoy most about your role?
By the time I graduated from pharmacy school, I had tried out every kind of pharmacy position. I had worked in hospitals, government, academia, and retail and it was apparent that I wanted to go into industry.
In addition, I really liked the office atmosphere and the ability to be creative because I found that regulations were more stringent in other spaces.
I also found within pharma, health economics, and market access there are a fair amount of guidelines. In essence, you have a really good idea of what you need to do.
With more of a Medtech focus, I find that there’s more creativity involved and I find myself doing a bit of everything. It certainly requires me to be much more agile.
Tell us about the diversity of projects that you see in your role
For instance, maybe there’s a small town in rural Ontario that has created an ambulance monitoring program that no one knows about. I would collect the findings from research about this concept e all across Canada.
It would give me a better picture of what’s going on in Canada and maybe we would think about creating a partnership or piloting something ourselves.
I also do a lot of financial modeling when creating health economics apps for sales reps. These sales reps can then go out into the field to meet with clients about various products.
The sales reps can then put in metrics that are specific to each customer and the app creates graphs to quickly show the economic value of various competing products.
What would you tell people looking to get into your field to do to stand out above other candidates?
There are numerous short courses and certifications but they can be expensive (anywhere from $1,000 to $5,000). However, the upside to taking these courses is that employers will see that you really want to be in this field and that you’ve done everything you can to get there.
Networking in school is huge and this seems to be especially true within the pharma and Medtech spaces.
I used to think this was unfair but over time I’ve noted, new hires who haven’t had anyone vouch for them have lower success in the workplace. Having people who can say that you do good work can go a long way. Also, make sure to highlight any academic work that is analytical or quantitative.
For example, if you had to use SAS or Excel to analyze data, highlight this because it shows that you can work with numbers and statistics.
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