Dr. Fitzpatrick has over fifteen years of experience spanning the life sciences product development continuum. She has deep expertise in research and evidence development, bridging basic and clinical research with real-world evidence. She possesses a broad understanding of payer and provider perspectives and appropriate product positioning to achieve success in the market.
At MCRA, Nicole is dedicated to providing health economic and strategic evidence support across the product lifecycle for emerging healthcare technologies to achieve successful market access. Nicole assists clients with evidence gap assessments and evidence strategy development that account for the perspectives of a variety of market access stakeholders (eg. Payer, provider, facility). Nicole also develops stakeholder communication materials including value dossiers and budget impact models, and she works with clients to develop and execute real world evidence studies in order to drive successful market access.
Dr. Fitzpatrick received her doctorate degree in Neuroscience from the University of Pittsburgh, focusing on underlying genetics of major depressive disorder. She also received a B.S. in Biology and M.S. in Biology from Virginia Tech.
Prior to joining MCRA in 2021, Nicole was a founder and key leader of the VITAL Innovation Program at Highmark Health, a payer/provider health system. In her role as Innovation Product Manager, she worked closely with companies and their emerging technologies to develop claims-based real-world evidence to drive coverage and reimbursement decisions. The program was novel in that it provided a platform for prospectively testing clinical, economic, and experience endpoints, which allowed companies to develop a compelling evidence package that appealed to multiple downstream stakeholder groups. In this role, Nicole and the VITAL team were recipients of the BCBSA Innovation Award and the Carnegie Science Innovation award.
Prior to her role at Highmark Health, Nicole served as Innovation Manager within the University of Pittsburgh’s technology innovation community to help drive promising research projects toward commercialization. During that time, Nicole worked with many fledging technologies and startup companies to develop evidence, establish business cases, and gain insight into stakeholder perspectives that established a pathway to success for promising medical technologies.
Overview
Nicole has an extensive background in evidence development for emerging medical technologies spanning basic, clinical, and real-world studies with deep expertise in stakeholder evidence requirements. Nicole joined MCRA in 2021 with a focus on providing support for evidence development strategies, product value positioning, and stakeholder communication materials. In addition, Nicole also works with clients to develop and execute Real World Data studies (eg. using claims data) to augment evidence development activities.