MCRA LLC, a clinical research organization (CRO) and advisory firm specializing in medical devices and biologics. is expanding its Reimbursement, Health Economics, and Market Access (RHEMA) Division through the recent hiring of John D. McDermott Jr., MBA, as senior director, Reimbursement Strategy.
 
McDermott brings 30 years of comprehensive industry experience that spans the major segments of market access, reimbursement, coverage access programs, and health economics and outcomes research (HEOR). He has developed and executed reimbursement strategies for hundreds of companies, including more than 20 successful commercial technology launches. Additionally, he has experience developing revenue forecasts, recommending launch prices, guiding clinical protocol design for maximal commercial impact, and helping companies articulate the value and market potential of their products to assist with seeking new rounds of funding. Finally, he has a strong track record in HEOR, including generating published evidence to support commercialization, serving as study director for observational studies, creating budget impact models, and selecting health economic and patient reported outcomes endpoints. 
 
McDermott has broad experience in many therapeutic areas and anatomies covering medical devices, pharmaceuticals, and biologics. He also has extensive experience in cardiology, where he was the lead reimbursement consultant who oversaw the successful launches of intravascular brachytherapy for the treatment of in-sent restenosis and of a GP IIb-IIIa inhibitor biologic for acute coronary syndromes. He was the lead analyst for the team that obtained one of the first diagnosis-related group (DRG) reassignments in the history of the Medicare Hospital Inpatient Prospective Payment System, for automatic implantable cardioverter defibrillators (AICDs).
 
In his previous senior consulting position at Covance, McDermott spent 24 years in market access, 16 of them as a vice president. Additionally, he has worked on the manufacturer side for medical device firm Hill-Rom and biotechnology company Amgen. He also held positions at DK Pierce, Shearson Lehman Hutton, and Dartmouth Medical School. McDermott earned his A.B. from Dartmouth College and his M.B.A. from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University.
 
Tonya Dowd, MCRA’s vice president of RHEMA, said, “I have always believed that clients are best served by an integrated approach to product development and commercialization. John’s strong technical reimbursement expertise and his broad experience understanding the evidence needs of stakeholders make him a perfect fit for our growing RHEMA team as we pursue our vision of delivering integrated reimbursement, regulatory, and clinical solutions to our current and future clients.”